Unexpected Grief

When we hear the word grief several different circumstances may come up.  They generally surround death, especially the death of loved ones.  But grief goes beyond death and there are times we may not recognize that we are grieving.  Today we will explore different ways we may find ourselves grieving in some expected and unexpected circumstances.  Several posts ago I listed the 5 stages of grief, but I will list them here again; shock and denial, anger and guilt, bargaining, grief and despair, and adjustment and acceptance.  These stages are not linear, in reality you will most likely go back and forth in no particular order.  You may even experience multiple stages at a time.  After reading the list of the 5 stages you may recognize some of these emotions occurring inside of you right now.  If this is the case take a minute to sit down and acknowledge those feelings before exploring where they may be coming from.  

There are of course expected times to feel grief such as a child dying which is one of the most excruciating pain someone can experience.  Parents expect to die before their children and when that doesn’t occur it can be shattering.  There is also the death of other loved ones such as friends or other older family members.  Even that has different layers that can impact grief such as a child becoming a caregiver for their aging parents.  There is grief that comes with finding out a partner or close loved one is struggling with addiction.  Spouses and parents often try to take over the responsibility for the recovery process which is of course not their responsibility and can create disappointment after disappointment.  The individual struggling with addiction is on that journey, what they need is support, they will slip and make mistakes but that is all a part of the process.  Al-Anon programs are great support systems for families who have a member struggling with addiction. 

Ending a relationship whether that is a romantic relationship, friendship, or even changing jobs can all leave you feelings of grief.  Changing jobs may be more unexpected because sometimes the change can be something you have been looking forward to and working hard to achieve.  I’ll use the example of getting a promotion at work where suddenly you are now your coworkers superior.  This may lead you to grieve the relationships you once had as the dynamic has changed.  

We may also grieve our childhoods.  This may sound silly when you first read this, but there comes a point in most of our adult lives when we realize there was something we may not have received that we needed.  We think that our childhoods were normal because we don’t always know any different.  I don’t say this to make you think you had a bad childhood, but in general there is something that we may realize we needed as we learn about said needs.  One way that is helpful in providing grace for our parents is to look back and say “they did the best they could with what they had” while also leaving space for grief.  On the other hand parents may also grieve when their children choose a different life path than they would have liked.  Their children can get defensive when they feel their decisions are being criticized but it can be helpful to give their parents the ‘permission’ they need to grieve by acknowledging they are experiencing disappointment in the situation, not in the child themselves.  In this situation, a parents' grief process is a way of letting go and acknowledging that their children are their own independent people and that they respect that they can make their own decisions.  Accepting their children the way they are does not mean that they agree with their decisions but it means that it doesn’t change the way they love them.  

I’ll go over one last scenario where unexpected grief may occur, but would like to acknowledge that there are many other situations that have not been mentioned.  The last scenario is grieving the ideal picture we may have in regard to a spouse.  A lot of people imagine their dream wedding which then extends to their spouse.  They have an image in their mind which they may then project onto their spouse.  This is another way of letting go so that we can accept our spouse for the way that they are and be thankful for them.  We cannot change people to fit our image of them and by learning to accept this and grieve what our image was we can love our partner as they are.  This also lets them know that they are enough and worthy.  We can respect the person that we actually married to, not the person we would have wanted them to be.  

Through the grieving process, whether it was expected or unexpected, we are changed.  You know you are done grieving when you have a new depth of character and you may even be able to help others who are going through a similar process.  This does not mean that you do not feel a sadness about what you lost, but it is hopefully not as crushing as before.