The Impact of Collective Grief
Recently I’ve had moments when I can’t make sense of why I feel so tired. I get sad or listless without knowing why. I find myself irritable and impatient and wonder why I can’t just snap out of it. I have days when I struggle to do things that used to feel easy for me.
I know I’m not alone in this; I’ve been hearing it from others. Even as spring approaches with warmer and longer days, many of us are finding ourselves in a funk.
Last week’s five-year anniversary of the beginning of the COVID pandemic reminded me that things aren’t just hard now; things have been hard for years. When I zoom out and remember what the world’s been like in recent years, the fact that we’re feeling out of sorts makes so much sense.
We’ve been in cycle after cycle of collective grief and trauma. This is even more true for those of us with identities that have been marginalized and oppressed.
If you’ve been feeling listless, angry, or unable to focus, I want to remind you that you aren’t broken. You may be experiencing a normal and expected response to grief and trauma.
Here are just some of the ways that grief can show up in the mind and body:
Physical exhaustion
Confusion, time loss, and memory loss
Restlessness, short attention span, and difficulty concentrating
Frustration and irritability
Numbness and loss of interest
Sadness, anger, mood swings, and hypersensitivity
Physical pains, clumsiness, changes in appetite
Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much
Sense of disbelief or unreality
If you’re experiencing any of these, could they be grief responses? And if so, how might that change how you feel about them and how you respond?
Maybe you show yourself a lot more grace, kindness, and compassion.
Maybe you adjust your expectations.
Maybe you seek out more support.
Maybe you find ways to make a little more room for your grief. For some ideas on how to do that, visit my recent post, “A Thousand Ways to Grieve – No Therapist Required.”
One additional note: If you find that you’re experiencing any of the above to the extent that it worries you or interferes with your daily life, I encourage you to seek out the support of a therapist or other mental health professional. They can help you identify other possible contributing factors, process grief and trauma, and support you with finding ways to cope.
As always (and especially now), take gentle care of yourselves.
P.S. For a bit of additional reading on this topic, you may also want to visit “Is It Stress, or Is It Grief?”
