Losing a loved one is a deep and universal experience. But anyone who has experienced loss may quickly discover that our culture is less equipped to deal with grief.
“We are a society that is focused on productivity, positive thinking, and moving forward in life. Professor Cathy Shea, Ph.D. A professor at the Columbia School of Social Work who specializes in treating long-term grief disorders said: Today.com.
She explains that we tend to force people through processes and focus on ticking off boxes on a list.
“We are illiterate about grief, especially in the United States,” agrees Dr. Sherry Cormier, a psychologist and bereavement trauma expert.
“We don’t want to talk about grief. We don’t want to talk about anything about sadness, even though everyone will experience grief at some point,” said “Sweet Sorrow: Finding Enduring Wholeness After Loss and grief.” told TODAY.com.
The lack of knowledge about loss in our society makes it difficult for grieving people to get the support they need, even from well-meaning family, friends and colleagues. .
Cormier frequently encounters “how difficult it is for a non-grieving person to try to give advice to a grieving person about what to do or not to do, and how harmful it can be.” I mean,” she says.
Our society’s rules about grief make us feel like we have to follow certain steps rather than let the process unfold in isolation, Shear says. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called to say I was sad and just wanted to make sure I did it right.”
Whether you’ve experienced a loss yourself or want to help others going through grief, here’s what the experts want you to know.
Myth: If you ignore your sadness, your sadness will disappear.
In the midst of a sense of loss, many people try to isolate themselves. But “avoidance doesn’t make grief go away,” says Cormier. “You can’t try to avoid the bereavement experience. You have to go through it.”
Grief isn’t just a process of moving on after a loss, says Shear. This is a complex, natural response to loss, she says, and involves finding ways to accept and adapt to this new reality and “restore the ability to move forward in life in a meaningful way.”
When someone dies, it “has a very serious effect” on our bodies and minds, Sear continues. And how we get through that initial period of devastating loss, partly spontaneously, “we have to be part of it, too.”
That involves readjusting relationships with people you’ve lost and recognizing that you still have internalized versions of them within you, she says. But compartmentalizing or resisting the process does not help.
“You just need to be able to experience and feel the feelings of sadness and sadness,” says Cormier. “You have to stop and take time to process your grief because avoiding grief will not heal you.”
Myth: Grief always ends after a certain amount of time.
The idea that we should “get over” grief within a certain period of time is “the most damaging myth,” Cormier said. “It’s a myth that hurts most those who have survived grief.”
She often hears from clients who return to work after a few days of bereavement leave, “People just expect me to be the same as I was five days ago. .
This can be very harmful, Cormier explains, because even people who aren’t in grief can get irritated with people who are dealing with a loss. And she says she can say “actually embarrassing things” even when she thinks they’re helpful. For example, her colleague might encourage you to take the next step or ask why you’re still “hanging around.”
The truth is that grief never completely goes away for many people. “We have to accept the fact that grief will last a lifetime. It’s just not the same as it was in the beginning,” Shear explains. “But we will always have some reaction to the fact that this person is gone.”
However, people who have been grieving for a long period of time may have a condition known as long-term grief disorder or complicated grief.
During the first few months after a loss, it’s normal to experience intense emotions and find it difficult to keep up with your usual routines. Mayo Clinic explains. But most people find that by accepting and adapting to new situations, such feelings lessen as they process experiences and losses, Shear says.
Long-term grief disorder happens when you don’t go through that process, Shear explains. “Grief keeps taking center stage in life. It keeps everything else aside,” she says. “This disease continues to spread so violently that it invades your life to the point where you can barely do anything else with your mind.”
It can also manifest as grief or extreme avoidance of reminders of the person who died, Shear said. People with long-term grief disorder may physically avoid reminders of the deceased, such as the street where their favorite restaurant used to be.
But there are evidence-based treatments for long-term grief disorder that are strikingly different from those developed for depression, Shear said. It’s not about imposing timelines on grief, she stresses, but about giving people the tools and support they need.
“There are good ways to help people trapped in grief,” she says. “And there’s nothing wrong with grief. People just need a little guidance at that point.”
Myth: Everyone grieves in the same way.
Popular culture teaches us that everyone goes through the same five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These feelings may arise during the grieving process, but they are not for everyone.
In fact, Cormier says the framework was originally developed by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Roth through conversations with people facing their own mortality, rather than those who have lost someone else.
Shear said the work was “pioneering.” “But it doesn’t fit the more varied and complex experience of living your life and losing someone close to you.”
In fact, there is no right or wrong way to grieve. “The bottom line is that people shouldn’t judge or try to control their grief,” she says. Perhaps you’re surprised by the mixed feelings (or lack thereof) you feel after losing someone you’ve been in a difficult relationship with, and that’s perfectly normal.
“No one recovers from grief or heals in exactly the same way. Everyone has a very unique journey through grief,” Cormier said, adding that everyone grieves differently. rice field. Age, gender, cultural norms, and whether you have children all affect how you grieve, experience, and process loss, she says.
Experts say that while we all tend to follow common paths in grief, each person’s experience of loss is unique and each loss is personal. For example, the individual relationship each family member has with a parent means that everyone in the family is likely to grieve the same loss in a unique way, she added. (See: Key moments from this season of “Succession.”)
Myth: The grieving process is always linear.
Another problem with the ubiquity of the five stages of grief is that it “implies that recovery from grief is linear, but it isn’t.” says Cormier.
In her mind, grief is not a step-like process, but a cyclical one, like a roller coaster or waves crashing on a beach. Instead, “it’s a continuum of ups and downs, but it will last forever,” she says. “The waves may push you over, but then the waves will leave and the tide will recede and it will be calm.”
Even if the grief generally subsides, certain calendar days can evoke memories and bring those feelings back to the surface, Shear says. “It happens regularly around her family holidays,” she says. “It doesn’t matter how long ago you lost someone. When you lose someone, some kind of activation happens. There is no time limit.”
Expecting a linear cure can inevitably lead to sadness resurfacing, feeling like you’ve done something wrong and becoming discouraged, says Cormier. So it’s helpful to remember that it’s normal to experience these ups and downs.
Myth: You can only grieve the death of a loved one.
Another misconception, says Cormier, is that “we only deal with grief when we lose a loved one.” It’s often “the hardest kind of grief to deal with, but it’s not the only kind of grief,” she added.
According to Cormier, there is grief in the loss of a job, in a divorce or separation, in the loss of a pet, or even in chronic illnesses like lingering COVID-19. “Any meaningful loss can be grieved,” Shear agrees.
Cormier said people often experience grief over the death of a celebrity they’ve never met. In some ways, publicly expressing our collective grief may actually give us a chance to recover more from personal losses we haven’t fully dealt with, she explains. do. She cited the death of Queen Elizabeth as a recent example.
“I think when we grieve like that, we grieve for ourselves, or maybe something in ourselves that we feel we’ve lost without acknowledging it,” she says. .
