Loss in the Time of COVID-19: a New Narrative

Abstract

“Is it your job to keep me alive or to give me a better life?” he asked during one of our early sessions. I was taken aback. This wasn’t the last time he would ask me a question that would challenge my identity as a doctor, a foundation already unsteady as a new third-year resident navigating the world of outpatient psychiatry. We began meeting for therapy twice weekly last July and slowly he shared his story with me. Born in America, he felt immense pressure to succeed given the sacrifices his immigrant parents had made for him. He was supposed to have gone to college; however, his mental health had interfered. Sitting with him, I was struck by how tangible his pain was; it often felt like it engulfed me in the same way I imagine it deluged him. Apart from discussing his narrative, he often spoke of more existential domains, trying to make sense of the ugliness of humanity, largely blind to any of the beauty. He described feeling “victim to the chemical journey in his brain.”