Grief. That’s a tough word for me to say out loud. When I lost my grandmother in 2020, it was a word I refused to utter. For some reason, I thought if I spoke the word aloud, I would have no choice but to acknowledge that she was gone. But, if I kept it to myself there was still hope and I did not have to come to terms with her passing. I was certainly in denial (the first stage of grief) whether I wanted to recognize it or not. I suppressed the love, memories, and laughter. According to Kubler-Ross, there are 5-stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. On my journey, I’ve jumped from denial to depression back to denial to acceptance to denial again.
All of this to say that grief is by no means linear. There is no perfect blueprint for how to experience it, no perfect roadmap. Unfortunately, there is no E-Z Pass to take the expressway straight to acceptance. Often, people can experience multiple stages in one day or be in one stage for a week. After all, grief is an emotion, something we’ve been told to suppress. In the American hustle culture, we are convinced that any discomfort can be alleviated by getting back to the grind. We experience a loss and go back to work, to school and to social gatherings. We are discouraged from sharing things that might “dampen the mood”. Push those feelings down. We don’t like to be alone with the thoughts and memories of what’s been lost. Push down the feelings, again, just for good measure. As a result, we stay in this vicious circle of isolation and emptiness. We never really allow ourselves the chance to process what the loss means and how to move forward.
The loss can be someone or something. Maybe it’s a loved one or a family pet. But grief and loss can also be felt after the end of a marriage that everyone said would stand the test of time. It could be the loss of a job, the one where you saw yourself as the CEO one day. It could be the loss of a dream, one that will never come to fruition for one reason or another. What would it look like if grief weren’t this ugly thing to be avoided at all costs? What if we felt our feelings? Grief can be a complex emotion that we need support to work through.
Here are a few items you may want to add to your toolkit:
Find community: There are grief support groups around the Richmond area. Some agencies offer groups for specific types of loss. For example, some offer support specifically for parents experiencing perinatal loss or a group for people who have lost a loved one due to accidental overdose. While support groups are not therapy, this can be a helpful space to find you are not alone.
Coping skills: (This is a therapy office blog. You had to know coping skills would be mentioned at some point.) When times get tough, who and/or what do you lean on? Some find a centering exercise, like meditation or deep breathing, to be helpful. Others may go to their higher power and find comfort with people of like-minded faith/beliefs. You could also write a letter; for your eyes only. It can be comforting to release any pent up anxiety or stress you may be feeling at the moment. \
Acceptance Doesn’t Mean Forgetting: A common misconception of grief is when someone accepts another’s passing it somehow means they’ve forgotten or are no longer affected by the loss. Not necessarily so. There is an analogy about a ball and a jar. When the loss is recent we can hardly close the lid because the grief is so near. But, as life goes on the size of the jar expands because we are growing around our grief. In other words, the grief (ball) doesn’t get smaller, but will always be a part of our story. But, with support, the jar will adapt around the ball. Grief doesn’t have to be this swear word, a feeling that is there but is never acknowledged. There is power in finding support and naming your grief. While not everyone experiences grief in the same way, most grieving experiences are not linear.
“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and David Kessler
References: American Psychological Association. (2020, January 1). Grief: Coping with the loss of your loved one. Https://Www.apa.org. https://www.apa.org/topics/grief What is grief? (2023, February 22). Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24787-grie
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