This Sucks! (Coping with a Year of COVID Grief)

April 8, 2021
By Megan Svarich-Knights

It's Been a Year of Almost Constant Grief

It’s been almost a year of this:
Of COVID
and lockdown
and isolation
and fear
and boredom
and virtual learning
and not seeing our friends
and not traveling
and News-Armageddon
and constant racialized trauma on social media
and on top of all we're just at the start of another lockdown. 
It’s been almost a year of constant grief.
There is this huge push from society to “keep on doing what you’ve always been doing” with school and work without any acknowledgement that we’re all deep in grief.

What are you grieving?

Are you grieving what you thought your last year of high school and first year of university would look like? Are you grieving the loss of prom and high school graduation and FROSH week and partying in residence?
Are you grieving your last year of university?  The year that was supposed to be your year has been reduced to virtual classes, not leaving your apartment, and no trip over Reading Week?
Are you grieving the loss of your academic motivation?
Are you grieving the loss of being able to date and meet people in bars and laugh with your friends?
Are you grieving your dreams and assumptions of what 2020-2021 would look like?
Are you grieving the loss of your social connections?
Are you grieving generations of racialized trauma?
Are you grieving the loss of your freedom?
Are you grieving the loss of certainty, or the illusion of certainty?
Maybe you are also grieving the loss of someone you love.
Are you grieving your ability to forget about all of this by hanging out with your people in person? 

It’s valid

Your grief is valid.
A common trauma response is to say, “well, I don’t have it as bad as this person, so I shouldn’t be upset.” In COVID times that might sound like, “I haven’t had COVID, so I shouldn’t be upset” or “My family is healthy so I guess I shouldn’t be upset about Reading Week.”  Yes, people are losing their lives and their loved ones. That’s why we’re doing all this; that’s why we are making these sacrifices and pulling together for the collective health of the population.
And your grief is still valid.

How do you take care of yourself during COVID grief?

• Give yourself permission to frame your feelings as grief: as a normal reaction to the suckiness of this year and everything we have lost individually and collectively
• Be present with your feelings.  Sit with loving presence with yourself as you experience them 
• Express yourself through your body: dance out your sad, paint your anger, cry with your frustration, hold yourself through the pain, take your depression on a walk, write about your hope, sing about your yearning
• Talk about what you miss with other people.  They're probably missing it too.
• Give space for reflection: what has this year of immense grief taught you about yourself?  Where have you found your healing this year? Where have you found your survival?  What reflections do you want to bring with you into post-COVID life?  
• Allow yourself to hope.  Allow yourself to dream.
• Give yourself permission to just get through it without being your best self.
• Come chat with a counsellor at the Student Wellness Centre about your grief.