What grief stage are you at with the pandemic?

[IWannaWishYouANutNutsChristmas]

It's been a rough couple of years for most of us.

Where are you in the pandemic stages of grief?

I don’t relate to anything on that chart. Not saying there haven’t been tough moments personally but I wouldn’t describe it as grief. I haven’t seen my brother for 2 years, as he lives overseas, which is disappointing but there are other ways to stay in touch and it is what it is.

I accepted the pandemic reality from early on, but I dip into sadness and anger regularly.

I definitely have grief about the time we've all lost, the worry people have had to live with about their jobs, their health, or that of a loved one. and what this is all doing to our kids.

It's been going on long enough now that kids who had their GCSEs messed up are now in danger of their A levels being messed up, and those who had their A levels messed up are having university messed up.

And the little kids who started school in this and have only ever known disruption and ever changing rules.

The babies who don't see enough people...

The women who had to give birth without a partner...

The children who have lost a parent or caregiver,

I think there's a lot to grieve even if my slightly tongue in cheek Twitter meme doesn't speak to you.

At the moment I'm sad and angry about what the hospital numbers will look like in another doubling.

None of those descriptions in the chart relate to how I've felt at any stage of the pandemic.

The pandemic has caused me and my immediate family so much physical, mental, emotional and financial damage in one way or another that I don’t think any of us will ever get past sadness and anger.

I find this a strange question. I don't relate to any of those stages and don't think they are applicable to something like a pandemic. As someone else has already said, the research for those grief stages was done on terminally ill patients coming to terms with their own death.

The pandemic is just one of those things. I'm in my 60s and so have seen various problems in life, a pandemic is something that occurs from time to time in the human race. My mother lived through the 2nd world war, she suffered far more from that, than I have living through a pandemic. My grandparents lived through the 1st world war and the flu' pandemic, in harsher times than ours today.

Yes, COVID completely messed up my own plans so that I had to return to the UK rather than staying overseas as planned. I got COVID in the first round when I returned, it was a nasty 3 weeks, but I feel remarkably lucky to have survived. I know others (past colleagues, a distant family member etc.) who have died. Of course it's sad but they were older and already in ill health and would have died of something eventually anyway.

I was not working during lockdown but received furlough pay....many didn't, I count myself extremely lucky to live in a country that provided this. I have received vaccinations (and now a booster) early on and feel very fortunate indeed to be in a country which offers this.

All in all, no, there is no grief. It hasn't really been that hard for me, I'm happy with my own company and seen friends and family as soon as the lockdowns eased. I've even changed jobs this year, which has been good, and I feel happy (and safe) with the healthcare provision we have with the NHS. So I'm not at any "stage" of grief and never have been.

As I said at the start, weird question.....

@NoelFieldingsShirt

The pandemic has caused me and my immediate family so much physical, mental, emotional and financial damage in one way or another that I don’t think any of us will ever get past sadness and anger.

😔😔

I know what you mean. I will never forget how cruel people got, how everything else has been so casually disregarded, and how many people were willing to turn on others, and to so casually give up their freedom.

My DP's parents live in Bavaria. They are being encouraged to report rule breakers. His DM is unwilling to go out of the house in case she gets into trouble. You'd think Germany would be a bit more sensitive to history than this. It's extremely sad.

Depressed acceptance.

I think there are good reasons for describing some of the feelings people have about the pandemic (beyond the deaths of loved ones) in terms of grief. Though not everyone will feel the same way of course. I think it’s particularly the descriptors used in that meme that make less sense to me - I have felt sad and angry and depressed and hopeless but I haven’t felt a sequence of stages as above and the descriptors associated with those stages don’t apply to me. I realise it is maybe supposed to be lighthearted (?) or just examples, but the meme feels a bit… snarky

The first three are entirely unrelateable for me - with the possible exception of thinking the government's inept - but I thought that pre pandemic so 🤷‍♀️
I've had tinges of depressive feelings, but having been clinically depressed certainly wouldn't count my frustrations re' the pandemic as depression so not really that either.
I think I always accepted it tbh. I tend to expect awful things to happen quite a lot of the time. It sometimes makes me sad to see everything so changed, especially for my kids who had a shit time of it. But ultimately I think I've discovered I'm a lot more pragmatic than I thought.

I don’t really relate to any of the stages with my own feelings.

If I had to pick one, acceptance I suppose.

I feel I’ve gone from acceptance to depression

I think I jumped straight to acceptance. Can't change it. Never had a social life anyway.

Acceptance. What's the point in anything else.

Boredom,depression and pissed offness

Meandering you say it hasn't really affected you, then a few lines later say you don't understand the question. Is there any theoretical level where you understand the question, so like, I don't want to get married but I understand if people do want to?

Hester is Bavaria on full lockdown?

Acceptance, I guess.

I haven't really felt any extremes relating to Covid.

Anger that a man whose inactions and actions have probably caused 20,000 more deaths than any of the alternative Tory leaders is still in office.

Since the stupid blame and division between vaxxers and anti-vaxxers I am pass caring about Covid. It is nothing more than a political football now. I am sorry for the lives lost but will not stop enjoying life be due to Covid. Omicron is obviously not a deadly one for the vast majority so hopefully future variants will be mild too.

Acceptance. Pretty sure we will get it sometime soon.

Depression before Christmas now starting to feel more accepting I think

I refuse to move to acceptance because the way we are treating people, and kids especially, is dehumanising and wrong. I won't compromise on believing that and I won't stop standing up and saying that I believe that.

I may be almost broken and out of emotional and mental reserves, but I'm still not going to accept something that every bone in my body feels to be wrong.

My dad has just died. I have actual real grief.

@Meadowblossom

My dad has just died. I have actual real grief.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

@teaandtoastwithmarmite

Acceptance. What's the point in anything else.

This

I’m about three at once.

Angry - still very angry at the government’s incompetence (for more than just Covid)

Depression - everyone is going to get it and I hope it’s not too bad for those I care about.

Acceptance - we should put in measures to minimise the possible harms this wave could cause (just wish I could trust this bloody government).

Maybe I’m more stuck in depression than accepting it.