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However You’re Feeling Right Now Is Totally Normal

A helpful glossary of pandemic emotions

Abigail LibersFollowApr 22 · 6 min read

Right now, every day, hour, and minute feels different. Some mornings, I wake up hopeful; other days, I’m filled with despair. One minute I’m feeling healthy and adjusted; the next, I’m scared to go outside to walk the dog.

In the face of a crisis, experiencing a strange mix of emotions is normal, says Ryan Howes, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Pasadena, California. “Some people are running on fear and adrenaline, others are feeling exhausted and burned out,” he explains. “People are wondering: Why can’t I sleep? Why did I just spend six hours on Twitter? Everything they’re feeling is a normal reaction to stress.”

Problem is, it can be difficult to put a name on this swarm of (mostly) negative feelings. “Our culture is not emotionally literate,” says clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, PhD, author of How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety. “When it comes to describing how they feel, most people only know a few basic terms, like sad, mad, glad. But these are just catchalls for a huge range of emotions.”

The thing is, learning how to identify specific feelings — like grief or anxiety — is crucial because doing so can help you work through those emotions. “If you know, for example, that what you’re feeling ticks the box for depression, then you can say ‘Oh, there’s a name for this and there are things I can do to deal with it,’” says Howes.

On the flip side, failing to identify your emotions may only make them worse. “When you don’t have a name for what you’re feeling, you get anxious, which compounds the problem. So not only are you feeling bad but you’re also scared about why you feel that way,” explains Howes.

Below are some of the emotions you might be feeling in the midst of Covid-19, plus how to deal with them. It’s worth noting that this list is only the tip of the iceberg — there are tons of things you may be feeling right now, and they’re all valid. But the emotions below are a good starting point, and recognizing them will help you have compassion for yourself — and others, especially those who might be in a different mental space right now.

“People are waking up to this heaviness and sadness. They’re telling me, ‘I cried and I don’t know why.’ It’s grief.”

Grief

Sadly, more and more people are dealing with the death of a loved one due to Covid-19. And while that kind of loss certainly brings up grief, there are other losses that may make you feel like you’re in mourning. “Trauma always involves a loss and with this pandemic, we’re dealing with the loss of the world as we knew it,” says grief expert David Kessler, author of On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss.

Maybe you’re grieving about the loss of your routine, your job, your freedom — all of that can trigger a deep sense of sadness that you may not recognize. “Grief is such an unknown emotion for people,” notes Kessler. “People are waking up to this heaviness and sadness. They’re telling me, ‘I cried and I don’t know why.’ It’s grief.”

Like it or not, the best way to deal with grief is to allow yourself to feel it — and not judge yourself for it. “We’re the first generation to have assessments for all our feelings, like: I’m sad but I shouldn’t be. We judge all our feelings and we end up with all these half-emotions that we never fully process. If you can just stay in your feeling, it will pass through fairly quickly,” says Kessler. “People worry that if they allow themselves to feel grief, it’ll never go away — like I’ll never be able to stop crying — but that’s not true. When you feel an emotion, it moves through you, and then you feel the next emotion and the next.”

Anger

You know what anger feels like but what you may not realize is that often it’s a “secondary emotion,” meaning it’s in reaction to a primary emotion like hurt, loss, embarrassment, or injustice, says Hendriksen. For example, if you’re mad at your mother for not following social distancing rules, what’s underneath that could be fear — you’re scared that she’ll endanger herself or others.

“Whenever people are feeling angry, I ask them to dig for the softer emotion underneath it,” says Hendriksen. Are you disappointed? Ashamed? Jealous? Scared? If you’re having trouble identifying the root emotion, look to your thoughts and body sensations for clues. For example, if your mind is racing and your jaw hurts from clenching, you might conclude you’re actually anxious. Or, if you’re ruminating about the past and your body feels heavy, you might be feeling depressed.

Of course, it’s possible that the primary emotion truly is anger — maybe you’re a frontline worker and you’re frustrated that you don’t have the supplies you need. Maybe you’re hunkered down at home and you’re outraged at others who aren’t taking the pandemic as seriously.

Let the anger move through you and then channel it into something constructive, suggests Howes. Organize with others who share your frustrations, write a letter to your congressperson, donate money to a cause that matters to you. Taking productive action will help mitigate the anger you’re feeling.

Fear

“A lot of people are experiencing fear right now and it’s hard to sit with,” says Howes. “It makes you feel small and powerless, whereas anger makes you feel strong and energized.” Your fear may run the gamut from being scared of getting really sick from the virus to being afraid of what the future will look like.

That fear goes hand in hand with anxiety, says Hendriksen. “Anxiety is fear of the unknown, and right now there’s a lot we’re uncertain about.” Some people don’t know where their next meal will come from; others don’t know if they’ll have a job on the other side of this. Whatever your anxiety is about, it’s okay to feel scared.

One way to mitigate all the unknowns is to create some certainty for yourself, says Hendriksen. If you’re home right now, you can do that by sticking to a regular routine, whether that means exercising at the same time each day or making it a practice to call a friend after dinner. “Creating anchors in your day is soothing,” says Hendriksen.

Guilt

If you’re not part of a vulnerable population or fighting on the front lines right now, chances are you feel some degree of guilt. “People feel bad that they’re not doing enough or they’re not suffering enough,” says Howes. Some may even feel “survivor’s guilt” if they haven’t been directly affected by the coronavirus.

While it’s normal (and healthy) to feel for those who are suffering around you, guilt may not be the most helpful reaction. “Guilt is the emotion you feel when you think you’ve done something wrong,” says Hendriksen. Unless you’re a doctor or essential worker, you’re not at fault for staying home — in fact, you’re doing exactly what you should be doing.

Rather than beat yourself up for being more fortunate than others, consider what you can do to help people who need it. Maybe that means giving money to local businesses or organizations or offering emotional support to friends and family. Whatever you do, being of service won’t just help others — it’ll make you feel better, too