Linda Collins, Author of Loss Adjustment

THERE IS LOSS felt by all in this Covid-19 crisis. The loss of job security, physical safety, personal freedoms, and the simple pleasures of shaking hands and hugging a friend. There is collective mourning for the over 100,000 lives lost and the havoc wreaked on our healthcare, education and economic systems. We are grieving over a prolonged period of time, on an uniquely micro and macro level.

Linda Collins is someone who understands loss better than she wishes to. In 2014, her 17-year-old daughter and only child took her own life, while Ms Collins and her husband were fast asleep in their bed. The suicide took place just three years after the family lost their New Zealand home to a devastating earthquake. The double whammy sent Ms Collins into a spiral of unspeakable grief.

Ms Collins, a copyeditor at The Straits Times, published a book titled Loss Adjustment In 2019. The book earned high praise, and was named "Book Of The Year" by key Singapore publications and personalities. Grief, she says, makes you question the very person you are.

During this crisis, a lot of people are describing their emotions as "grief" - even if they haven't lost a loved one. As someone who's experienced profound grief over the loss of her daughter, why do you think the word "grief" feels appropriate to so many now?

The usual dictionary definition of grief is intense sorrow, especially caused by someone's death. Interestingly, a medical site I looked at, medicinenet.com, described it as "the normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (such as a death), social (such as divorce), or occupational (such as a job)"... So such emotions are entirely appropriate now, as there is much to grieve. For a start, I think a lot of people are grieving the loss of identity. The world has changed suddenly, and normal ways and patterns of life have been turned on their head. There is a word bandied about to describe the technological change to employment: disruption. But now, not just jobs are disrupted. A virus has torn apart the fabric of society as we know it, or at the least, has exposed ugly parts of it that were hidden before. So the question of identity is a huge one, as it means a re-evaluation not just of oneself and who that individual might be now, but of community, society, sovereignty and universality. For me, the loss of my daughter made me question who I was as a person, mother, wife, colleague, member of society. But this was actually a good thing, and it made me a better person.

What advice might you have for people on managing this grief?

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Find whatever support you can through whatever means. By support, I mean someone you have an emotional connection with who can be there for you, if only in short bursts, but ideally, for longer periods of time. It could be a family member, or someone in a social group you are part of, or even a complete stranger in a group you can trust. For example, I get a lot of support from private Facebook groups for people who have lost loved ones to suicide. I have never met any of them and they live in different parts of the world. But we have this one thing in common: we understand what we have suffered... Right now, the "circuit-breaker" feels frustrating and isolating. But it is a rare chance for us to come together collectively for a greater good of halting the spread of the virus. Each individual holds the possibility of saving lives. What a gift that is. To make a difference to your frail loved ones, to your country, to humanity.

Besides losing your daughter Victoria, you also lost a house in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. I imagine many people are facing multiple points of anxiety now - not just the public health threat, but also job insecurity and family stress.

When I was coping with the earthquake, the insurers, and my daughter's suicide all at the same time, I learnt to break things down into two parts. The first is practical stuff which, in this Covid-19 crisis, means you're managing health, complying with virus-fighting requirements, keeping the cash flowing, holding down a job, tending to loved ones' needs, and so on. The second part is mental health. This involves eating well, exercising, resting and dealing with the isolation. Singapore has lots of practical help, both from the government and privately, and some of it is free. By help, I mean wage relief, help with finding jobs, with rent, finding somewhere to live, how to get a reasonable loan, and so on. In terms of mental health, I suggest turning to certain Facebook support groups that may be useful for pooling experience, advice and information. For me, though, it was through a Facebook anxiety group that I realised I needed more than that, I needed professional counselling help. This may be the case for many people out there now, if their problems are overwhelming.

In your most profound despair and isolation, what were the things you found comfort in?

What gives me comfort is being in nature. A friend advised me once when I was really down, to go out and sit in nature, preferably by a tree. And it works. Sit still, and observe and listen to the rhythms of nature. Have a sense of a wider world beyond the self. Take heart from the fact that under that canopy of nature, everyone has a place. The industrial notion of "value" is irrelevant.

There's so much uncertainty at the moment: When might this semi-lockdown be lifted? When might normalcy be restored? As someone who struggled to overcome her grief, how did you deal with the uncertainty of not knowing when normalcy might return, in some shape or form?

I've always hated and feared change. But the death of my daughter altered all that. It forced me to realise that life is out of my control. Things can change in a moment, forever. Grief is not something you could overcome, fix or cure. You just try to live with it. You just work with the circumstances as best you can. I now accept that I must enjoy the moment. And in this fleeting present, I am grateful to be here, above ground, still living. And I want to share this gratitude, for in sharing there is family and community.

With regard to your very poignant book, I imagine many people reached out to you after reading it.

Loss Adjustment was published at the end of September 2019 and right until now, I still have readers reaching out to me every week via email or social media, or recognising me in the street. I try and answer each message or, if requested, meet up with them. I always learn something new from them about grief and loss, and they always like to talk about Victoria, which for me is a wonderful thing, to hear her name said aloud. I don't have any advice to give them, nor am I trained in psychological counselling. All I can really do is listen and bear witness to their testimony. This is actually a big deal. So many Singaporeans I meet are nursing terrible secrets they've not been able to tell anyone about. These secrets are to do with tragedies in their lives, or aspects of themselves they would rather their families and societies didn't know. These people find a way of going on, of coping, all the while burdened with what to them is the unspeakable. It makes for a silenced, lonely, isolated, inauthentic existence. I like to think that once they tell me in confidence, the burden is lightened, challenged, put into the universe in some way that makes it an external thing, so that it is no longer wholly consuming the inner self.

Loss Adjustment is available for purchase at ethosbooks.com.sg/products/loss-adjustment Ms Collin's next book is a poetry collection titled Sign Language For The Death Of Reason, edited by Tania De Rosario and to be published by Math Paper Press later this year.