This global crisis has completely shaken up and affected every human on this planet. Grief and trauma have been a part of life during this pandemic. When everyone is suffering and facing difficulty coping, it brings to light the most common opinion on what is trauma and grief. The misconceptions surrounding grief and trauma will be seen as suffocating to someone going through it.
Mental health is still a topic that is not spoken about. When someone is grieving or has gone through a traumatic event, they are not encouraged to talk about it or think about it, this is because of a lack of awareness on the importance of emotional expression to recover from stressful events.
De-mystifying grief and trauma
Grief
Grief is the process of pain and mourning someone goes through when there is a loss of something that was considered very dear. The death of a loved one is not the only form of loss but it is the only form of loss that is encouraged to be felt. Other forms of grief and loss could be, a break-up of a relationship or friendship, loss of a pet, loss of a childhood home, divorce, and family break-ups.
It has been commonly observed that when someone is mourning over an incident that is expected to not have an effect, they are told a lot of things by people they love such as “Get over it”, “Why is it bothering you so much?”, “Why are you still thinking about them?”, “You knew them for less than a year”, “Maybe it is time you let them go”. Through no fault of their own, the mourner may feel guilty for feeling something completely natural.
In therapy, for grief, the social support that the client has is assessed to help them. While assessing this, the phrases commonly heard are revealed like light coming through cracks of a wall. Talking about what is bothering someone when they are grieving is what helps them process what happened. When these sentences are heard by the mourner, they automatically lose the healthy space to grieve. Following this, the process of grieving is delayed as it is seen as invalidating and puts the person in a spot where they feel it is a crime to grieve.
During the process of grief, it is not possible to put aside thoughts and move on immediately as the person has to create a new narrative of themselves. All of us create our personal stories based on what is important to us and when we lose that important part, we are left clueless and may feel like we are asked to navigate a forest blindfolded. They now have to fill that missing part that has fallen out of their perfect puzzle. This takes time and can be done only when the person is allowed to mourn and feels heard.
During the process of grief, there is constant shifting between grieving and carrying on with life, and eventually, new stories can be created by integrating and accepting the loss.
Trauma
Another term that is commonly misperceived is trauma. Trauma is a response to something that is threatening to the person’s sense of safety physically, mentally, or emotionally. The reactions commonly involve fear of the event that has happened, nightmares, flashbacks, hypervigilance (looking around and being more vigilant), being easily startled. After going through a traumatic event, a person’s startle reflex is enhanced so their bodies are constantly in-flight mode ready to run.
Following something life-threatening, a person’s mind may get frozen in that event and they feel mentally stuck in that event even though time passes physically.
When we think of trauma the instances that come to our mind are sexual assault and combat exposure. Traumatic reactions can occur from many other instances such as sudden death of a loved one, having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, a loved one being diagnosed with a terminal illness, an accident, a traumatic break-up, break-up following abuse.
Traumatic reactions may co-occur with grief. Trauma and the symptoms described above come in the anxiety spectrum and anxiety may be one of the first reactions while starting to grieve.
When someone is experiencing traumatic reactions following something that is seen as unusual, they are invalidated and clients have shared hearing sentences like, “What happened so bad that you are reacting this way?”, “Do not exaggerate”, “Look at her she is making it all up”, “it is your fault”, “I have been through it too, and look at me”. To illustrate the point, I once saw a person who had anxiety reactions like post-traumatic reactions following a friendship break up. This person had to live in the same dorm as the ex-friend and would get nightmares and hyperventilate when the ex-friend was around. This is not an expected reaction to a friendship break up and the person did not feel understood by most of their loved ones.
When the person is belittled for feeling that way, it makes them withdraw more and is harder for them to recover. This current pandemic has opened up more mental health issues especially grief and trauma. There is loss and trauma everywhere as fear grips the entire human race while battling this virus.
What can we do if we or our loved ones are mourning or going through trauma?
- Listen to our loved ones and support them through the process of grief and trauma.
- Do not provide opinions on feelings.
- Do not force recovery within a particular time as the time varies for different people.
- Consider talking to a professional as it is a safe space to talk and vent out whatever we feel.
- Recovering from grief and trauma involves creating new stories while acknowledging what happened in a self-paced manner.
- Understand that, there is not only grieving but there is also an effort to move on from the part of the person who is mourning.
- Encourage to talk about loss and memories with what was lost as reminiscing helps us accept what has happened. Talking about trauma as scary as it sounds helps our brains integrate and store it away so it does not seem like we are locked and frozen in the event.
- Write goodbye letters to unburden feelings that are not able to be expressed at the moment.
- Journaling our feelings and letting ourselves feel emotions helps in the process of recovery.
- When feeling invalidated express to loved ones about their responses feel hurtful.
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