The Pandemic Challenges Our Mental and Physical Health – It’s Important to Get Support

The emergence of Covid-19 has forced us to confront so many different kinds of losses.

We have lost loved ones. We have lost our sense of wellbeing. We’ve lost access to physical contact. We’ve lost our work. …

For many of us, the sense of helplessness that has come with the pandemic is not completely new. In communities that have suffered from systemic racism and discrimination Covid-19 has only further exposed the injustices of a system that has repeatedly left people helpless. As people march in the streets, there is a sense that justified outrage and grief might create some change. The cure for systemic racism and inequality should not be as illusive as the cure for Covid. Racism, hate and intolerance aren’t new, novel viruses. We know the cures. We march to bring these social ills into the broad light of day and to obliterate them.

Yet while we march and hope for something better from our society, each of us is touched personally by the sorrows that Covid-19 has brought to our lives. It might be shocking to discover that despite the tremendous pain of losing a loved one, it longer to adjust to the loss of a job than the loss of someone dear to us.

Grieving isn’t a process restricted to the loss of a loved one. We grieve losses to our sense of self, to our sense of wellbeing, to our sense of security, and to our sense of agency and control in the world. Often we don’t feel that we have permission to mourn these less tangible losses. We fear that people will get tired of hearing us “complain.” Or we compare ourselves to others and believe that since they’ve lost “more” we have no right to be so unhappy.

But grief is not competitive. And it is difficult to go through alone. Often it brings to the surface doubts about ourselves and anxieties that we have difficulty overcoming alone.

If it is difficult to keep things in perspective. If you find yourself struggling with the process of moving forward in this difficult time, therapy can offer the support you might need to grieve and work through these losses. Reach out. There are people here to help.