Caroline Lloyd, Student Advisory Group member talks to us about grief:
‘You should be over it by now’
‘How long has it been, aren’t you finished grieving yet?’
‘You shouldn’t be dwelling on it’
‘Haven’t you been through all the stages of grief by now?’
‘It’s been a year, you should move on’
As a bereaved person we are all used to hearing platitudes: well-intentioned friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances etc. want to offer their sympathies and this is their idea of support. But as we know through experience; grief isn’t prescriptive. It doesn’t have a timeline or a set pattern. There is no benchmarking to see if we are doing ‘poorly’, ‘average’, ‘well’ or ‘excellent’ against some prescribed formula or table. Grief is unique to the person experiencing it due to the unique nature of the relationship that’s been lost. Two people of the same family who are bereaved will have different grief experiences because their relationship with the deceased was different. We don’t just lose the person, we lose the role they had in our lives and the identity that gave us: mother, sister, daughter, niece, stepmother, aunt, friend, colleague….ad infinitum.
So where does this ‘getting over’ bereavement come from? It stems from Freud – he suffered from the loss of his daughter and although he acknowledged that he grieved for her his entire life, he nevertheless published in his professional work that you ‘get over’ the death of a loved one. As the godfather of psychotherapy, his word was gospel and this became ingrained in Western society. It’s ironic that these two opposing positions were never questioned and given half a chance I’d love to chat to him and ask him why he espoused one thing in his professional life and acknowledged another in his personal life! Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be….
This mantle was continued and superimposed on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s studies from her book On Death & Dying, (Simon & Schuster/Touchstone), 1969. Kubler-Ross wrote the book as a result of her studies and work within palliative care. She was appalled at the way people were treated at the end of their lives and campaigned for better, more humane treatment. Her book was not about grief per se. These were five stages of ‘grief’ that patients encountered at the end of their lives. I.e. they were ‘grieving’ for their life before it ended. So whilst Freud and Kubler-Ross’s work was pioneering and still incredibly important and relevant, some elements have been elicited and misconstrued to perpetuate the myth that everyone who is grieving moves through these five stages and then it ends.
The stages that Kubler-Ross identified are:
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Whilst it’s true that some people will experience all of these emotions as a reaction to the death of a loved one, not all will and not all will in sequential order. Grief is much more complicated than this and encompasses the intellectual, psychological, behavioural, spiritual, physical, emotional, practical and social aspects of our lives. This effectively means we all have an individual grief experience in any combination of feelings, thoughts and actions and every bereavement we have will be different but may encompass any or all of the above.
In my experience, the most common emotions following bereavement are guilt, anger, anxiety, regret and obviously overwhelming sadness. What emotions you feel will be dependent on the nature of the attachment (I will write a blog about attachment theory at a later date) and relationship and this will also have a bearing on how long you grieve for the loss.
So how long does grief last? How long is a piece of string?
Following the death of a loved one, we mourn for them in our own socially acceptable way and in whatever way feels natural to us, irrespective of theories and ‘steps’. If we are unable to express our feelings regarding our journey to those around us, it might be helpful to just tell them that we are currently in the process of adjusting to our loss rather than ‘getting over it’. We build our world around the loss of our loved ones whilst maintaining the relationship within our hearts and minds, whilst also honouring their memory.
This takes as long as it takes….
If you like to understand the origins of more of the myths of grief; such as why the death of a child is different, the different grieving styles, or learn what to say to a griever or how the internet is impacting bereavement, my first book “Grief Demystified” is available in the TCD library.
Caroline Lloyd
TCD Headspace 