Challenging myths about . . . grief

There are five stages of grief, or so we have been led to believe. When we work our way through those stages, but our grief remains as raw and fragmented as ever, how do we continue to process the loss? Where is the roadmap we were promised?

Grief is an experience that has long been tied with unworkable myths that can stagnate, slow down, or confuse the natural and unique process we find ourselves in.

We’re told that time will heal all wounds, but time becomes disordered in grief; or that if we’re happy we’re not grieving. But grief is subjective, natural, unexpected, and cloaked in misunderstanding and misconceptions.

If you’re not crying, you’re not grieving; grief should be abandoned in social settings; feeling relief in your grief is wrong; it’s time to get on with your own life. These long-held ideas do not characterise or illustrate what grieving involves.

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Grieving is a personal journey — so personal that we don’t often give ourselves the space or permission to openly talk about it. And misconceptions thrive.

Grief psychotherapist Liz Gleeson is the director of Shapes of Grief, an online grief education programme taught by academics, researchers, and clinicians in the field.

It aims to equip professionals with the necessary knowledge and clinical tools to ensure better bereavement and loss outcomes for those they support. Gleeson hosts conversations with people about their experience of loss and grief in the accompanying podcast of the same name, and today she helps to debunk some of the myths surrounding grief and loss.

1) Myth: Grief is the same as bereavement

Grief and bereavement are synonymous with each other. We use the terms interchangeably. However, they are not the same thing, despite overlapping throughout our lives. A bereavement is the fact of the loss, the time period after a death or loss. The loss can result in experiencing feelings of grief, although this is not always the case. Grief is our reaction to loss, how we respond both emotionally and behaviorally to the loss.

“Grief is an experience of various emotions following a significant loss, often, but not always, a death,” explains Gleeson.

“Grief is a normal adaptive response to loss and is often characterised by intense feelings of sadness, anxiety, and general vulnerability. Grief can affect us physically in a number of ways, affecting our immune system, causing insomnia, upset stomach and ruminating thoughts.

“We can grieve the loss of a relationship, a job, a breast, we can even grieve the loss of something that we never had, like a longed-for family or a life partner. Grief can happen to us throughout our lives, it is an integral part of being human.”

Misunderstanding the terminology surrounding grief, bereavement, loss, and mourning is common but remembering that our grief is how we respond to a bereavement or loss, can help us move forward in understanding and working through out grief.

2) Myth: Time heals all wounds

“This particular myth can be very triggering for grieving people, along with other platitudes,” says Gleeson. “The truth is profound loss usually changes us irrevocably.”

We may have all the time in the world, but time alone will not heal the sorrow of loss. Allowing ourselves to grieve and giving ourselves permission to take the necessary time to do so will help us process grief.

“We don’t heal from grief, we don’t move on from grief, we simply learn to carry it until it becomes part of us,” says Gleeson.

“Time does not heal all wounds. It’s how we use the time that really makes the difference. Waiting for time alone to change an experience generally doesn’t work. We must use time to engage with our grief, feel it, be consumed by it at times, slowly learning how to accommodate this painful experience, growing emotionally and psychologically as a result. Grief doesn’t shrink over time, what happens is that we grow around it.”

The same can be said for the myths that suggest we should be “over it” by now, or that grief is a linear process and that if we didn’t hurt last year, we won’t hurt now.

Regressing in our memories and feelings throughout grief is a continual motion that allows us to face aspects of our grief we may not have addressed yet. In this way, growing with our grief will help us to naturally heal in a healthy way.

3) Myth: Everyone grieves in stages

“There are no stages of grief. There are no stages of grief. There are no stages of grief.”

Gleeson cannot reiterate this enough.

“Grief is not linear,” she says. “It is unpredictable and varies from person to person and even from loss to loss. Grief does not have a beginning, a middle and an end, it is not a prescriptive process to move through. How we grieve and why we grieve depends on a myriad of factors that are different for everyone.”

The five stages of grieving made popular by Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying in 1969, include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, grief theory has evolved, and we now know that grieving is not a straightforward process. It is unique and deeply personal and you may never see some of these supposed stages.

“We do know that most people following a significant loss will experience acute grief, where life will be experienced through the painful lens of loss,” says Gleeson.

“Over time, most of us will adapt to our life without what or who we have lost. Grief doesn’t go away, but we learn to carry it, day by day. We call this integrated grief, and it can happen over weeks, months or even years, depending on the depth of the loss and our ability to adapt.

“For some people, 10 per cent approximately, grief doesn’t integrate over time and can cause a severe and debilitating grief response that can prevent us from re-engaging with life. This is called prolonged grief. Grief is often messy, different for everyone and can’t be neatly packaged up in stages.”

Myths Series

1. Ageing
2. ADHD
3. Grief
4. Sexual health
5. Loneliness
6. Introverts
7. Imposter syndrome
8. Mental health
9. Rage in motherhood
10. Therapy
11. PTSD
12. Food safety
13. Endometriosis
14. Pregnancy
15. Frozen shoulder
16. Thyroid gland
17. Eating disorders
18. Chronic pain
19. Pelvic floor
20. OCD
21. Happiness
22. Physiotherapy