Dr. Stevie Falk’s tips for processing the impact to your final months of high school: Know that we are here to help you get through this.

1. Expect to feel sadness over your loss. Treat these feelings as similar to mourning. Allow yourself to cry, be angry, disappointed, and frustrated.
2. Memorialize your loss. Create a video, write a poem, create a senior year music playlist, plant a tree, tend a garden, or make a scrapbook of memories that you can look back on fondly to remember the great parts of your senior year.
3. Realize the rug was pulled out from under you. The shock and suddenness of the loss will eventually give way to acceptance and a “new normal” will emerge. Most of you are too young to remember 9/11. Ask your siblings, friends, or family how 9/11 is similar to get a sense of how long it will take to stabilize. Hope springs eternal.
4. Expect to feel some anxiety; these are unique circumstances with many things unknown. However, realize that we’re going through this together.
5. The universality of the situation can bring people together through shared experiences. This is one of the most powerful curative factors in group therapy (Yalom). The realization that your pain is not unique, that it is shared by others, can be profoundly healing.
6. Reframe the thought that you’ve “lost your senior year” into you’ve lost some final experiences. Think of your high, middle, and elementary education its entirety. Use your positive memories to help you transcend this relatively brief unpleasant period.
7. Some things will feel undone: your sports season or spring musical may have been cut short. Look toward the next phase of your life to finish them. Compete in your sport at the college level or intramurals. Get involved with LVC’s Wig and Buckle Theater Company. Join one of the College’s many music groups, ensembles, or marching band. It doesn’t have to be the end if you don’t want it to be.
8. Resist the feeling of isolation that has been forced on you. Get involved in group chats, join LVC’s 2024 Facebook group, visit LVC’s Instagram (which also has advice for getting through this), write an old-fashioned letter to a lifelong friend, and follow us on social media to stay connected.

 

Dr. Stevie Falk
Director of Counseling Services, Shroyer Health Center
Twitter: @LVC_5050
Instagram: lvc_5050