Coming out of a pandemic is not unlike coming out of betrayal

Grief metastasizes when neglected. I have experienced it in the form of full body-wracking sobs when a song comes on the radio, and in dreams I wake up from with tears streaming down my face — but also in shitty behavior towards boyfriends and friends, in steaming, misdirected anger, in embarrassment and jealousy and shame. Processing loss entails acknowledging so much more than sadness.

~Anne Helen Peterson, Culture Study

"No, I'm not ready," says writer Anne Helen Peterson, about our imminent emergence from pandemic lockdown. 

As I read her newsletter about the jumble of emotions she's experienced this past unprecedented-in-our-lifetimes year of global grief, it reads like a survival guide to infidelity too. The confusion, the loss of something difficult to name, the fear, the suspicion, the occasional unexpected euphoria. She categorizes all of it under a block-letter heading: TRAUMA. And that's true for those of us emerging from betrayal too. It doesn't matter if our trauma feels small and insignificant – we didn't experience sexual assault, or war, for instance – it nonetheless registers in our psyche. As Peterson writes, "Processing loss entails acknowledging so much more than sadness."

We need a vocabulary for infidelity. It's part of why I organized Encyclopedia for the Betrayed as, well, an encyclopedia. An A to Z examination of infidelity because it's hard to process an experience for which we lack the words. Loss is so much more than sadness.

What's more, like our feelings around this past year of lockdown and mask wars and concern for people we often don't give a second thought (grocery store workers, for instance), it can feel so destabilizing. I often cried at the strangest times – the cereal aisle at the grocery store – and other times felt long stretches of nothing when crying would have convenient. This past year has felt similar. I ache at odd moments and feel numb at others. I snap at my children when I'm angry with the anti-maskers jeopardizing the health of my 91-year-old father. 

So much more than sadness.

It's a comment I read often on this site, a sort of confused, "I'm beginning to feel better but am terrified" plea for explanation. 

I felt it then, when I, too, was emerging from betrayal, when I was beginning to live again rather than simply survive each day – and I'm feeling it now with news of friends being vaccinated, with my father's first vaccination, with promises that I, too, have a vaccination in my not-too-distant future. On the one hand, hurray! On the other, terror. What will this new world look like when we venture back into it? So much has changed. Everything, in fact.

See what I mean? It's hard to discern whether I'm talking about emerging from betrayal or from the pandemic. 

For me, healing from betrayal is far behind so what looms ahead is emerging from the pandemic. And the approach I plan to take, outlined by Anne Helen Peterson, is one I urge you all to take as well, emerging as many of you are from twin traumas: betrayal and pandemic.

It's an approach I took instinctually way back when: To move forward at my own pace. To pay close attention to what I could manage and what I could not. To listen to my body. To honor my needs. To curate my life with an intentionality that was new to me. Yes, to this event. No, to that one. Yes, to keeping this friend in my life. No, to that one.

Peterson puts it this way: "We can start clearing trail for our paths away from this pandemic year. We just have to make them meandering, with ample stops for rest. We will be collectively discombobulated and bewildered, working through layers of bittersweetness, anxious and angry and thrilled. Our post-pandemic selves will continue multitudes, and I cannot wait to get reacquainted with myself, with all of you. But it’s okay that I’m not there, not quite yet.'

It's okay that you're not there, not quite yet. You must allow yourself to rest. To heal on your timeline, not anyone else's. You, too, are working through layers of bittersweetness, anxiety and anger. And, perhaps, you're also experiencing a certain euphoria too. You, like all of us, contain multitudes. You, too, are getting reacquainted with yourself. Don't rush it. You deserve all the time you need.