When ITeS professional Shilpashri A succumbed to COVID-19 last month, her friends paid her tributes on an online platform collating stories, photos and videos of her. Later, in a virtual remembrance meet, her friends from Change.org — to whom she was a fellow Changemaker — shared anecdotes from her life. Besides honouring Shilpa’s memory, this exercise helped them deal better with their grief.
“I was particular I was not going to make others cry by what I shared at the remembrance meet. I wanted to celebrate Shilpa’s life by talking about the various causes she was driving,” says Jincy Varghese, who conducted the virtual meet from Mumbai. “The meet gave us a shared sense of closure although the grief will remain.”
With mounting deaths across the country due to the virus, the collective grief is indeed huge. Without a proper grieving process, the grief burden would also mount, caution counsellors.
Parveen Shaikh, Head - Outreach and Collaborations, Mpower, a mental health services provider, says that in many ways Indian rituals during the death of a family member are designed to provide some means of support. “It helped the family come out of the initial shock by talking about the loss, but that is not happening now as we are separated by social-distancing norms and other restrictions,” says Parveen.
- * Caregiver Saathi is running “Sukh-Dukh” helpline for those who have lost a loved one. The free emotional support is offered in eight languages by calling 8707447047.
- * The Government of Maharashtra and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, in association with Mpower, has been running a 24x7 mental health helpline (1800120820050) for any mental health concern arising out of pandemic-related challenges. It also runs ‘#LetsChat1on1’, a mental health chat service via mpowerminds.com
- * AltMindShift is offering free counselling in Hindi and English from Monday to Saturday (10 a.m to 8 p.m.) for caregivers and COVID positive patients in stress. They can be contacted at 9967035943
- * National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences Bengaluru supports anyone suffering from mental health distress. Reach them at 080 46110007
She says grief is lifelong but the immediate intensity of the shock over being bereaved can be reduced when friends, colleagues and family members grieving the loss of a loved one come together. While some are forming support groups and listening circles, corporates are engaging with Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) services providers to offer grief counselling to employees.
“These are essential to replace bad memories of how the person left and bring good memories of how the person was,” says Parveen.
Helplines help
Rajita Ramachandram, founder, AltMindShift, says in today’s context grief counselling is specifically targeted at loss of somebody and the pain of not having said a proper goodbye or the inability to be at the hospital bed and of not being able to attend the cremation. But there could be other trigger points too.
“Having distress in managing adversity. Also, if somebody is feeling extended hopelessness or helplessness due to job loss, failure or because of lost opportunities then these are additional factors in grief and they must seek help,” says Rajita.
She says EAPs are getting more proactive with companies scheduling grief sessions for employees.
“We recently had an employee of a company approach us after he lost his father and he was not able to focus on his work. In another case, we had the HR team request us to take up a session on an urgent basis,” she says. She says grief and loss impact productivity, and people’s ability to concentrate and be resilient.
How to identify signs in a person? “When a person is taking a lot more leave than usual, experiencing a low or feeling pained. Or when someone says things like I don’t feel like living anymore. These are signs that they need counselling,” says Rajita. She says giving employees time to grieve, may be with a bereavement leave policy is a proactive step.
Many EAP services providers including AltMindShift and Mpower are helping companies set up bereavement support groups within the organisation. These are not just guided by experts, but also the bereaved.
Says Praveen, “Initially, grief needs one-to-one counselling and later it can be through a support group.”
