an isolating experience
Grief. It is an experience common to all of us. It breaks hearts across the world, like a deep crack in the earth, it moves shamelessly across borders knowing no bounds, leaving no corner left unturned. And one day it knocks on our door.
With it being such a powerful emotion that is universal, one would think that grief would have the power to unite all of us in its experience. However, grief can also be a very isolating experience. Grief is defined as the response to loss. The experience of grief is uniquely different to each one of us, and what constitutes loss is also subjective. When the loss we experience is not interpreted as loss by others around us, worthy enough to notice , then we tend to experience what is called Disenfranchised Grief.
when we hear that knock…
We stand at the door alone. Once horrified at what we see on the other side of it. And again horrified as we look back at a room full of people who carry on as if nothing has happened. In Disenfranchised Grief, we ask ourselves did they not hear the knock? And if enough time passes we wonder if we misheard it ourselves.
Grief is a very social emotion. After all, grief emerges from attachment to another lost. But the grieving process itself is also shaped by interactions and messages we receive from others around us . Even when we grieve on our own, others are always in focus. While they may not be here, we feel the absence of their presence ever so deeply.
This adds a painful layer to our grieving process in the event of Disenfranchised Grief. Most often, unwittingly, others hold us to culturally ‘appropriate’ standards that dictate how much grief should be felt for what kind of loss. How it’s expressed. How long we get before we are nudged to “let go and move on”. While certainly, it is healthy for us to ultimately turn grief into something transformative, it is hard to do so when a layer of self-judgement clouds the bereavement process due to others’ reactions or, perhaps, lack thereof. This results in the experience of having to grapple with Disenfranchised Grief.
a little thought experiment
Imagine you are riding the bus. You overhear two women next to you talking and notice that one of them starts sobbing. You glance over, and as she is looking for a tissue , you hear that she has recently experienced a number of losses. In a matter of a year she has lost her mother, a child she was fostering, and her brother from severe injuries after an arson incident. The woman next to her nods empathetically and responds that she also had a rough year, with tears rolling over her cheeks. She also reveals various losses she experienced recently; namely the loss of her aunt, her cat, and her childhood neighbourhood friend due to civil unrest in her home country.
You hear the voice of a man who is sitting behind them, “I am so sorry for your loss, Miss…” He turns to one of the women, as he pulls out a handkerchief. Which woman is he talking to? Depending on our expectations and experiences we all may have different answers.
Understanding the experience and meaning
In grief we can relate to common meanings that the loved one lost represented in our lives. Titles and labels sometimes distance us from being able to relate. To the women themselves, they both recently lost a mother figure – a woman who protected, nurtured, and raised them since birth. A woman who was there to check dark corners during childhood. One in bedrooms before bedtime and the other in buildings they had to use for cover after the start of the war. Both used to pack lunches with notes saying “I love you” and eventually whispered the same words with their last breath.
While experiences cannot be compared and they really shouldn’t, both women could go on to express that they had lost someone prematurely, a living being whom they cared for and fostered. How much they missed holding them. Someone they had mothered to give back that deep love gifted to them by their maternal figure in their lives. In both cases, they were not bound by blood or DNA, yet losing them resulted in a wound deep within the nurturing parts of the self.
They would then conclude by saying that the year ended with a loss of a brother figure, someone who guided them and defended them. One from the monsters under the bed and the ones on playgrounds, and the other from monsters armed on the streets, around corners, after civil unrest. Either way someone dear to them who was always ready to protect them in case of attacks was now gone. Perhaps if the man had heard all that; the meaning behind the loss and the roles that the loved ones played, then he would have offered them both tissues…
everyone deserves support
Our job is not to evaluate whether one experience is worse than the other, based on what we believe, but to listen kindly and attentively to what the loss means to someone. What role did the loved one fulfill in their lives? What parts of themselves do they feel they have lost due to their absence?
It seems strange to think that even in our lowest moments we are expected to perform in a certain way to please others, to please norms. But this is what happens in Disenfranchised Grief. Grief therapists have emphasized that people not only report distress over their loss but also over responses they receive from others, such as family members, friends, colleagues, peers, as well as healthcare professionals. While social rules governing our grieving are often not stated explicitly, certain types of loss elicit more social support than others. This can give some grievers but not others access to a variety of resources, such as emotional or financial support from others, time off from work, and other external resources necessary to validate and process their inner subjective experience.
how can we help?
Often times people who are experiencing Disenfranchised Grief do not receive the support or resources they truly need. Resource allocation depends on the intersection of one’s personal characteristics, cultural values, group memberships and experiences, which can create potential for structural vulnerability for some more than others. In our example above, one woman is more likely to obtain resources for her losses than the other as her experiences fit more closely with our understanding of what constitutes a family (e.g., mother versus aunt or other maternal figure).
For example, while extended family members are recognized as family members, they are not usually socially recognized as primary family in our Western individualistic culture. This can set the groundwork for invalidation for those whose life experiences say otherwise, such as, e.g., immigrants who had to be separated from their parents and/or others from more collectivistic cultures who deeply value and attach to family members beyond the nuclear family structure.
When people are faced with having to conform with certain social grieving rules while they are already experiencing significant pain, they may get stuck in the process. They may just stand at the door, after hearing the knock, not being able to move or look in either direction…
The question we should be asking ourselves is not, “Am I ok with their loss?”, but rather “Am I ok to lose them?”. We know that lack of support during the grieving process can lead to broken friendships, higher turnover at work, family estrangement, and, perhaps even in the ultimate loss. Grief is heartbreaking as is, but not having the loving witnessing eyes of another during the process, and a hand to reach for while one is slipping, pushes people to the brink of no return.
hearing the knock is inevitable…
It happens to all of us. We cannot prevent it. Someone right now is looking at the door. And in that moment of vulnerability, confusion, and dread, when they look around the room, a room that is filled with people, looking to see if someone else heard….Who do you want to be when they turn to you?
For more…
See here for an audio-visual experience : Grief video (Music and script by me). Click on “CC” for subtitles.