The Grief of Long-Term COVID Caution: How IFS Helps Us Honor All Our Parts' Experiences

Disclaimer: This blog post is meant for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any physical or mental disorder. This is not a substitute for treatment from a licensed mental health professional. 

It's 2025, and you're still masking. Still declining indoor gatherings. Still being "that person" who asks about ventilation. And if you're honest with yourself, the grief feels enormous and unending.

This isn't the acute grief of early pandemic lockdowns, when everyone was struggling together. This is the chronic, disenfranchised grief of remaining cautious in a world that has collectively decided the pandemic is over. It's the grief that no one wants to hear about anymore.

At Perceptive Insights Psychological Services, we use Internal Family Systems Theory (IFS), which offers a framework for holding this complex grief with compassion—honoring the parts carrying different aspects of loss while maintaining the boundaries that keep you safe.

The Many Faces of COVID-Caution Grief
Your internal system holds multiple forms of loss:

The Grieving Part might carry sadness about missed weddings, postponed travel, the spontaneity you once took for granted, friendships that couldn't survive differing risk tolerances, and the future you imagined that no longer seems possible.

The Angry Part might hold rage at governments that stopped mitigating, at people who mock your precautions, at the societal gaslighting that denies ongoing transmission, at friends who promise to accommodate you but don't follow through.

The Lonely Part knows the particular isolation of being marginalized within a marginalized experience—cautious even among those who were once cautious, gradually watching your social circle shrink.

The Exhausted Part is tired of explaining, calculating risk, being vigilant, advocating for yourself, and carrying the emotional labor of everyone else's discomfort with your boundaries.

Why This Grief Gets Stuck
In traditional grief models, we're taught that grief has stages, that it resolves, that we "move on." But the grief of long-term COVID caution is ambiguous loss—you're losing things continuously while the threat remains active. There's no funeral, no clear endpoint, no collective ritual of mourning.

Additionally, disenfranchised grief—grief that society doesn't recognize or validate—often goes underground. When people respond to your grief with "but you could just stop being so careful," your parts learn it's not safe to share. The grief becomes exiled, pushed down because it's too painful and too invalidated to hold in awareness.

How IFS Creates Space for COVID Grief
Internal Family Systems offers something powerful for those carrying COVID-caution grief: the practice of Self-witnessing. Even when the outside world won't validate your loss, you can turn toward your grieving parts with genuine presence.

One of the core insights of IFS is that grief doesn't need to be "processed away." It needs to be witnessed and held with compassion. Your grieving parts don't need to be fixed or convinced to move on—they need to be genuinely seen and acknowledged.

In IFS, there's recognition that parts often carry different aspects of the same loss. One part holds rage at societal denial. Another holds deep sadness about missed connections. Another holds exhaustion from constant vigilance. Rather than seeing these as one problem to solve, IFS recognizes each part's particular experience and the wisdom each one holds.

When grief is acknowledged rather than minimized, when all your parts' experiences are validated rather than judged, something shifts internally. The burden doesn't disappear, but it becomes bearable. Your parts no longer feel like they're screaming into a void—they feel witnessed.

This internal witnessing creates the foundation for moving through grief without being consumed by it. Not because the grief isn't real, but because you're no longer alone with it.

What Integration Looks Like
You won't "get over" this grief while the pandemic continues and society remains in denial. But with IFS, you can:

• Feel your grief without it incapacitating you

• Maintain boundaries from Self-led clarity rather than defensive rigidity

• Let anger move through you without becoming bitter

• Honor your losses without pathologizing your caution

• Find moments of joy and connection within your constraints

• Trust that all your parts—grieving, angry, protective, hopeful—have a place in your internal system

The grief of long-term COVID caution is real, valid, and ongoing. You don't need to wait for the world to acknowledge it. Your Self can offer your parts the witnessing they deserve. 

To connect with a mental health professional who understands the difficulties facing those of us who remain covid cautious firsthand, reach out to Dr. Lauren Bartholomew today!