Some thoughts about the world’s response to this pandemic and a path forward we each may want to initiate on purpose.
Clinically, I have had a lot of experiences with people who have been handed bad news. I have been the one who had to tell them the bad news. Had to walk with others on the journey through The valley of the shadow of death. I have myself also experienced deep grief. In almost all of my experiences, the stages of grief have proven to be a classic pattern that held true for a pathway toward healing. In this time when our global community is grieving, we each are also on this pathway. The parts of grief proposed by Kübler-Ross are:
• Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”
• Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
• Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
• Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
• Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.”
Sometimes the stages happen in a stepwise fashion. Sometimes not. But the point is that each part is experienced.
Globally we have seen denial as world leaders failed to act quickly enough on knowledge they had. Some denying for a time that the Coronavirus was going to be a problem.
We see bargaining as societies try to negotiate with the pandemic and find ways to protect high risk individuals.
All along we have seen blaming as conspiracy theories (correct or not) erupt on the internet in search of someone to blame for this grievous pandemic. Most recently we are seeing anger as groups protest, act out, even use violence against those trying to protect them.
Are we seeing global wide depression yet? With whole societies too sad and overwhelmed with death, joblessness, and financial crisis to do anything, depression seems a matter of course. How do we respond in each in each of these stages? We, as individuals, as well as a community, are each going through these stages. We can be gracious with one another to respond in love and patience, to others and to ourselves. This response may require strength from outside of ourselves, a strength from Someone who understands grief deeper than we do.
Everyone moves through grief at a different speed. For some societies this grief will trigger other griefs and fears that lay close under the surface. But at the end comes acceptance. Acceptance that this pandemic is real, that the tragedy is happening, and that we must adjust our lives moving forward because there is no going back to “the way things were before.”
-- by Karen Ammari DNP, MSN, APRN