Where's the Grief?

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

It was over 2 years ago the pandemic stuff started. Most people are tired of it by now. Grief is a personal thing, something done off line. Occasionally bits and pieces of the puzzle is discussed online, parts people want to share or looking for answers.

Being numb, critical or ridicule is one way some deal with it. If there has been some unexpected incident with innocent people injured or killed, there is usually a few sympathies given. As for covid, I am preparing for that the culling has only began.

As you are a professional working around traumatic incidents, it is important to remain emotionally detached if you are to perform your job effectively. I expect this is a lot harder to do when you are working with their emotions.

It can be a tough crowd around here at times, cold, hard, callous bunch. It a bit like doing a running commentary of the apocalypse while looking for some angle to take down Goliath.

a reply to: kwakakev

I did grief counseling for a decade. I assure you the grieving never shut up.

Another one here that is yet to see any actual evidence of covid having a noticeable effect on my community. Granted I'm in Australia and we don't seem to have copped it too bad overall. Yet that hasn't stopped our state governments introducing the most draconian mandates over mere "cases."

That's all they go on about, cases cases and more cases. Ignoring the fact that the vast majority of cases are rarely anything more than a cold. The death toll most likely isn't even accurate as our own PM admitted not everyone in hospital with covid is there because of covid. So that about sums up the covid "deaths" imo too.

By now I finally know a couple of people that had it, (as in confirmed) their illness was nothing significant and was manageable at home. One of them was my 68 yr old Aunt. She is a diabetic, unvaccinated and she said this "covid" was not the worst virus she had endured.

I don't know of anyone grieving from loss due to Covid. This is one of the main reasons I chose to avoid the vaccine even at the cost of losing my job. I can't fathom the logical need to push a vaccine when I'm not even seeing the danger around me at all, or seeing any major impact from covid -- there's just nothing.

Granted I don't know of anyone who has died from the jab either -- but I do know of a couple of people, (not anyone I'm overly close to) who have had severe reactions and needed hospital care at one point. That's more than I can say for the "virus" that we oh so desperately need to be protected from.

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

Sounds like a hell of a place to be spending that long listening to one messed up story after another. With that kind of experience, you will fit in fine around here.

a reply to: DwindlingHope

We're in the same sinking boat in Canada. Folks are receiving covid alerts on their phones every morning but nobody's dying from it more than any other bout of pneumonia. The funeral homes aren't overrun nor are the hospitals. There's no more activity in the graveyards than any other day of the week. And the grief you'd expect to feel in the air all around you during a genuine pandemic is non-existent.

a reply to: kwakakev

My services as a grief counselor aren't required at this site. Psychological assistance for sures.

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

My services as a grief counselor aren't required at this site

Keep watching the new threads, something might pop up occasionally.

Psychological assistance for sures.

Absolutely. When coming to terms with just how insane it all gets, you would have to be crazy to not go a little nuts.

a reply to: kwakakev

Oh, it's you again. I think someone's at my door...Bye!

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

People deal with things their own way.

Grief is a personal thing and I wouldn't dream of plastering it around all over social media etc.

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

Many said the same when the first anecdotal stories about covid hit the board.

They don't anymore...

originally posted by: rickymouse
. . . What does suck is that we had an eighth grade kid today shoot himself in the head at school during lunchtime in the bathroom. A real lot of people got guns around here, even women have conceiled permits and carry them in their purses or with them when they go for a hike out in the woods on trails for exercise...we have some cougars, wolves, packs of coyotes, and bears around here.

The kid could have taken one of his parents guns...Why did he choose the school to shoot himself at? Why did he shoot himself....they were having a cop give a speech about bullying in a class when he shot himself. When stuff like this happens it is concerning. The kids were sent home from the highschool, and they don't have school tomorrow either there. That is a tragedy, I wonder what led the kid to do this. His poor parents, I wonder what is going through their minds today. I wonder if he had siblings?

Well, technically it is now after midnight, so it was yesterday. It happened at an Ishpeming high school, about twelve miles away from my house.

That's horrible, I guess I'll be hearing about this on the local news today.

It's odd. Last night when I went to bed, the subject of my own bullying experiences from my school days surfaced and I began to form a time line of when those things were happening to me. It seem to start for me in 3rd grade and I realized that because I couldn't remember anything about my life as an 8 year old.

My 3rd grade teacher had it out for me, so did a playground supervisor, most of the boys called me names for playing with the girls at recess (I liked girls from a young age), I got into fights instigated by the other children, other kids beat me up on the way home, and one kid even ran me over with his bicycle. This went on from 3rd grade to about 9th grade, about six years. I went through counseling for about a year for suicidal thoughts. I never once thought about using a gun for anything.

By high school I had began working out, learned to play guitar and started playing in garage rock bands, that's when I earned some respect and became fairly popular with the partying bunch. In fact the most popular girls flirted with me, even the prom queen, but they didn't stand a chance against my girlfriend with six strings.

It tempered me, I lived, but with a different personality, I could have done myself in.

a reply to: rickymouse

rickym from down in the "D"......: Outrage seems nullified. People have become cynical and repetitive: Every thing is like a video game. Everyone gets back up.

Used to think me (1) out of 5 people in line anywhere legally armed...families should be glad Im there. Now...that 20-something nice looking coed is packing. So are half her friends.

And ricky? Back and forth to Ohio....Ohio recently tossed all concealed and purchase laws. No permits to carry. 21 and up...And there are some snotty 20-30-yrs even 50' year olds in both states...now carrying.

PS Hello Ishpeming!!!***

*Half the folks wont know what an "Ishpeming" is!!! (wink!)

a reply to: Freeborn

People are still grieving 9/11 in a big way. And that was local and long ago. How does a global pandemic rate on that scale? You'd see grief here there and everywhere. Seriously tho'.

originally posted by: ancientlight
My guess would be he was bullied, and his parents ignored his pleas for help. And/or abused at home?
He didn't feel heard , and didn't see any way out of that

Well, since we're guessing...

My guess is he was being pushed into believing he was trans by some trusted school official (teacher, nurse, combination), and that process drove him over the edge.

I struggle with suicidal thoughts often, but I'm an adult , for a child to go through this ugh sick sorry world we live in.

I can't relate much, but below is a video of someone who completely cured a basically lifelong struggle with extremely serious depression and mental problems - and yes, it includes what/how he cured himself.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I was a nerd...I was in classes with Seniors when I was in the ninth grade. If I didn't have to take government and econ in my senior year, I would have been going to college half way through eleventh grade, they had a policy that you had to take government and econ in the twelfth grade only. So I couldn't go to MTU in the eleventh grade. That was ok though, I tested out of about a year and a half of college right away.

But being a Nerd in the early seventies was not popular. So I got bullied somewhat and learned how to talk down those who bullied me. You see I learned young that most bullies picked on people to make them feel equal in the school society. So I learned to talk to them on an equal basis. Things came easy to me in school,except Gym and athletics. I had tachychardia and didn't do good in sports, The doctor we had signed papers so I could get out of all gym...but I had to take band to get the elective. I did not want to play the saxaphone, I did like guitar but there was no class for that, I sure did not want to play a violin or anything like that so I sat in the bands room where they had a table and chairs and studied. I also did not want to carry a flag so I purposely screwed up with that. I did however go to the store for the teachers to get them snacks when they were in their lunchroom. To me Band was boring, Rock and roll was way more interesting. I played a guitar when I was young, but I did it by ear, I did not like reading notes.

So, I got bullied up till about the tenth grade until I learned how to deal with bullies. If the gym teachers knew how much exercise I got after school, they would not have been so hard on me. I could not run or jump, but I could swim a mile and I could walk ten miles in a day with the right boots on...not tennis shoes.

I did join track in my junior year, but I got a black out and the doctor said no more sports at all, It had to do with my hereditary tachychardia. I don't even know how I got home, and did not remember the doctor, I don't know what happened, I was sent to the locker room for dizziness. Then I waited till my friends got off and I backed out turning my head and I passed out I guess and sideswiped the schoolbus with the front bumper. I guess my friend in the front seat shut the key off. The track coach called someone....I was to embarrassed to ask all of what actually happened. Oh well, sixteen years old and wiped out a school bus...the whole side of it I guess, I never saw the bus and was not going to go look at the damage.

Did I ever think of suicide? Oh more than a couple of times. By the time I was nineteen I had hardened a lot like you say, that is part of the life of a boy growing up I guess. I have no regrets from all the things in my life, I would not change anything. My dad told me when I was young that a mistake is not a mistake if you learn from it, it is a learning experience. I learned to learn from others mistakes too, even though I got my nickname of Rickymouse...because I was quiet as a mouse...I listened to what others said the majority of my life and learned young how to tell the difference between BS and truth.

a reply to: rickymouse

I haven't seen this incident you posted in the news yet.

I do grieve for such a student that has taken their own life at such a young age. Bullying was my first suspicion and so my own story in reaction to your post on the subject. I didn't want to go there had I not been thinking about that happening in my life before I saw your post here. It is truly a sad ordeal.

I shield my self from grief somewhat, I can be indifferent if I have to be. With so much grief in the world, I can't dwell on it or I'd surely go insane.

a reply to: ConcernedCanadian

Still not one thread to offer after two years of coup flu demonstrating a community coping with grief? All I see here is conveniently placed bait.

Oops, I missed the point of this thread. I thought the subject of how to cope with grief was an interesting subject, but that isn't actually what this thread is about. Never mind then.

To put it shortly, "mass grieving" via mass stadium events are not going to work, or even be allowed for a fast spreading respiratory disease.
(That would be a "super-spreader" event, without much irony.)

Well some "celebrities" tried at the start of lockdown to do the "Imagine" or "We are the World" thingies on the Internet, but it wasn't quite accepted.

Although, even if you look across ATS, there's a lot of evidence of mourning, in indirect ways.

I think even with HIV/AIDS it took ten years before mourning took on prevention messages, and treatment mobilization.
All these proven things we lack at the moment e.g. a mask is not a condom. That is, does it even work?
And now?
Even in South Africa hardly anyone talks or mourns HIV today, although we have more HIV-positive people (8 million) than ever.

So, it might still take a while before we mourn the true extent of Covid-19.

P.S. Maybe with Covid we are still trying to find the language that connects personal grief to collective public mourning.

I mean imagine we had a "World Covid Day".

What should we all do?
I mean let's not get together in a physical sense.

I'm sure we will have such a day in future, but for the moment its meaning would be rather uncertain, or even divisive.