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Covid Grief and Trauma

This article reflects the original summarized points from the attached video presented by Prof. Suresh Bada Math. Some minor paraphrasing was made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O03oq-T6VkA&list=PLldEapv0nG31xV-cn1fx-njYf9muKNlLe&index=1&pp=iAQB

Coping with loss is difficult, but in the COVID pandemic it’s even harder and become complicated. Grief is universal. At some point in everyone’s life, there will be at least one encounter with grief.

It may be from the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the end of a relationship, or any other change that alters life as you know it. Grief is also very personal. It’s not very neat or linear. It doesn’t follow any timelines or schedules. You may cry, become angry, withdraw, feel empty. None of these things are unusual or wrong.

In 1969, a Swiss-American psychiatrist named Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote in her book “On Death and Dying” that grief could be divided into five stages. The five stages of grief are: denial /shock, anger, bargaining, depression & acceptance Not everyone will experience all five stages, and you may not go through them in this order. Grief is different for every person, so you may begin coping with loss in the bargaining stage and find yourself in anger or denial next. You may remain for months in one of the five stages but skip others entirely. But this pandemic have changed the way we process, express grief and also grieve.

The Covid pandemic changed the rules of the grieving process and way we perform last rituals-rites .

Covid Grief is different from other because of the following:

The loss of life to the coronavirus is sudden.

Family members are unable to grieve, when themselves are afraid of contracting Covid infection and this affects an individuals threat perception.

There are feelings of being helpless. There are feelings of Guilt of not doing much to rescue them (like to find bed, oxygen, medications, pay hospital bills and so forth). In some cases, there are feeling of guilt for transmitting infection to the deceased There is guild for being unable to be there during last few moments. No direct observation of the last few moments, leaving some  family members with only an imagined thought of the last moments of struggling to breath.  This physical separation only adds to the grief and sadness of loved ones left behind. There is the guilt of not taking them for testing or insisting that Covid is real and precautions should be taken. There is guilt for the timing of treatment and making decisions about hospitalization early.  Then there is the anger toward China for spreading illness and more general anger toward people who survive, the community for not being supportive, the administration of hospitals, hospital staff, government etc.

Everyone grieves differently, but there are some commonalities in the stages and the order of feelings experienced during grief. The key to understanding grief is realizing that no one experiences the same thing. Grief is very personal, and you may feel something different every time. You may need several weeks, or grief may be years long. If you decide you need help coping with the feelings and changes, a mental health professional is a good resource for vetting your feelings and finding a sense of assurance in these very heavy and weighty emotions.