The Impact of Global Events on Personal Grief and Loss

By Tommy Sheridan, MA, Psychotherapist & Death Doula

Lately, I’ve been sitting with something heavy—something I see echoing throughout my work as both a therapist and a death doula. It's the quiet grief that creeps in when the world feels like it’s unraveling. The kind of grief that doesn’t have a clear beginning or end, a name or ritual. It’s ambiguous grief—and it’s everywhere.

Ongoing global events—mass shootings, economic instability, racial injustice, climate crises, and political division—have quietly reshaped the way we move through the world. But they’ve also reshaped how we experience loss. Not always in the form of a death, but in the loss of safety, of certainty, of connection, of the version of life we thought we’d be living.

In session after session, I hear it in the voices of clients who feel unmotivated, numb, or disconnected—and can’t quite place why. It’s the teenager mourning missed milestones that may never arrive. The mother grieving the innocence lost in her child’s eyes after another horrifying headline. The adult children carrying guilt for not being there for aging parents—tied to jobs they can’t afford to lose just to keep their heads above water. It’s a heartbreak that lingers in the background, unspoken but very real.

As a death doula, I hold space for families navigating the end of life—and this, too, has changed. The rituals, the visits, the goodbyes—so many of them have been complicated by distance, fractured families, or simply the pace of life that doesn’t slow down for grief. The absence of closure leaves a mark.

Ambiguous grief doesn’t ask for permission. It lives in our bodies, our breath, our nervous systems. And yet, because there isn’t always a death, we don’t always give ourselves the grace to name it as grief. But it is.

I’ve come to realize this: even when the world feels chaotic, we still long to be seen, to be held, to have our pain witnessed without needing to justify it.

So, I want to say this: if you’re feeling lost, heavy, or untethered, even without a specific reason… you’re not broken. You’re grieving, and your grief is valid.

In my work, I’m learning that healing often begins with naming. With slowing down enough to say: This hurts, and I’m not alone in it.

If you’re carrying quiet grief, I’m here. We can hold it together.