Facing the Non-Death Losses of Coronavirus
As our country moves haltingly toward some level of reopening, people are beginning to reimagine what our new normal might look like. Aside from the obvious changes, such as greater distance in public spaces, a larger portion of the workforce operating from home, and increased mask-wearing in public, it is clear that a higher level of anxiety and generalized grief will be with us for a long time. Perhaps even past the time when we have a vaccine and coronavirus becomes part of history.
To get a better understanding of how the non-death losses we are all experiencing now will affect us long term, I continued my conversation with the two grief experts, Ken Doka and Robert Neimeyer, who I interviewed for last month’s newsletter article: Grieving in the Midst of a Pandemic. Ken Doka is a Senior Consultant with the Hospice Foundation of America, and a prolific writer on grief. Robert Neimeyer is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Memphis, and the Director of the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition, which offers training and certification in grief therapy for professionals in the field.
Henry: Even though we are starting a gradual process of reopening, most of us are still experiencing losses of one kind or another that are not related to a death among our circle of friends or family. How impactful are those other losses on our state of being?
Doka: The significant losses people are experiencing, such as the loss of a job or income, as well as the less tangible losses, such as the loss of our assumptive world—its predictability and our sense of control—are having an incredible impact on people. Especially since this kind of loss is disenfranchised in the face of the deaths that are so significant and dominate the news coverage of coronavirus. These other losses compound our grief. I think we will experience a pandemic of grief when this is all over.
Neimeyer: When we shift our focus to looking at non-death losses we recognize the universality of loss now. It’s happening to all of us. And what makes it especially difficult is that we don’t have a vocabulary or rituals to deal with these non-death losses. When someone is grieving a death, we can say they are bereaved, but what do we call someone who is experiencing the kind of non-finite losses we are all going through. The avalanche of grief around the world is closer to what we term “chronic sorrow.” It is a natural response to an unnatural loss. There is no clear endpoint. So, the impact is large and will affect our sense of self and our way of conducting social life even after we get beyond this immediate crisis.
Henry: Do we tend to grieve non-death losses differently than the way we grieve a death?
Doka: The contour of grieving is very much the same, no matter what kind of loss we are dealing with. But people grieve in their own way within that general framework. What makes grieving non-death losses different now is that we don’t know how and in what way they will get resolved. A lot of it depends on how long the economy takes to get back and what it will look like afterward—how long-lasting the changes will be.
Neimeyer: In the grief that follows a death we begin to build a new normal. That is what it means to reconstruct a sense of meaning. But in our current situation, we have a new “abnormal.” The trajectory is unknowable. The losses we are now experiencing—the ones other than death—will stretch on for months and possibly years. Instead of moving further away from the moment of loss, we are now moving further into it. This requires a different compass for moving ahead. A compass that needs constant checking and reorienting as the circumstances keep shifting.
Doka: One of the things that helps us as we grieve the loss from a death are the supports we get from our community. That support is effective because it comes from people who have the emotional capacity to open their hearts to those who are grieving. But now, there isn’t a person who hasn’t been touched by the losses from this pandemic. When everyone is dealing with loss, that makes people less available to each other. How can I support you when I myself am grieving and need support?
Henry: What the two of you are saying makes me wonder what we can do to help people with this type of chronic sorrow. While the grief may be more complicated and the normal supports less available, certainly we must have tools we can turn to.
Neimeyer: The first thing we have to do is to acknowledge and validate the losses we are experiencing. Naming them and claiming them are very important. We have to move beyond the state of being overwhelmed to understanding our emotions. This involves reflecting on our experience and expressing our feelings—mostly to others. People need to make a conscious effort to talk about their feelings more, especially because they are complicated by the extent of the losses. This is the way we begin to incorporate the losses into who we are.
Doka: We have to assess how our grief is affecting our life. And then we need to remember how we have dealt with grief and trauma in the past. But just remembering what worked before isn’t enough. We have to work that much harder at employing those methods when the loss is so pervasive. Adopting a problem-focused approach can help.
Henry: I know one technique that I have shared with people that I think can be useful when a person feels overwhelmed by emotions is called the “stop” approach that comes from cognitive-behavioral therapy. As a person feels their emotions building they picture a stop sign in their mind and direct themselves to “stop,” perhaps by even shouting that word in their mind. Then they consciously shift into thinking about new goals or about things that make them feel more peaceful. It is a technique most people can use, even if they are quite agitated.
Neimeyer: Yes, a technique like that gives people a sense of control over their emotions. And when everything is feeling so much out of our control, anything that returns that to us is quite useful. In our usual ways of working with trauma and anxiety, we practice exposure which leads to systematic desensitization. But with the ongoing losses and extensive media coverage we are experiencing constant re-exposure, so we need to disengage. Another way of doing that is to focus on things that have traditionally given us pleasure, such as soothing orchestral music, prayer, and meditation. We have to find adaptive ways to set down our grief for a while. For example, I participate in an art-making group every Sunday. People can take online courses or walk in nature. We need to get creative, to find ways of giving ourselves emotional and psychological refreshment.
Doka: One of the things to remember is that we grow in grief too. Any time life presents a problem, or even a whole series of problems at once, as we are now experiencing when we start to find our footing we learn new ways of coping. We become stronger, and this will help us in the future to deal with new challenges.
Neimeyer: Grief can tear us down and make us even more vulnerable, or it can build resilience. We have to understand that it is up to each one of us to make the commitment to face the losses we are experiencing. Not to pretend the inner fear and anxiety aren’t there or to try and push them away, but rather to express them and work with them in the ways we’ve been talking about. Post-traumatic growth is a protective factor for future difficulties.
Henry: As we end this conversation, is there any final advice you would like to give people to help them cope with the non-death losses they are experiencing?
Doka: As a species, we are hard-wired to forget our past pains and difficulties. So, when things do reopen and we find our new normal, keep maintaining the approaches that you discover in these days of trial. Reach out more to the people in your life and have conversations that don’t shy away from hard emotions they or you might be experiencing due to events in your lives. Be there for other people and let them be there for you.
Neimeyer: I agree, opening conversations with people about their losses, and yours will give you a way to process the emotions and start to find a context for growth. Ask questions like these: “What else have you lost in this hard time?” “What did you once believe that you can no longer believe?” “What do you need to leave behind that you didn’t before?” “How has this time changed you?” “What have you discovered in this time that you want to hold on to?” “Thinking a year ahead, how do you envision living a better quality of life than before COVID?”
Henry: Although we haven’t specifically talked about gratitude, that is something that has helped me a great deal in this crisis. Focusing in on all the many small and large things in my life that I’m grateful for. It may feel forced at first, but writing down each day the things you are grateful for shifts the balance of your inner emotional equilibrium toward the more positive aspects of life. Let’s invite people to reflect on what they are gaining not what they are losing.
This brings our conversation with Ken Doka and Robert Neimeyer to a close. I hope you have benefited from the insights these two experts in grief have offered. The team at INELDA believes that helping people as they grieve will be an even larger part of the work we do as doulas in the future. Over time you will see more from us about grief and how you as a doula can work in a deeper way with people as they start down the path from the death of a loved one to a new life of meaning.