Why L.A. fire victims may be feeling worse now psychologically

In the first months after the L.A. wildfires, which took my family’s Palisades home, I fashioned myself a master of compartmentalization. I felt little emotion, laser-focused on finding a place for our family to live and procuring essentials: toothbrushes, mouthwash, underwear and sneakers. Making sure we were eating and drinking enough water. Hoping the dog wouldn’t pee in the hotel elevator again. Packing school lunches in the bleary-eyed dawn as we scoured the internet for rentals.

As a professor, I plunged right back into teaching classes, tap dancing away the loss and cracking macabre jokes at my own expense, remarking that the fires were the ultimate Marie Kondo exercise in decluttering. “Just burn it all down!” I bellowed out to my students, who looked at me with quiet concern. I resolved to adapt to the new reality at all costs, because adapting meant surviving.

Despite my best efforts, grief crept in, unexpected and stealthy with its delayed arrival. In the middle of April, I found myself involuntarily recalling the first night of the fires. I tunneled back to that Mid-City Chinese restaurant where we had gathered our first night away from home, hoping we’d be back in a few days, but the delicious food suddenly became tasteless, our stomachs anxious knots. About 20 minutes later, our phones pinged and buzzed with notifications that the smoke alarms and sprinklers were going off. I felt our house burning down in my body, in my cells, the flames devouring the grounding forces of our lives — our home and community. The mountains we hiked. The familiar streets where we walked our dog, where our kids learned to ride bikes while we breathlessly ran after them, barking out encouragement.

Now that the semester is over and summer is here, the grief has grown even more palpable, heavy and real. Other fire victims have also confessed it’s hitting them harder now that the acute crisis has subsided. No longer are we picking through clothing donations or wishing we had a colander or worrying about running out of time in short-term rentals. Most of us have accepted some type of new routine, along with the confrontation that this is it. This is our reality. I recently went to see my doctor who had lived on the Palisades bluffs with her family for over 40 years. When I asked how she was holding up, she said, “Everyone else has moved on,” and then she started to cry. “I know,” I admitted. “It’s true. Except for us.”

When feelings associated with loss don’t fully arise for weeks, months or even years after a tragedy, psychologists refer to it as delayed grief or complicated grief. I spoke with therapist and Jungian analyst Stephen Kenneally about why grief is showing up for many L.A. fire victims now, six months after the disaster, and what we can do to cope. “Resilient individuals may need to postpone grief out of necessity,” he said. “Yet eventually, the question of how to reckon with loss returns, often just as the world seems to have moved on. Parts of the psyche can scarcely believe what has happened, even while you appear to have ‘bounced back.’”

Kenneally added that in time, those grieving must confront the finality of loss, often in quiet contrast to the outward signs of resilience. If you are struggling with delayed grief, here are some coping strategies that might help, no matter the timeline.

Connect with others experiencing similar grief

When I run into neighbors who also lost their homes in the fires, there’s a mutual understanding that we don’t have to pretend we’re doing just fine. The other night, I bumped into a fellow parent at an ice cream shop and when I asked how he was, he said, with a regretful smile, “depends on the day.” He said there was the “fire group” and the “non-fire group” in his daily interactions, and only people in the “fire group” could really understand the depth of our collective loss, how it still trailed us like a malevolent shadow.

Along with talking to a grief counselor or therapist, seeking out a support system can be vital. Finding solace in my community helps me feel more connected to those around me and myself. However, it’s important to not compare your grieving process with that of others. Kenneally emphasized the nuanced and idiosyncratic nature of each person’s journey through loss: “How one moves through this is a deeply personal and mysterious process,” he said.

Make time to feel your feelings

Sitting with memories of what was lost is extremely painful, but can ultimately help one heal. “We also must hold a certain tension — a paradox, even a disorientation — as the psyche mourns and releases outdated forms and lifts old values and memories into a place of deep honor,” Kenneally said. “Without this, grief risks feeding the complexes of suspicion that insist the world holds only sorrow and threat, rather than meaning and renewal.”

The first time I really cried was when I recalled the night we had found out the rec center was burning. I remembered the countless Saturdays we spent inside that gym, year after year, watching our son and his teammates play basketball. I could still feel the hard cold bleachers under my jeans, the ref’s shrill whistle, the buzzer going off just when a kid lobbed a three-pointer, the echoey sound of the basketball rippling down the court. I still pictured my son playing pickup games late into the afternoon, sweaty and free in his childhood park.

Kenneally says feeling the pain is an important tool in addressing loss, as is telling one’s story, tending to the body, expressive arts and mindful movement.

Acknowledge that there’s no linear road to processing grief

Sometimes I think I’ve finished grieving until I realize I haven’t. A book I excitedly promised to loan to a friend until I remembered that book burned down with the hundreds of books I’d collected over decades. A favorite dress found in a thrift shop in Joshua Tree that I was hoping to wear but then, after a quick stab of regret, I realized it’s gone, along with everything else. At a stoplight, my gaze will magnetically travel north to the Santa Monica Mountains blanketed in a golden charred brown, and I travel back to hiking those trails, surrounded by sage, lavender and flitting bluebirds. My stomach still drops when “home” pops up on the car navigation system set to an address that no longer exists for us, and yet our old house key dangles steadfastly from my keychain.

I’m trying to give myself and others grace and remember that grief is not finite, there’s no neat ending point. A wise friend once told me that grief is like a room in a house. In the beginning, you might enter it many times, even feeling as if you may never leave it, but over time you’ll visit the room less and less as life tumbles forward with new joys and sorrows. And yet, that room remains there as a space to grieve, to remember, until it becomes part of who you are, another piece of your story.