A Therapist’s Advice for Processing the Pandemic Anniversary
How to give yourself space to work through your grief
The topic of “The Anniversary” started showing up in my therapy sessions sometime in late January or early February. Over the past few weeks, it’s become an increasingly popular topic among my clients, many of whom have given voice to feelings I myself struggled to put into words.
Some therapists have described the Covid-19 pandemic as an experience of collective trauma. Others have carefully delineated the difference between a collective stressor, and collective trauma — though they note that certainly some have experienced traumatic stress (loss of loved ones, loss of employment, or the trauma experienced by health care workers on the frontlines) as a result of the pandemic. But whatever your pandemic experience has been, it’s probably been strange, intense, and difficult to process — and as we approach the year benchmark, those feelings are likely especially potent.
The psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, author of How to Be Yourself, has described an “anniversary reaction” as the “echo of trauma or loss.” Research has shown that symptoms of an “anniversary reaction” can include increases in depression, anxiety, and panic; irritability; poor sleep; and even physical symptoms like cardiac events…
