3 Misconceptions About Grief

By Alyssa Warmland, RP (Qualifying), MACP Candidate

Grief is a normal response to loss. Everyone will experience the death of people in their lives. Everyone will experience transition and shifts in jobs, place, relationships, and identity. It can be deeply painful, like a hole in the very fabric of who we are. It invites us to consider how we can live in a world that has shifted so much from what we knew before the loss. However, since it is such a fundamentally human experience, grief can also provide a point of connection and tenderness. It can be hard to let ourselves sit in something so uncomfortable together, but it can help to know that what we are experiencing is normal, expected, and that we are far from alone in it. Here are a few common misunderstandings about grief:

Misconception 1: Grief is something we feel because a person or pet has died.

Grief does, of course, show up as a response after the death of a person or pet. A being we loved so much throughout our life, and whose relationship impacted our experience of the world around us, is no longer present. We may find ourselves missing them, feeling sad, empty, lonely, disconnected, or deeply in pain. But that isn’t the only time grief shows up. Any time there is an end to something, grief can show up. Cole Imperi, a thanatologist, coined the term “shadowloss” to describe the losses experienced in life. Shadowlosses are things like divorce or the end of a long-term relationship, infertility, a medical diagnosis, losing a job, or the loss of some other relationship or thing. It’s a loss that impacts the life of an individual, as well as their social network in their life. All these griefs are real, common, valid, and human!

Misconception 2: People don’t want to talk about their grief.

Many people want to talk about their experiences of grief, their person/pet/thing they’ve lost, and to connect with other peoples in the truth that they aren’t alone and they aren’t wrong for how they’re feeling (or not feeling!). One of the most supportive things we can do for grievers in our lives is to ask them to share about their grief. You can start the conversation by saying something like:

• I'd love to hear about [person/place/thing]. Will you tell me about them/it?

• Grief can be so hard. How are you feeling? Do you have any ideas about how I can support you?

• I can hold space for your pain if you want to talk about what's going on for you. How about I come over and bring dinner sometime this week and you can just spill whatever you need to?

Misconception 3: You should be going through stages of grief in an appropriate way.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote about the 5 stages of grief many years ago. Although her work was meant to describe the grief that comes up for people as they are dying, it has been adapted to describe the experience of grieving others who have died. In popular culture, this nuance can go missing, and some people find themselves distressed because they aren’t experiencing rigid, progressive stages of grief on a timeline that feels appropriate. The addition of Prolonged Grief Disorder to the most recent edition of the DSM doesn’t help with feeling as though there is a timeline for grief! The truth is that grief can show up a million different ways and is more of a series of waves that never ends. Christa Couture describes grief as an ex-girlfriend. Even though she’s long-since moved out, sometimes she still texts to check if mail has shown up for her or sometimes she shows up, unannounced, messy and in tears. Sometimes, she’s someone you invite over for dinner to catch up and it feels good. Relationships shift, change, and forever change who you are and how you are in the world. So does grief. Rather than aiming to get over, heal from, or move through grief, it can help to integrate it as a fluid part of our lives.