When the Water Rises: Grief, Anger, and Collective Healing in the Wake of Environmental Disaster
Hey friends.
Texas is hurting. Again.
More than 100 lives lost. More than 160 people still missing.
Homes swallowed whole. Families displaced. Communities overturned and washed away.
Entire towns holding their breath, hoping for a miracle—and preparing for more loss.
The flooding across the Texas Hill Country isn’t just a tragic weather event—it’s a communal rupture. And if you’re sitting with a lump in your throat, a heaviness in your chest, or a rage you can’t quite place… you’re human, and you’re grieving.
What’s happening isn’t normal - but your response is.
🖤 Grief in the Wake of Sudden Loss
There’s a kind of grief that doesn’t wait politely.
It doesn’t follow neat five-step models (like grief ever does, TBH - so maybe let’s rid ourselves of that silly notion).
No, this grief arrives like the flood itself—rushing in fast and furious and washing the ground out from under you. You’re caught in a spinning torrent, barely able to catch your breath, hoping to find something you can grab onto so you won’t be swept away.
Whether you lost someone you love, a neighbor you waved to every day, a home, or even someplace that holds memory…sudden loss floods the nervous system with confusion, panic, and helplessness.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR), traumatic grief after a disaster can overlap with acute stress responses, complicated bereavement, and PTSD symptoms—including flashbacks, guilt, and dissociation (APA, 2022). (I fully admit that the DSM is problematic in a white colonial understanding of mental health sort of way AND I also think that it gets this particular issue *mostly* right.)
Right now, it’s important to know that your grief doesn’t have to make sense. You don’t have to compare your pain or loss to that of others - or justify why you’re crying about someone you never personally met.
Your nervous system recognizes collective threat and loss, and your body remembers—even if your mind can’t explain it.
Somatic approaches to grief (like grounding, movement, or even just saying “I am here”) can help slowly re-anchor your body and mind.
You're not “overreacting.”
You’re reacting because you have empathy and because you care.
💢 The Rage We’re Not Supposed to Name
Let’s be clear: These grievous losses could have been mitigated - maybe even avoided.
Yes, climate change makes extreme weather more frequent and intense. But human negligence—especially governmental negligence—amplifies disaster.
Underfunded infrastructure. Outdated warning systems. Little to no emergency preparation for rural communities. And let’s not forget: communities of color, disabled folks, low-income families, and undocumented people are disproportionately affected and left behind during these disasters (Bullard & Wright, 2012).
Even if “thoughts and prayers” were helpful, they’re always reactive.
They don’t solve problems.
They don’t keep people safe.
When our grief meets injustice, it often turns into anger.
Rage is grief’s bodyguard.
Rage steps in when the sorrow gets too big to carry alone. Don’t be afraid of your anger. It’s telling you what matters. It's pointing to broken systems. It's demanding accountability.
Feel it.
Don’t rush past it because you’ve been taught that anger is inherently bad or harmful.
Anger is a crucible.
Let it clarify your values.
Then put it to use.
Rage gets shit done; it stokes the fire of action - organizing, protecting, and rebuilding.
🧠 Nervous Systems in Crisis
Whether you were directly affected or watching from afar, the intensity and scale of this type of event creates a nervous system crisis.
Hypervigilance. Survivor’s guilt. Distraction mid-sentence. Intrusive thoughts. Freezing up when you try to focus. Feeling numb. Losing track of time. Suddenly re-cleaning your entire kitchen at 3AM…
These are not “bad” or even maladaptive coping skills—they’re signs your brain is doing what it can to survive chaos.
ADHDers and trauma survivors especially may find themselves spiraling. That’s because our brains already run on urgency, pattern recognition, and emotional intensity.
When disaster hits, our brain noise gets amplified to the max. You experience more sensory overload and less bandwidth to simply keep it together.
Staring blindly at an empty cracker box in your pantry might be the norm for a bit - and that’s okay.
For the moment, release any expectations about executive functioning, productivity, or efficiency.
You are human.
And even if you are a cog in the capitalist machine, your brain is busy prioritizing survival over spreadsheets.
So please, grant yourself permission and grace to not be your best self - not as an excuse to cause harm, but as a means of understanding and creating the space to understand the harm that’s been done.
So what do we do? How do we cope?
We regulate before we process.
Start small:
A cold rag on the back of your neck.
Putting your feet on the floor and naming five things you see.
Listening to the same song on repeat because it helps. (I recommend Beyonce’s “Break My Soul.”)
Texting a friend: “I don’t know what to say, but I need to not be alone.” Or “Tell me something funny.”
These micro-regulations create just enough safety for your system to stop spiraling and to start reintegrating.
🤝 Community Grief and Communal Repair
We often think of grief as private.
Truth is, isolation makes it so much worse.
And when the impact is this huge, the grief becomes collective—shared across neighborhoods, communities, cultures, and entire regions.
Community grief rituals—like candlelight vigils, storytelling, art installations, mutual aid networks, and memorial walks—help us metabolize the immensity of loss. They provide containers to hold the grief that’s too big to carry alone (hooks, 1999; Kessler, 2019).
If you’re a helper or healer: please remember, you don’t have to fix this. You literally can’t fix it. It’s too big, and the parallel processing is too much.
Bearing witness to someone’s sorrow is an act of profound care. Let it be enough.
If you’re grieving and unsure how to keep going: look for signs of community. They’re everywhere - and Austin and the Hill Country are really showing up.
Restaurants and small businesses are donating 100% of proceeds for entire days of purchases.
Mutual aid funds are organizing donations of any and every thing they can think of.
Folks are covering funeral costs and medical care.
Organizations are collecting resources for the long-term resource-related impacts of the devastation.
Despite the continued insanity of our current federal political situation, you are not alone in this.
You never were.
As Mr. Rogers said, “Always look for the helpers.”
💬 What Now?
We’re allowed to grieve.
We’re allowed to rage.
We’re allowed to rest, organize, cry, scream, clean, mourn, and imagine something better—all at once.
This blog won’t rebuild homes or bring back loved ones.
It won’t erase the videos and images that are seared onto our brains and replaying in the darkest hours of the night.
But I hope it reminds you that your feelings make sense. That trauma and grief deserve time, space, and care. That our collective bodies are reeling—and that healing starts by acknowledging and honoring that truth.
If you're struggling to process, please reach out. Therapy can’t undo what’s happened—but it can help you carry it differently; it can help you lighten your load.
Be gentle with yourself. And with each other.
We’ve got a long road ahead—but at least we’re walking it together.
With you in the flood and the aftermath,
—Max
Citations & Resources
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). DSM-5-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.).
Bullard, R. D., & Wright, B. (2012). The Wrong Complexion for Protection: How the Government Response to Disaster Endangers African American Communities. NYU Press.
hooks, bell. (1999). All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow.
Kessler, D. (2019). Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Scribner.
TikTok & Reddit threads on #ClimateGrief and #CollectiveGrief (2022–2025), particularly those by @lianajournal and r/ADHDsupport.
Instagram: @thenapministry and @climateemotions
