Category: grief

What’s “Normal” In the Slow Fade of a Pandemic?

What’s “Normal” In the Slow Fade of a Pandemic?

Even as the pandemic begins a slow fade, the mental health crisis that the pandemic ignited in kids, teens grownups, and caregivers for elders is sticking around. In my therapy office of late, I’ve heard clients name rumination, depression, grief, more alcohol and marijuana, new existential questions about meaning and purpose, relationship challenges, parenting stress, exhaustion, preoccupation about weight, intrusive thoughts, and lots and lots and lots of anxiety (social anxiety, health anxiety, traveling anxiety, etc.) In fact, we now have a name for all the inner debris that the pandemic has left in us: Post Pandemic Stress Disorder. This is on top of all the stress, anxiety, depression, and relationship stuff many of us carry around even in non-pandemic days.

So here are a few points I wish we could all keep track of:

1: Sometimes my clients think that if an event is over, they should be over it. But our brains, nervous systems, and bodies don’t work like light switches. Rather our nervous systems are like cars — needing time to rev up and time to slow down. So it’s normal to not feel normal right now. It’s normal to be experiencing residual exhaustion, more sensitivity to stressors, and to generally feel on edge and like you don’t quite have your social sea legs. Does this mean it’s fun? No. But is having a disrupted nervous system normal given the completely abnormal last 16 months? Yes. Absolutely, yes.

2: During the last year plus, we’ve all been taking stock of our lives: what we like, what we don’t like, what we want more of, and what we want less of in our lives. If you are still looking around trying to figure out what you want your new normal to include and exclude, you are doing something important – and normal. Many of us have had a break from friends, commutes, social obligations, work travel, etc. and now, to some extent, we have some choices in front of us. Do we want to socialize more, less, or differently than before the pandemic? Do we want to advocate for different hours or different amounts of times at our jobs? Do we want to set different boundaries with our families or around our time? These questions are normal. And it’s normal to re-evaluate our priorities following a big, terrible event.

3: If you have gained weight during the last 16 months, congrats on being normal. As far as coping strategies go, eating a bit more than we need is not the worst thing ever. We’ve been going through an ongoing trauma, and our bodies naturally crave sugar and salt when we’re stressed. I hope you can give yourself a break over the weight gain. And maybe even learn about the Health At Every Size movement. Or if you can’t be kind to yourself about your body, please come see me and and let me give you a break.

4: Finally, if you’re feeling bad for feeling bad (as in “I have so much privilege, I don’t deserve to be having a hard time”) then congrats – also normal. Think of this like survivor’s guilt. There’s a guilty feeling that’s hard to shake. But guess what – this too is normal. And while I know it’s hard to stop guilt once it’s ramped up, your guilt does not help anyone.

So – what to do? Consider self-compassion. Surround yourself with people who will be supportive and not make you feel like a weirdo (unless you’re a weirdo in all the good ways). Remind yourself that your experience can be normal AND still be really, really hard. And help your nervous system know it’s now safe to calm down: through regular sleep, nourishing food and relationships, movement, time outside, and – the hardest for many of us – not pushing yourself too hard. Does all that sound impossible? If so, no worries… that’s normal too (and why we therapists are here).

Courtesy of Rahul Jail on Unsplash.com

“COVID is (Almost) Over: Why Don’t I feel OK?”

This past 15-plus months of pandemic life has been a crash course in tolerating uncertainty. Remember when we weren’t sure how COVID spread? Remember when we weren’t sure if we should be wiping down our newly-purchased cereal boxes and bananas? Remember when we weren’t sure what school was going to look like in the months ahead? (Oh, wait… I think that last one about school is STILL true. Yikes.)

Living with the uncertainty brought on by COVID has been no joke. And the stress is still impacting our bodies even as life returns to some semblance of pre-COVID normalcy. Every week I see clients describing difficulties with concentration and focus and irritability and motivation and – last but not least – exhaustion. Is it possible that these clients are anxious or depressed or have ADHD? Yes, of course. But it’s also true that we’re still reeling from a catastrophe most of us couldn’t have imagined two years ago. We all just experienced – and are still experiencing – an ongoing trauma. Our lives were just turned upside down – and stayed that way for more than a year. Of course we’re not going to feel great. Of course we’re going to be struggling.

This relates to an insidious kind of suffering that I see a lot (and that I’m not immune to myself). It happens when we have an unpleasant experience (like “ugh, I’m exhausted”) and then judge ourselves for that experience (like “I shouldn’t be exhausted”). It has variations: I’m grieving a death or break up, but I should be over it by now. Or: I just had a promotion fall through, and something’s wrong with me because I can’t let it go yet. Or: I am struggling but I have so much, so therefore I am wrong to be struggling. (See: privilege syndrome.)

I find that it’s always useful to help clients set realistic expectations for the time and effort it can take to recover from a difficult experience or a trauma. And just because COVID is almost over, that doesn’t mean your body has gotten the message. Our stress is not, unfortunately, a switch that we can just turn on and off. That’s why – if you go on vacation – you don’t automatically feel relaxed. Your body and mind can be in stress-mode even if you’re wearing a swimsuit drinking a mojito.

Think about it like this: your nervous system has likely been on overdrive for more than a year straight at this point, with many more “fight and flight” moments (complete with the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline) and many fewer “rest and digest” moments. At this point, your body has developed a stressed-out baseline rather than a baseline that’s neutral or even relaxed. So it can take some intentional effort to reset and to re-teach our bodies that we are safe with no imminent threat to ourselves or the people we love.

BUT YOU ARE NOT A LOST CAUSE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS FOREVER. There are some things we need to learn to accept in life (the need for sleep; the reality of pollen; the deliciousness of pizza). But feeling agitated, panicky, and anxious ALL THE TIME is NOT something we need to accept.

The brain is beautiful, and complicated, and capable of changing. So is your body. So are you, as a person who has survived long enough to be able to find and read this blog post. You deserve to feel okay, no matter your privilege or lack of privilege. You deserve to feel okay, no matter who you are.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash.
We Are STILL In A Pandemic

We Are STILL In A Pandemic

We Are STILL In A Pandemic

I say these words multiple times a day, multiple times a week: We are STILL in a pandemic. I say these words when a client with depression can’t figure out why they aren’t feeling better, despite their best efforts: We are still in a pandemic. I say these words when a client with anxiety can’t figure out why therapy and exercise aren’t making them feel zen: We are still in a pandemic. I say these to people suffering from loneliness and grief as well as from chronic professional and financial and relationship uncertainty. We are still in a pandemic.

I say these words because it’s easy to dismiss the effort it takes to act normal – and perform normally – in hugely abnormal times. We think, Oh, it’s been a year, so I should have acclimated. This should be easier. But we are still in a pandemic. We believe, Well, I still have my job/home/health/privilege, so I shouldn’t be struggling. To you I say: We are still in a pandemic.

It doesn’t matter how much privilege we have and how much we have been spared. Chronic stress is real, and we are still existing within an extended period of trauma. This trauma affects not just those who have been sick with COVID, but also those of us (and it’s most of us) who have watched the slow-moving epic disaster of COVID wreak havoc on our communities, neighbors, families, economy, schools, the U.S., and the world.

When we beat ourselves up for feeling stress, loneliness, sadness, or worry, we make ourselves feel worse. When people with financial security wallow in guilt about what we have – when so many others live in scarcity – this does not help. Our self-flagellation serves no one and gets in the way of harnessing the energy to figure out how we can be useful to those around us.

So, in the words of the great Bob Newhart in the skit below: STOP IT. (And sheesh – if only it was that easy!)

Prepping for COVID Winter and an Unusual Holiday Season

Now that election season is almost over, it’s time to prep for COVID winter. Anticipating and preparing for the mental health (and life) challenges of a COVID winter is a must – especially if you’re worried about stress, Seasonal Affective Disorder, depression, anxiety, or increased isolation. Being proactive about mental health isn’t always at the top of our list (especially when the to-do list is LOOOOONG) but our efforts NOW can pay off in important ways.

The Mayo Clinic has this helpful list of suggestions for prepping for COVID winter. One recommendation that stands out is that we should EXPECT that our winter holidays are going to be different. Let’s wrap our heads around that now: our winter holidays will not be the same as usual. We’ll have to adapt traditions that typically involve family and friends or let them go altogether, at least for now. We may not get to have big Hanukah or Christmas parties, Kwanzaa celebrations, Christmas caroling, or New Year’s extravaganzas.

You don’t have to be happy about these traditions going on pause. In fact, give yourself some time to feel grouchy about these losses. (They ARE losses!) It’s hard to move forward if we don’t first mourn our losses. So, here’s a tip: allow yourself a day or even a week to feel all the feelings, whether it’s annoyance, frustration, sadness, anger, or depression. These losses of tradition are worth feeling bad about. (And for those of you saying “But I can’t! Other people have it SO MUCH WORSE” — I appreciate your consideration of others, but stop with the Privilege Syndrome. You trying to convince yourself you have too much to feel so bad doesn’t help anything… and actually gets in the way of letting emotions move through you in healthy ways.)

After that day or week of allowing all the feelings, THEN it’s time to look forward.

First: when it comes to the holidays, allow your imagination some room to roam. If you’re not doing the usual things during this holiday season, what might you be able to do? What might you want to do? What new traditions might you want to create? In other words: what opportunities can you find in the space that COVID has created?

Finally, when it comes to the possibility of anxiety and depression emerging or getting worse, you can be proactive here as well. What extra care do you need that’s realistic? Care can take a lot of forms: checking in with your doctor, taking vitamins, using light therapy, hosting Netflix parties or virtual game nights, and so on and so forth. Make a list and ask friends or family members for their ideas as well. And then put that list somewhere you can regularly see it (like a bathroom wall or on the refrigerator) so when (or if) the winter doldrums hit you don’t have to use energy to think – but can instead just act on the ideas you’ve already brainstormed.

I hope these tips are useful for you! And please reach out if we can be useful to you in other ways.

Are the holidays tough? If so, you’re not the only one.

There’s no way around it: the season of Thanksgiving and the holidays that follow suck for so many of us. As I’ve written here before, grief can be extra lonely and difficult when everyone around you is wishing you a merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah or meaningful Kwanzaa. All of us with complicated families struggle as we perhaps spend more time with family members than usual – or notice their conspicuous absences. Sure, spontaneous gratitude and good cheer may arise. But also there’s the potential for surges of sadness, sorrow, disappointment, anxiety, and pain.

Here’s what I want you to know:

The cultural myth that you “should” be happy at this time of year is not based in reality. If difficult things are happening or have happened to you, especially in November or December, it would be weird if you were suddenly all cheery. Same too if you have seasonal depression. Your low mood likely makes sense given the situation. And, when you beat yourself up for feeling bad instead of good, you’re adding to your pain.

Also, I want you to know that you are not the only one struggling right now. I have the privilege of sitting with lovely, kind, intelligent people every day who are grappling with how to navigate the holiday season without feeling crazy or eating all the cookies you didn’t actually like in the first place. I wish there was a secret handshake or cool badge people could wear to say you’re part of the club of people who’d rather just skip to January, so you could all know and enjoy each other, but alas… I don’t know of anything like that yet.

So, take good care. I MEAN IT. The only way to get to January is to get through November and December. And as stupid as it sounds, drink water! Sleep regular-ish hours! Take walks! Pet animals! And know you’re not alone. Really.

Abortions: When the Political Is Personal

It’s hard to turn on the news in Atlanta right now without hearing about the new anti-abortion bill that’s been passed in Georgia or anti-abortion legislation in other states like Alabama. This legislation fires up people of all beliefs and backgrounds. But it can also be triggering—if not outright re-traumatizing—to women who have made the difficult choice to have an abortion.

And most of the women who find themselves stirred up by all the talk about abortion will likely stay silent. Talking about abortion is still taboo even though an estimated one in four women will have an abortion during their lifetime. For many women, a past abortion is a secret they don’t share out of fear of judgment or because of judgment they impose on themselves. As a result, there can be tremendous shame, guilt, and unresolved grief—often leading to isolation, depression, and increased anxiety.

Grief? Yes grief. It’s totally normal for women who have abortions to need to grieve. Unfortunately it’s also perfectly normal for women to believe they “shouldn’t” need to grieve. But abortion is complicated for many women, a difficult choice at a difficult moment in their lives. Grief is normal and natural.

We know that the antidote to shame and unresolved grief is speaking our truths—the messy, complicated truths—to safe people in safe places. As abortion continues to be a political issue, I sincerely hope that all who have actually experienced an abortion are surrounded by comfort, love, and support. You are not alone.

Surviving Grief During the Holidays

It’s that season. You know the one – the one where there’s upbeat Christmas music playing in stores, and it seems like everyone’s talking about The Holidays (Christmas, New Years – and, less often, Kwanzaa and Hanukah). It’s a special time of year! we’re told. A time for cheer! And parties! 

And the holidays sometimes really, really suck for people who are living with grief and loss. Those with grief don’t usually get a lot of attention at this time of year, or ask for it. (Who wants to say “oh, I’m decorating the tree thinking about my dear friend who died!” or “Hanukah feels different without my mom”). And yet, there’s a large group of us who are mourning someone who was important to us. And we’re more at risk for depression if we’re grieving and feeling isolated when we’re “supposed” to be feeling cheerful. 

I think it’s worth acknowledging that this particular time of year is chock-full of landmines for those of us grieving. Grieving is different for everyone, but a recipe you love might also be a recipe you associate with someone who’s died. The person you called first thing on New Year’s Day may no longer be around. Or, you might have had a terrible relationship with your cousin, but feel immensely guilty for not missing her. Did I already say this can really, really suck? It can be super stressful, even when we’re trying to be brave or have fun or appreciate what we do have.

Here are some great tips about surviving the holidays while living with grief.

And I want to plug the terrific book It’s OK That You’re Not OK. I don’t get paid to do so; I just sincerely loved this book and found it useful.

Take good care – especially now. Self-care is not a luxury when grieving; it’s a necessity.

 

 

 

 

The Hardest Things To Talk About Are Sometimes the Most Important

It’s easy to circle around the hard things: Death, shame, our heart’s disappointments. They can feel too intense to name directly: abuse histories, experiences with sexual assault and harassment, death and loss, abortions and miscarriages. They hover at the edge of our consciousness, where we try to push them away and distract ourselves: the ways we’ve messed up or been let down, our regrets and fears, our shame and sense of unworthiness. They hover at the edge of our consciousness, where we try to push them away and distract ourselves. They can be overwhelming. We worry that if we let ourselves feel the feelings, we may get too immersed in them to find our way through.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot with the #metoo movement and #whyIdidn’treport. I’ve been asking the question: How is that I haven’t known until now that some of my beloved friends and family members have been assaulted? How is it that even in intimate relationships, these things go unspoken – and unasked about?

Asking takes courage, though of course it takes more courage to name outloud, to ourselves and others, the hardest things we’ve experienced. That’s why I have so much respect for all who continue to share their stories of surviving trauma, including assault and abuse.

We need these stories to be out in the open. The hardest things to talk about are sometimes the most important. For healing, we need to be able to hold each other with compassion and support – and to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions. For a more just society, we need to call out abuse and abuse of power. We need to address barriers to naming these difficult truths out loud – barriers that are significant to all people, and barriers that are often most profound for women of color.

I am continuing to work to make workspace a safe space, for all stories, for all aspects of self, for all experiences that have led us to this moment. I am working to ask and to listen to your stories, even the ones that are hardest to tell.

 

 

 

 

What the Media Gets Wrong about Depression and Anxiety

What the Media Gets Wrong about Depression and Anxiety

Here are your instructions:

Go stand on the Beltline. Hang out across the street from my therapy office at Ponce City Market. Go anywhere in Atlanta. Go to Decatur or Midtown or wherever. Look around and do this: Spot the person who’s struggling with depression, anxiety or grief. 

Trick question? You betcha. I was grateful to read this story from Slate called Stock Photos are Terrible at Depicting Illness, Mental or Physical. In a nutshell, it’s looking at the feeble attempts made by photographers — and newspapers, and websites, and bloggers (including me), and everyone else — to depict anxiety, depression and other mood disorders. If you want to see for yourself, do a web search for “depression” and see what comes up. Same with “anxiety” and “grief” and “stress.”

The reality is that most people who are struggling are experts at looking like everything is fine. My clients work hard not to show how rough things have been. My clients don’t walk around with their head in their hands all day, double face-palming with tears streaming down their cheeks. They don’t crouch in a corner photogenically. They are working or going to school, being social, acting like everything is normal (even when everything feels terribly abnormal).

In counseling, we work so that acting “normal” comes from a place of feeling “normal.” Just because you can pretend you’re okay doesn’t mean you should have to. After all, you have better things to do with your life than spend copious amounts of energy trying to look like nothing’s wrong.

 

A Quick Note on Birthdays

happy-birthday-to-me-memeMy birthday has come and gone once again, and unlike my daughter – who would like to have her birthday happen every day – I’m a little relieved it’s over. As a kid, birthdays are hopefully magical. Presents! The world centering on you!

But as an adult, birthdays can so often be bittersweet or downright disappointing. We may note who has or has not called. We find ourselves in comparison mode with other people based on our age. We may find ourselves comparing aspects of our lives — relationship, work, home, interests — with where we’d hoped we would be. (To state the obvious: These are not usually comparisons that make us feel better about ourselves.) Perhaps we touch into our mortality in a way that’s uncomfortable. Perhaps we are all too aware of who is no longer alive or in our life to celebrate us. Sometimes things get better with age … but sometimes we end up feeling jaded and confused about our own meaning and purpose.

As a mindfulness-informed therapist, here is the long-winded question I have at moments like this: How can we turn toward the difficult feelings that events like birthdays conjure up, getting curious about our experience so that we can find clarity and create intentions and actions that enable change? 

I offer this question to you in hopes that it will be useful.

All my best,
Dana