Grief

I’m currently supporting a colleague run a grief course. During our second meeting someone said something that got me thinking.

 “People don’t like talking about grief and loss. They find it uncomfortable”

And while true it got me wondering why.

I mean, we all experience loss and grief, whether it’s through someone we love or care about dying or receiving a terminal diagnosis. When we lose our job or a relationship breaks down, and contact stops. We can even go as far to say we experience grief when a favourite item of clothing wears out.

Yet it’s not something we talk about.

Is it because we don’t see the need, or because we think we won’t be heard?

Maybe when we try, we get shut down, or we feel responsible for others’ emotional response, and we find ourselves trying to manage their emotions as well as our own.

Yes the loss of an item of clothing is short-lived, missed but soon replaced by something new, but other losses and death cannot pass by so quickly.

The depth of the emotion depends very much on the depth of the relationship either had or longed for.

Each person’s experience is different. Yet there are some things that are similar, so similar that people have created models of grief and discovered there are certain elements we all experience. This is one from 1998

1.    Shock & Disbelief: Initial numbness or refusal to believe the loss, acting as a defense mechanism to protect against immediate pain.

2.    Denial: Trying to pretend the loss did not happen or avoiding reminders, often continuing routines to maintain normalcy.

3.    Anger: Feeling intense frustration, rage, or irritability directed at oneself, the situation, or a higher power.

4.    Bargaining: Making promises to a higher power or reviewing "what if" scenarios to try and reverse the loss.

5.    Depression/Guilt: A period of deep sadness, isolation, and loneliness, sometimes accompanied by intense guilt over the situation.

6.    Testing & Reconstruction: Rebuilding life by creating new routines and trying new activities, working through emotions to find a new normal.

7.    Acceptance & Hope: Acknowledging the reality of the loss and learning to move forward, where memories bring comfort rather than just pain. 

We don’t experience the stages in a systematic linear way, we can experience an element move to another, then revisit the one we moved from. We continue to circulat them. If plotted on a graph, the activity would look a little messy.

While finding the exact description of the grief process it stated this.

Duration: While the intensity of grief usually decreases over time, there is no set timeline, though symptoms often evolve or resolve after 1–2 years.

I wonder if this is why people struggle to talk after this period. There is an expectation that we should just get over it by the time 2 years have passed. But this just isn’t realistic.

Why is it not realistic?

Lets start with losing a job or a friendship. We know who we are within certain groups, if we have lots of friends loosing one friendship isn’t massive, its sad, but it doesn’t change how we view ourselves. If it’s a job and we gain a new job quickly and get on well in it, the feeling of loss my subside fairly quickly because you are involved in something new and that requires lots of attention to build new relationships. In doing so, your connection network grows. But if you don’t get a new job or that friendship was your main one, it may cause us to ruminate on several questions like these.

 Who am I outside of this relationship/situation/environment?

What’s my identity now?

Am I not good enough/skilled enough?

Am I too much?

Will creating a new friendship/relationship just cause me more pain?

These types of questions can hold us back, cause us to withdraw from others, thus holding us in the grieving process, where we can get stuck. It’s connection that helps us move through the stages.

If it’s the death of a person, our connection to that person will dictate the depth of our grieving. We can convince ourselves they are just away for a while, on a business trip, on holiday, or they have moved. This will delay our grief process. We can then busy ourselves with tasks and looking after others. Ignoring our own pain and throwing ourselves into anything that will distract us. Only slowing or stopping when we are exhausted or injure ourselves.

At this point, the pain of loss hits us like a train, so we either busy ourselves as quickly as we are able to push it away. Or we live in the past, in our memories, getting stuck in a time now past, but a time that felt safe. A time when we knew our role and who we were, never fully processing our grief and never learning who we are now outside of that relationship.

But if we recognise that they are no longer able to share our experiences. They are not available to talk to, and their part in our life has been halted. We can process and move through the different aspects of grieving. We make new relationships and move towards new goals that they are not part of. The process works through, we are able to define who we are, having been influenced by the relationsip and discover who we are now that relationship has ended. The hole created by their death stays the same, but we grow bigger. We create new memories, have new experiences and gain new connections/relationships. In this growth, that hole, although the same size, appears smaller. There is still pain, but it is no longer consuming. Though this can be more difficult in later life when our networks and opportunities to connect with new people reduce. This is why activities and groups for older people are really important.

What helps us move safely through the process?

 Talking about the person, the impact that person had on our life. What we enjoyed about spending time with them, what we learned from them. What aspects they brought out in us. How they made us feel. If we were with that person when they died or shortly before what did we say or do? Or what do we wish we had said or done?

Talking about these things and sharing thoughts and memories all help us process that they have died. It helps us recognise their impact and take the good parts forward. Helping to define who we are now without them.

Next time you hear of someone passing, and you want to show your support, ask their friends and family if they would like to talk about them. Listen, don’t say things to try and make yourself feel better, trying to sound supportive, that puts pressure on them to reassure you it’s ok. Just listen!

If you know the person, share some nice stories about your experience of being with them. If you don’t know them, ask questions, show the person you are with that their life mattered and you are interested in hearing about them.

Your time and curiosity is more valuable than you realise.