We are in moments of coming out of shock, acknowledging losses, processing grief, in order to move on with our lives.
The COVID-19 pandemic and confinement have totally altered our lives. We are having to come to terms with the sudden and lonely death of our grandfathers and grandmothers, the fear of getting sick, the total social revolution brought on by the need to modify our behaviors while worrying about keeping our economy afloat.
How are we surviving all this?
Let us become aware of our transit through this process of loss and continuity. By observing ourselves during this journey, which has different stations or stops, we can try to find new anchors to regain our balance and continue with our lives.
First station: the news. COVID-19 came, the shock and the reaction.
How did COVID-19 come into your life, what were your first reactions, were you able to react in an adaptive way, did you remain in shock for too long?
- We experienced fear, disorientation. In the face of this great fright, we seek information, then we become aware of the situation and try to adapt.
- Counterphobia: denial, feeling of invulnerability, going on with your life, avoiding information.
- Risk behaviors: looking for “anesthetics” as a form of escape and avoidance, for example, consumption (alcohol, drugs, technology…) or staying in hyperactivity as a way of not stopping, not thinking, or not feeling. Those who feel they are still in this functioning, it is important to assess the risks and consequences and ask for help.
Second station: The impact of the deaths, the forced confinement. To remain in a state of shock.
How did you experience the first weeks of confinement? What were your main reactions?
- Facing death, more directly or indirectly.
- Here the normal, adaptive, although tremendously difficult and painful, is the direct and spontaneous expression of sadness: the ideal is to be able to have a shared experience of pain, as well as to be able to receive and give comfort.
- Enduring helplessness. Not being able to move, not being able to go out. Not being at a funeral to say goodbye to a loved one who has died.
- Remaining in a state of shock. Paralyzed, not having the possibility to process everything that was happening, both externally and internally. The consequence: triggers in the form of anxiety crises, dissociation. To continue in the manic reactions, or to need more anesthetics, by way of consumptions (substances, video games, etc).
Third station: Assimilating losses, beginning the path of mourning and experiencing the first paradoxical reactions.
Could you make a list of your losses (from the most important to the less important ones, which also count as such)?
Becoming aware of this is very painful, but this is precisely “mourning”. Although this stage is the most difficult and may be the longest, it is also the one that allows us to reconnect with reality, legitimize and ventilate our emotions in the face of crisis and loss.
Generally, there is no need for external professional intervention; rather, you need to be comforted and accompanied by your loved ones. In the face of human loss, it is essential that there be a ritual or ceremony of farewell, real or symbolic, that implies saying goodbye, letting go.
It is also important to recognize the other losses that this pandemic has brought us: hugs, contact, the freedom of children and adults, work, routine, the security we thought we had, money, travel….
At this stop of the journey, it is necessary to recognize guilt, it is a feeling that sometimes becomes a great burden. That is why it is necessary to rationalize the guilt, dismantle it and understand that the only one really guilty of much of what is happening to us is COVID-19.
Fear: on leaving confinement and returning to reality we may find ourselves having paradoxical reactions, such as resistance to going out into the street, after having longed for it. You may also find yourself trapped by the fear of getting sick, of contagion, to such an extent that you delay too much the return to normality.
Or, on the contrary, continue with the anesthesia that some have been wrapped in during this whole process and go out in an uncontrolled way, denying reality, not assuming the security measures and, therefore, putting themselves at serious risk in every way.
If there is someone in your immediate environment in this situation, talk to him/her, try to make him/her stop, make self-criticism, and ask for psychological help.
Fourth station: step by the rage. The need to look for – to find culprits, responsible, to be able to hate and get angry.
Are you aware of having felt a lot of rage, anger, indignation for all this? Where – to whom have you directed your rage? What consequences are you feeling or getting stuck in this stage?
It is important to be able to be angry, to claim the right to protest for everything that COVID-19 has taken away from you, also for everything that has surrounded the crisis at all levels. At the same time, you have to find a point of balance between this need to seek justice and the loss of control of aggression, because at that point you can start to hurt others.
Sometimes, staying stuck in anger leads you to be aggressive with the people closest and dearest to you, and even worse, with the most vulnerable, the children. Therefore, if you see yourself in this state of overflowing aggressiveness, of a permanent rumination on this subject and in addition, this is reporting you the increase of conflict or violence, stop, think and ask for help.
Fifth station: the return to life.
What has changed in your way of seeing life? Have you made decisions that favor your restart or reinvent yourself after this crisis? Have you identified the personal resources that have helped you to survive?
Like any journey, we reach our end point and this means that we try to regain control of our life, we are still living in a state of mourning for the losses, but it is a state that is no longer paralyzing, we get out of shock and return to life, relying on those gaps that have left us those who have left, we are putting them symbolically in our memory and with this we can begin to “reset”, to get out of the despondency and emotional storm, to start a new way to rebuild ourselves. We can begin to “reset” ourselves, to get out of the despondency and the emotional storm, to start a new path in which we can rebuild ourselves.
If you find yourself stuck in any of these stages of the path, it is important that you ask for psychological help.