How do you react to being in your sanctuary, what others are calling ‘lockdown’? Incidentally, I do not use the language of war since I feel it may trigger some clients, and a virus lacks capacity to declare war on us!
We all behave in different ways. Perhaps if I outline a few, you might recognise yourself, or even other people. Some of us are learning to play the trombone, or a new language, or are getting their skills up to date. Others are hoarding toilet rolls or worrying about food shortages. Some are volunteering and helping out where they can. There are whole swathes of us who are suddenly home schoolers/employees and up to their eyes in work. Others are bored.
Grieving is not only about the loss of someone we love or care about, although my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones in this epidemic. Grieving is also about the loss of things that are important to us. Things that define us, like our habits, our routines, our friends who mirror back to us who we are, our jobs that sometimes tell us where we ‘fit’, the foods we usually choose to eat. Even our hair colour might be changing back to its original colour (oops!). Some of these things also make us feel safe, like our homes, our jobs if we have them, our plans. At the moment, they seem to be either on hold or gone. Things do not appear normal.
This sense of ‘not normal’, can be part of grieving. There’s a model for this called the waterfall. It was designed by Dr Richard Wilson. There you are, paddling your own canoe, when suddenly you hear the rushing of a waterfall. Paddle as you might, over you go. There’s that stunned disbelief where your ears are filled with the sound of the waterfall roaring, and all the movement and panic as the full shock of the waterfall makes itself known. At the bottom of the waterfall, you swirl around for a while, unable to get your bearings, total disbelief that the waterfall could even be in such a calm river. Everything seems disorganised and bits of your canoe float past. This might become worse if you crawl to a muddy bank and get stuck, trying to pull yourself to secure ground. It might be painful if, instead, you find rocks where, as you pull yourself out, there is pain and physical symptoms. Finally, as you move down the river, clinging to the wreckage of your canoe, you start to find that it’s generally intact, although some parts are missing and gone. You might be able to reorganise the boat so that it still floats, or even be able to build or find another one, and you can get in again and start moving safely down the river once more.
The things that you do while you are in your sanctuary rather match the pattern of grieving. This is happening to some people right now. They are grieving for the loss of their lifestyle, or favourite days, or their objectives. They may be stunned into lack of motivation and inactivity. They may be trying to help others into the boat, they may be gathering the wreckage to organise themselves, they may be learning how to make a canoe! Whatever you are doing in your sanctuary is correct. Give yourself some space to do it. If you see someone else doing something different from you, try to understand that they are just in a different part of the river, doing a similar thing to you.
If things feel dangerous for you and you feel that you cannot cope, please do not suffer alone. We really are all in this together. You can call 999, or speak to your GP, or you can contact the NHS 111 Service for advice at any time. The Samaritans are on 116 123 or you can email them on jo@samaritans.org
Incidentally, if you have some spare money and would like to make a donation, please consider your local hospice. They are amazing and work so hard. At the moment they are unable to fundraise in the way they usually would. A special shout out to The Martlets in Hove, East Sussex.