CLEVELAND — There are a lot of emotions that come with catching COVID-19 whether you or someone you know has it.
3News' Hollie Strano knows for herself after coming down with COVID-19 in December. Though the symptoms were mild, the mental side effects are a different story.
We talked with counselor Patty DeJohn on the range of emotions one can feel. These include guilt, shame and overthinking.
"So guilt, I always tell my own clients we can feel guilty when we intentionally -- and that's the word -- intentionally set out to hurt someone," DeJohn says. "So if you know you have COVID-19 and you go and breathe on someone's face, that's pretty intentional and then you can feel guilty about that if they end up getting it. But here's the real truth, we know this is so easy to get from everywhere."
DeJohn says all those feelings come from a single place.
"Because I specialize in grief and bereavement, I equate this, it's a parallel to grieving," she says.
The five stages of grief are denial, then anger and bargaining, depression and acceptance. Here's how that aligns with the pandemic.
In 2020, we felt denial when the world started shutting down. When we knew COVID-19 was here to stay, we felt anger and tried to bargain. When it started hitting those we love, we felt depression and deep sadness.
To climb out of that, DeJohn says we need to look internally.
"I think if we can think of energy in the sense of healing or fearful, we all want to be healed. But we have to do that our selves. It's nothing that we can get from someone else," she points out.
"So the more that we can be in tune with what we need, like I need more sleep or I need to eat better, I need to go for a walk. If we do that ourselves, then everyone else around us we can help a little bit better."
And that is how she says we reach the final stage of grief: Acceptance.
"And I'm truly an optimist, so I do believe this year is the third year of grief. Where you start finding, OK we're not in denial anymore, there's still some anger, still some bargaining, there's still some stages. But we're not at acceptance yet, but we're getting there," she says.
DeJohn works at DeJohn Funeral Homes as a Bereavement and Aftercare Specialist, but also offers one-on-one private counseling. You can learn more about her services here.
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