With the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s no denying it – we’re all grieving to a lesser or greater extent. All the signs are there. But nobody has actually said so. And nobody’s addressing the matter, except certain politicians who are rubbing their hands with glee.
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross nailed it in her 1970 book ‘On Death and Dying’. There she recorded her observations of the stages that cancer patients and their families went through in dealing with the illness. First shock and denial, followed by anger. Next depression. Then acceptance – no longer railing against it. Eventually comes renewed hope – exploring options and taking steps towards a new future.
This wisdom was later reinvented as a change management model, embraced by organisations as a basis for managing change and helping staff cope with change, such as new technologies, restructures, redundancies and retrenchments.
Be it cancer, organisational change or a global pandemic, individual responses to change follow similar paths. People experience loss, a sense of losing control and, concurrently, a threat to the way they define their very identity.
COVID-19 has cut across everything we normally did to make a good life for ourselves – our relationships, our work, our entertainment, our families and friendship networks. We have to socially distance, events and social activities have been cancelled, our jobs and businesses are under threat, and travel – a favourite Australian pastime – has been significantly limited. And the threat of things getting worse is still with us.
And so there is grief, despite the feel good TV shows, Zoom and internet videos. More or less successfully, we each keep the black dog at bay and try to go about our daily lives as if nothing had happened. “I’m OK. She’ll be right, mate.”
But it is helpful to have an awareness of one’s grief and how we are progressing through change. Without self-awareness, people can become stuck in a particular phase instead of moving towards a new future. And less ethical politicians can capitalise on keeping people stuck and dysfunctional.
Shock
At first, when change comes along and kicks us in the guts, Kubler-Ross describes “the first reaction may be a temporary state of shock”. This is a moment of being stunned, numb, not fully comprehending what is going on or what to do. And we can’t just “snap out of it”. There are individual differences in how long it takes to process things and its possible to feel helpless for a while. So it’s not realistic to expect people to leap directly into coping mode.
Some politicians take advantage of these moments with scare tactics to further fan fears, used for example as an excuse to permanently change laws to empower governments and diminish civil liberties. People in shock just go along with it.
Denial
An early kneejerk reaction can be denial. “No, it can’t be true!”. We can simply pretend the problem doesn’t exist. With COVID, refusing to socially distance, wear masks or protect oneself and others is part of denial. Conspiracy theories also abound, blaming other problems than the one at hand.
Being in denial is a favourite of certain politicians, including Donald Trump who still continues to belittle the very real impacts of the pandemic on the American people and their nation.
Our own government’s initial suggestion that the pandemic would be over in 6 weeks was also a form of denial, as was the professed expectation of a V-shaped recovery or “snap back”. It’s as if jobs weren’t lost, businesses hadn’t shut down, relationships hadn’t suffered and self-confidence wasn’t damaged. It’s as if the pandemic would just blow away. In reality things will take time to heal and to rebuild, and people are likely to need assistance. Our political leaders being in denial doesn’t help.
Anger
When dealt a blow, we can get very angry. Anger is often not directed at the root cause of the problem, but rather at something or someone else. It’s the fault of our mother, our spouse, our nurse or, in the case of COVID-19, our public figures. If only the premiers would open the borders, everything would be alright. It’s their fault.
Some politicians like to capitalise and further engender such anger. Blaming China, blaming certain premiers and not others, using scare tactics to divide and rule – we see these in play in Australia and in the USA.
Our leaders should be calming things down, not stirring people up. The reality is that we really are all in it together, so playing the blame game doesn’t help.
Depression
We all know that feeling of endless sadness. When faced with a major change which effects so much of what we’ve known, what we took for granted and what we worked for, feeling depressed is not irrational.
Just when we need the energy and optimism to find new purpose and new pathways, depression can set in and with it a loss of motivation.
People try to ward off depression and escape the pain. The increase in alcohol sales and eating comfort food leading to weight gain are some of the signs.
For a while the media was addressing this with humorous “Iso” TV shows. That’s now ended, yet the pandemic continues. The short media cycle does not cater for longer-term issues. Similarly the initial surge of focus on mental health and outcomes such as increased domestic violence was flavour of the month and quickly dissipated as the government turned to slogans about jobs and opening things up to revive the economy.
It is time to be gentle with ourselves and understanding of others. And we need our leaders to take steps to give people extra support in difficult times.
Moving towards a new future
Shock, denial, anger and depression are not about moving forward and taking control of one’s future. Individuals, politicians and nations can get stuck in the past, to their own detriment.
To progress beyond yearning and grieving for the past, it is not just a matter of putting on a false smile and being cheerful. What is needed is acknowledging how things have changed, the loss we are experiencing and the pain we feel. Only then can we move on to the next phases of the change spiral with hope – accepting reality, exploring new options and starting to plan for a new future for ourselves, our businesses, our institutions and our governance.
Politicians who prefer to keep their constituents in shock, in denial, anger and depression are doing no one a favour. Even if they engender dependency and false gods to win re-election, the only way to deal with change is to empower people to take control of their lives and embrace the new.
