MH Mind: Grief Encounters

The coronavirus pandemic has caused an indescribable amount of grief. And to add insult to injury, it’s also gone and upended the ways we would usually have processed our feelings. So what do we do now? We asked experts to share their tips for navigating loss.

- Megan Flemmit

If there’s one topic we tend to avoid talking about, it’s grief. And yet amidst all the uncertainty of the current global health crisis, if there’s one thing we can be certain about, it’s that we’re all experiencing it right now. “Grief is a natural human response to a significant loss of a treasured person or a valued part of our life experience,” says psychiatrist Dr Barry Fortuin. We’re not just mourning the death of loved ones, but the loss of our potential futures and the lives we would have had. To make matters worse, we’re often dealing with more than one type of loss at a time.

Previous research on personal loss during times of broad social distress has shown how the effects can linger even after the danger has passed. A study in the journal Social Science and Medicine found that survivors of the Rwandan genocide had lingering mental health issues as a result of their traditional methods of mourning being halted during the war. A study in the journal Death Studies found that survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami struggled with chronic grief.

While the current pandemic is different to those events, it brings stressors of its own: It’s led to the death of thousands of people around the world, along with largescale unemployment. The pandemic has disrupted the way we work, the way we socialise and the way we seek comfort from those closest to us.

MANY FACES OF LOSS

We tend to associate loss with death. In reality, it can take many forms and each comes with its own type of grief.

Losing A Loved One