Grieving is not always about lost loved ones. We grieve all manner of losses throughout life, although we don’t always associate our feelings and behaviors with having lost something or someone important to us. We have certainly lost a great deal more in the last year than we ever imagined, finding ourselves having to make sometimes abrupt changes in a short amount of time. We may not have lost immediate family members or close friends due to the Covid-19 virus, but most all of us know people who have. The losses have touched all of our lives in one way or another.

     We have lost our ability to move around freely. Where I live, most things are open but with restrictions. One has to call ahead and schedule specific blocks of time to visit the zoo, museums, or the gym and numbers are limited. Restaurants, churches, and sporting events are mostly open but with limited seating, temperature checks, masks, and buckets of hand sanitizer everywhere. Even chatting with random strangers in line at the grocery store is curtailed due to 6 foot social distancing requirements. Many have lost the camaraderie with office co-workers. (Even in jobs that I found miserable, there were always at least a few people I could laugh, chat or commiserate with.) Zoom meetings help, but they’re just not the same. I know some poor souls who are so terrified of the virus they have locked themselves away month after month with virtually no human contact. 

     I hate to even mention politics but I know so many people who have lost relationships even with family members and lifelong friends over opposing opinions. It’s been a heartbreaking thing to witness. 

     I think most people don’t recognize that a lot of what they are feeling is grief. We associate bereavement and grief with death, but it’s not uncommon to have similar responses to any type of loss. The difficulty comes when we don’t recognize the signs and therefore don’t attend to the healing process. Robert Taibbi’s article in Psychology Today, Six Signs of Incomplete Grief lists some symptoms to be aware of, including irritability and anger, overreaction, addictive behaviors, apathy/depression, and excessive fear of loss. 

     The good news is that once we recognize our loss, the properties of grief recovery can be helpful in regaining one’s balance from these losses. Some of these include self-care (eating well, exercise, rest), journaling, talking openly with trusted friends and/or a therapist, recognizing that your grief is your own and not to be “gotten over” on someone else’s timeline. 

    Everyone experiences loss of one type or another all throughout their lives. We all have different levels of coping mechanisms, whether built-in or learned through experience. The important thing is to be able to recognize when a loss is negatively affecting our lives and to be willing to use the tools we have and to be open to the people that can help us on our path toward healing.