Your Pandemic Sadness Is Called ‘Ambiguous Loss’

Therapist Pauline Boss explains why it’s harder to grieve in the face of uncertainty—and why ambiguous loss is everywhere in 2021

Jude Ellison S. Doyle
Forge
Published in
5 min readAug 17, 2021

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A man drinks coffee alone and stares out his window. It’s about as fun as you’d think.
We’re stuck mourning a world that isn’t gone, but also isn’t here. Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

I spent most of the pandemic grieving, though, at the time, I didn’t think I was sad about the pandemic itself. Everyone around me seemed to have specific losses…

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Jude Ellison S. Doyle
Forge
Writer for

Author of “Trainwreck” (Melville House, ‘16) and “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers” (Melville House, ‘19). Columns published far and wide across the Internet.