angry people in covid

What a year! It was one year ago this week that I was on my last business trip. I was at an event with my publisher. Already, we knew COVID was out, and knew it was gaining steam. Other countries had already gone into lockdown… and the US was on the precipice.

While I was away, my wife and I were coordinating with our adult children, trying to make sure we could get them to our home before travel was locked down. That weekend, both came home.

We thought it might be a number of weeks. They were thinking two to three. I was thinking a month or a bit more.

That ended up being months on end. They spent more of 2020 in our home than in their own places.

The economy screeched to a halt, trips were canceled, schools were closed. And our medical system started to strain, faltering under the weight of one illness closing off some areas, while filling others.

It seemed like every day, there was some new shift, new discovery, new point of vulnerability. And in its wake, we, as a country and a world, strained to cope. The grief poured out in anger and despair. Some continued their grief in the world of denial.

And still, the numbers climbed. Families lost loved ones. Spouses lost partners. The world lost citizens. To the point that we could no longer truly comprehend the numbers. Some people recalculated by throwing caution to the wind. Others recalibrated to a life in isolation, hoping that was safe.

One year later. What a year!

Oh, and it isn’t over! Although there are plenty of places and people trying to move on, we are still in the midst of a crisis. While there is a place, in the not-so-distant future, where we get back to a life much more similar to a bit more than a year ago, we aren’t there yet.

And we are also now seeing that the pandemic will not end equally. It hasn’t impacted citizens equally, and the end will come just as unequally. But it will come. How do we get there? I hope together, and I hope a bit wiser.

In this week’s Thriveology Podcast, I think about the shifts and impacts of this past year.

RELATED RESOURCES:
Coping with COVID Series
Finding or Building Hope
Moving Through Grief

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Have you ever had the experience of a doctor telling you what was wrong with you, and even if you couldn’t really do anything, it helped to know what it was? Maybe it was just an ache or pain, a small illness. Just having a name for it — even some fancy latin term (or maybe especially some latin term) — somehow makes it seem better. Naming something helps us feel some control.

This pandemic has stripped us of many feelings of control. It more often feels like life is disrupted and dangerous. Early in the pandemic — but far enough in that it was clear we were headed down a long path — I was wondering why it took me so long to process that we were in for a long-haul… with implications for every segment of life. Why had I “missed” the signs?

Denial. That is what I realized. I had been playing the denial game.

Which reminded me that I was experiencing a grief response. I was in grief! From the pandemic. Well, the pandemic losses and impact.

Over the next few weeks, as I talked with individuals and organizations, I noticed that we were all in collective grief, as well as experiencing the individual grief. And as the pandemic has continued, I have noticed that people are experiencing the different stages of grief at different times. That very fact seems to be at the root of much of the struggles I see played out on social media and regular media. Clashing stages.

Still, stages. Grief comes in stages. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross noted 5 stages. Her colleague, David Kessler, has more recently added a potential 6th stage (an aspirational stage for many). The point of describing the stages is not so much to force people on through the stages. It is more for being able to name the stage for what it is. The capacity of looking at where you are and naming the stage gives a sense of control. And when we have some sense of control, we can choose whether we are where we want to be, or if we would rather shift. The shift becomes an option.

Or we can just name the stage and know that is what we are experiencing.

What stage of grief are you in? I discuss the 5+1 stages in this week’s episode of the Thriveology Podcast. Listen below.

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What A Year!

What Stage Are You In? – Pandemic Grief