OPINION
OPINION
collective grief S H A R I N G S A D N E S S S H A P E S A C U LT U R E TEXT BY RITA RIVERA ART & DESIGN BY NERISSA CHEE
19 | LOGOS | FALL 2020
lmost everyone has been to a fudifference between loss through death neral or have felt some kind of loss. and symbolic grief, and this grief work We have posted about a celebrity can manifest both psychologically and we admired or have even gone to a vigil physically, regardless of the trigger. Refor them. We have gone to a funeral of cent studies show that things like moving a distant relative we barely knew, and if and changing schools can cause children you’re like me, you felt sad but mostly to experience grief. Online counseling awkward or guilty because you perhaps website Thriveworks.com reveals, “Kids didn’t feel as devastated as the people who have moved five or more times around you. Of course, the worst of all is during their childhood are three times when that person you have lost is someas likely to experience mental health one very close to you, maybe the person problems compared to those who stay in you loved most, which makes you feel their hometowns.” What we are learning completely crushed is that the symptoms of and empty at the same grief can be caused by Rocky Johnson time. That kind of loss many things and are so Kobe Bryant can change your life much more complex because you lose more than we once originally Naya Rivera than just the person. It thought. With the adBreonna Taylor also dramatically alters vent of the internet and Chadwick Boseman the way your day-tosocial media, we are Ruth Ginsburg day life functions. You experiencing collective George Floyd have lost the life you grief in a greater varihad and future you ety of ways. PredomiAlex Trebek thought you knew. nantly the indigenous communities, people Grief is an interesting phenomenon, both of color and the LGBTQ community can universal and unique to each person. But now shine a better light on the atrocities it doesn’t take death to make us feel this they experience. For these communities, kind of loss and grief that comes with it. collective grief is commonplace, but in Dr. Ajita Robinson, a grief and trauma ex2020 it seems to have become a part pert and therapist, says that grief can be of everyday life for everyone else. With felt as a result of any major loss such as a global pandemic and stay at home our previous way of life, and that our ideas orders in place, we all lost our sense of for the immediate and long-term future normalcy. Many of us have lost people and things like a loSs of stability, routine, we loved, but the loss was either overincome, control are known as symbolshadowed or magnified with the increasic grief. But our body doesn’t know the CONTINUED >>
A
FALL 2020 | LOGOS | 20
