Devastating Loss Brings Devastating Grief
Grief is a natural human response to loss. Grief is also a natural human response to change, as all change in life brings loss in some form. For most of life’s events, we navigate the grief process relatively well and mostly unscathed. But sometimes life can bring about devastating loss. And with devastating loss comes devastating grief. Grief of this sort can be debilitating. It can be suffocating. It can paralyze us for weeks or months or years with depression. It can make us lose the will to live. If you are deeply bereaved, we suggest you read a full article about bereavement here.
The Nature of Grief
As lawyers and judges, we are adept at compartmentalizing. We have to be good at this skill in order to do our jobs well. Deep grief bashes through those compartmental walls, turning them to ash in its wake. It is not a sign that we are broken or doing anything wrong. It is the nature of grief.
A Wide Range of Normal Responses
Grief throws us into chaos. We each respond differently, and it is important to recognize that fact. Our response may be perplexing to us (and to others). Part of the reason it is perplexing is that we, as a society, have moved the grief process underground. Because we no longer share openly about it, none of us has any idea what to expect. We have no idea that what we are experiencing is normal.
An Impossible Task
In today’s modern American culture, grief is either unnoticed, misunderstood, or minimized. The world does not stop to allow us to grieve. Grief is already an isolating experience. But this huge cultural blind spot leads the bereaved to feel even more alienated, prompting them to stuff and deny their feelings or go further underground with their pain. We have to somehow continue with our lives and grieve at the same time. We all try to get back to work, to “be strong” (i.e. act unaffected), and to “act normal” as quickly as possible. But for those who are deeply bereaved, they quickly discover this is literally an impossible task.
Collateral Loss
When we are bereaved, we may also suffer what is known as a collateral loss. A collateral loss happens when a person we expected to understand what we are going through does not understand, or when a person we depended upon for some kind of emotional support goes MIA and leaves us high and dry at the time we most need them. Unfortunately, collateral losses are usually a spouse/partner or very close friend. Sometimes these collateral relationships are lost in the aftermath of the primary loss. It can compound our loss and our grief, and it removes a primary area of support.
Grief Counseling Helps Us Navigate
Good grief counseling really does help, both in the depths of our despair in the early stages as well as later, when we begin to move into our new center of gravity, which can feel like a betrayal of our deceased loved one. Grief counseling also helps us understand our process and the natural reactions we might have at various stages, like the backlash feeling of guilt the first time we laugh or enjoy something again. Because we do not have a cultural understanding and acceptance of this process, grief counseling is all the more important to help us navigate these uncharted waters. Local hospice organizations almost always have grief counseling services available for a very reasonable fee. LAP can assist you in finding a grief counselor in your area.
