“You don’t go around grieving all the time, but the grief is still there and always will be.” ~ Nigella Lawson

The world has experienced drastic change in the last two years since COVID-19 knocked at our doors. This situation has posed challenges at multiple levels with uncertainties, deaths, and lockdowns. Humankind has witnessed a mammoth count of deaths in the history, take for example how many people we lost to COVID-19 during the first and second waves. Loss of a loved one or grief has
become an unacceptable yet harsh reality for many families around the world. Grief, although inevitable, is the most difficult phase to deal with in one’s life.

In such an era of struggle and disaster, suffering of children and adolescents have gone unnoticed and undervalued. Along with having to deal with the agonies of sudden loss of parent or parents, close family member or friend, decreased social interaction with peers and extended families, no face-to-face schooling, loss of job of parents, fear of contracting the virus, illness of close ones, being restricted to home, and bombardment of death related news on television majority of children and adolescents are unprepared to handle these agonies!

Losing a parent is among the most adverse childhood experiences associated with various mental health problems. At this developmental stage, children and adolescents are not emotionally or cognitively prepared or matured enough to process death and grief. Experiencing multiple major stressors along with death of near ones pose them at risk of both short-term and long-term psychological consequences.

Death of a significant person with the pathos of not being able to see them for last time, bid them farewell, or conduct funerals has exacerbated complications in emotional expression of bereavement. Consequently, children are bestowed with untimely responsibilities of supporting survivors, taking care of other family members who are sick, financial strain, threat of discontinuation of education, etc. They are forced to process this untimely demise, bereavement, loss of support, having to continue life on own, facing the harsh realities of the world, and all of it alone!

We as a society, have learnt not to talk about death and dying. Death is a taboo word and we struggle to process witnessing someone dying or handling someone’s permanent absence from our reality. We know death is certain, but time of death is unknown. Anything unknown creates fear and fear creates anxiety related to our survival. In case of children and adolescents, its extremely difficult for them to fathom what is happening, future consequences, and dos and don’ts of acting in a certain way. It creates a sense of unparallel pain, emotional upheavals and trauma, which much of the time they take in silence, while being unable to express to anyone. These may Grief may get manifested in the form of guilt, anxiety, fear and insecurity along with feelings of sadness and phsyciological changes. Surviving parents struggling with their own miseries are unable to attend to their kids. As a result, most children and adolescents are not able to come up and express their share of distresses and worries to anyone and continue suffering endlessly. As mental health professionals, it’s imperative to intervene and help these section (our future generation) in order to lessen their burden. Therapheal, an online mental health platform, welcomes such children and adolescents to come forward to join our grief support group and allow us to be by your side and help you sail through this ordeal. Anyone who has gone through any kind of loss and is in distress, Therapheal is there with you to share your emotional burden and assist you in coping better to life, ahead.