The 6 Things No One Tells You About Grief
by Marissa Pomerance
What we’re feeling right now is more than just anxiety and fear and trauma.
We’re also feeling grief. Immense grief.
Grief for all the lives lost. Grief for the people who never had a chance to say goodbye. Grief for those who’ve had to bury their loved ones without ceremony. Grief for the mothers who’ve had to give birth without the support they deserve. Grief for lost jobs. Grief for lost time with family and friends.
Because grief isn’t just about loss of life. But understanding these 6 profoundly important, nuanced things about grief can, at least, help us process the complex emotions we’ve all been sorting through this year, and perhaps some of the complex emotions we’ve struggled with for our lives as a whole.
1. Grief isn’t just profound sadness.
Grief is a complex array of, sometimes conflicting, emotions. Grief is physical, mental, psychological, emotional.
It’s anger. Emptiness. Pain. Frustration. Regret. And physically, grief can show up as fatigue, nausea, chest pain, and headaches.
2. Grief isn’t just about death— it’s about loss.
Most of us think of grief as intense sadness over the death of someone close to us. But grief is actually a physical, emotional, and psychological response to any loss, not just the loss of life.
“While grief over death is most commonly known, it is far from the only cause of grief,” says Lisa Keefauver, social worker and founder of Reimagining Grief.
According to Lisa, “our lives are built by the stories we tell of our experiences. A death, loss, or traumatic event is akin to the manuscript of our lives being shredded and handed back to us with no instructions on how to re-write or live our lives. So we grieve when we’ve lost what we’ve had and when we realize we won’t have what we had dreamed of or been promised.”
We might experience grief from:
Divorce or relationships ending
Immigration
Job loss
Chronic illness
Catastrophic injury
Violence or other traumatic events
Unfulfilled professional dreams or plans
Fundamental limitations/shifts to our daily lives (i.e. COVID-19)
And we don’t just experience grief from losses beyond our control. “We can even grieve things that we ‘choose,’ like moving away from home or ending a relationship,” says Lisa.
Image from Instagram/ @goodmourningpodcast
3. We grieve the loss of our own identities.
Our identities are intricately tied up in so much around us: our relationships, our careers, our life choices. So any profound loss— the loss of a loved one or a divorce or a lost job— can cause massive shifts in our understanding of self. Even positive experiences, like motherhood, can cause us to completely re-evaluate who we are. And those huge changes in our self-esteem and identity can cause us to grieve.
“When we experience a sudden loss, we may need to adapt to a change in our identity, which relates to our self-image and how we feel we fit into the world around us,” says Kristi Ahern, psychotherapist and grief specialist. “We may get a strong sense of value and identity from our career and if we suddenly lose our job, this part of our identity would be lost and we might feel disoriented as we try to adjust to a change in how we define ourselves,” she says.
But we don’t just grieve for our lost identities. According to Kristi, “we can also grieve the loss of a life we never had. Most of us develop life goals and expectations for our future and when they aren’t met, we may grieve for these unrealized hopes. When our lived experience doesn’t match our expectations, we can be left with unresolved feelings.”
4. We grieve our childhoods.
Childhood trauma leaves lasting scars. We know this. Abuse, neglect, unmet needs— these affect our adult relationships, our ability to connect with others, our personalities, our ability to deal with rejection. But often, what’s at the root of those deep childhood scars is grief.
According to Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble, “unresolved arguments, bullying, misunderstandings that we are unable to fully process or address as children stay with us, so when we become adults, if we have never processed those hurt feelings, the grief of those events stays with us.”
And this long-standing grief can make it hard for us to move on as adults. “It often feels like we are reliving the same pain over and over until we learn how to process it better to get our needs met,” says Dr. Alfiee.
5. It’s OK if you’re not grieving in distinct stages.
We’ve all heard about the stages of grief countless times. And they feel…comforting. Like a helpful guide to process our feelings. An outline to follow. Something concrete.
But assuming that we should all follow the same grief trajectory can also be damaging. “We often hear about the Stages of Grief created by Kubler-Ross, and while these stages have provided some valuable information about what we might experience, many of us may never experience each stage and often jump back and forth between them as we grieve,” says Kristi Ahern.
And getting caught up in these stages can actually cause us more anxiety and frustration, causing us to worry about whether we’re grieving correctly.
“It is crucial that we don’t make comparisons which can lead us down a negative road, worrying that we aren’t grieving correctly. Our grief is uniquely ours and is influenced by what we were taught about our emotions, our cultural norms around loss, and our own special relationship to the loss itself,” explains Kristi.
6. There are specialized forms of therapy for persistent grief.
Grief can linger, and when it does, it can potentially turn into Complicated Grief.
Dr. Katherine Shear, Founder and Director of The Center for Prolonged Grief, explains, “complicated grief (CG) is not so different from acute grief, but it contains certain thoughts, feelings, or behaviors that get in the way of adapting to the loss. This means grief remains intense and continues to dominate a person’s life.”
If yearning for a loved one, or thoughts and memories, or regret and “what-ifs” start to get in the way of living a meaningful life, then you may be having a harder time processing and moving on from this grief. According to Dr. Shear, “complicated grief has a significant impact on a person’s ability to work, socialize, or function in other ways.”
Of course, not everyone who experiences grief suffers from Complicated Grief, but if you’re having trouble moving on with your life after a significant loss, just know that there’s specialized help. Complicated Grief Therapy (CGT) is a well-studied, effective form of therapy that identifies what’s stalling or halting adaptation, and helps restart the adaptation process.
Here’s a list of therapists who specialize in treating Complicated Grief.
Marissa Pomerance is the Managing Editor of The Candidly. She’s a Los Angeles native and lover of all things food, style, beauty, and wellness. You can find more of her articles here.
