We all know the stages of grief and have experienced them in our life. I know many of us coped differently when schools closed in March 2020. I’m not proud of how I handled myself, but I’ve realized that this is how I was coping with this change and eventually I called this the stages of grief.
I was going through the 5 stages of grief when schools closed… and continued to stay closed. This image below was completely how I felt. I constantly moved from one stage to another on any given day.
I originally started with the stage of Denial. I spent my days sleeping in, emailing families when I woke up. After emails were sent and all emails were replied to, I worked out. I really took my first couple weeks as a long vacation.
I truly focused on myself and didn’t care as much about checking in with my students because I was told we would be back to school in 2 weeks. It basically was a holiday break.
Once schools stayed closed after the two weeks, the anger stage set in. I wanted to be back with my students. I wanted to go to my classroom. I wouldn’t be able to go back to my classroom until June to close up the classroom.
I spent my time having conversations with parents expressing how angry we were that schools were closed. Overall, I was very hands off with student learning during this time.
In late April, I finally decided to make the most of my time. I took as many professional development courses as I could. This provided me with the temporary pain relief. I was still learning and using my “work day” to grow as an educator.
I also was completing my master’s degree during this time and a part of me was worried what would happen when I no longer had my graduate classes to occupy my time. I would graduate in May 2020. I don’t do well with change or downtime so this was a double edge sword for me.
I knew I would have extra time without my graduate work and truly not teaching during the school day. I’m still embarrassed to even admit that.
Like I said before, I completely immersed myself in professional development. I finished:
Not to mention this is also the time I started my TPT and Boom Learning stores. I really needed something to do to keep me feeling busy and productive.
My depression hit after I was able to teach ESY until mid-July. From July-September, I really was in a funk. As terrible as it sounds, I didn’t feel that I had anything to live for. They took my teaching away.
I immersed myself in my TeachersPayTeachers store and product creation. I showed up daily on my teachergram because I didn’t know what else to do. Let’s be honest, you all knew exactly how I was feeling too. It was nice to talk with you.
Looking back, I realize that I needed to be doing something to avoid the fact that I had no idea what would happen in the upcoming school year. I projected all of my worries and pushed them aside. I acted like the future wasn’t coming. I didn’t know what the outcomes would be. I tried to protect myself in that way.
I think I finally got to acceptance a couple weeks ago. I finally feel slightly confident in my virtual teaching position. I realize this is what I’m doing this year and I don’t have much of a choice in it anymore. This was how I processed the stages of grief in the pandemic.
My motto this year: I am making the best with what I got
Here are the 3 things I would tell my past self:
If any of this resonated with you and you’d like to talk further, you can comment below or find me on Facebook or Instagram. Just know your emotions are valid. If you went through the stages of grief as well, I’d love to chat. Thank you for reading and letting me process my own emotions and coping strategies during this unprecedented time.
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