It seems there’s no end to the way coronavirus can punish us. Along with the sadness and fear associated with the pandemic, many people are also experiencing overwhelming bouts of something called survivors’ guilt.

Often, it’s difficult to put your finger on this general feeling of unease, but it’s easy to identify. Unfortunately, it’s going to take some work to make it go away.

What is Survivor’s Guilt?

Survivor’s guilt is closely related to post-traumatic stress disorder and usually affects people that have survived some or other catastrophic event while others have perished. For example, those who’ve contracted COVID-19 and survived when their loved one’s haven’t.

However, in modern times this nagging feeling has taken on a new form, particularly in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. This close relative of survivors’ guilt is an uncomfortable, nagging feeling borne of the fact that the lockdown has revealed glaring inequalities in our society.

It’s called ‘privilege guilt’.

A constant barrage of information regarding infection rates, poverty, and the fatalities surrounding coronavirus only helps to compound both these types of guilt.

How to Ease Your Guilt

The most important thing to realise about survivors’ guilt and privilege guilt is that they achieve nothing. Your suffering doesn’t change anything, so don’t dwell on it.

While it’s important to acknowledge the suffering of others, you can’t save everyone, especially right now, when you could be endangering yourself by venturing out on a crusade.

By all means donate to worthy causes, if everyone does a little bit to help, we can make a difference. However, it’s very important to remember that you can’t do it all. Endangering your mental and physical health is not helping anyone.

Turn your guilt into gratitude. After all, if nobody had privileges, we wouldn’t be able to help one another at all. Gratitude is a wonderful counter to negative emotions, so appreciate what you have, no matter how little it is.

Guilt paralyses you into inactivity while gratitude frees you from its shackles.