What Should We Do When Grief Gets Stuck?
Image by David Ballew/Unsplash
At some point in our lives, we will all experience grief. The downside of living a human life, full of love, connection and relationships with people we care about, is that none of those people will be here forever. Most of us put a great deal of mental energy into never thinking about mortality. It’s too big, too scary, impossible to comprehend. But it’s also a fundamental part of life, so we all need to find a way of facing it with as much courage and equanimity as we can muster.
I learned this lesson very painfully when I lost my beloved dad over 30 years ago. He died so suddenly I never had the chance to say goodbye, or grapple with the painful, complicated nature of our relationship. One day he was there and the next he was just gone. The story of the last 30-odd years of healing from this traumatic loss is woven into my new book, Heal Your Trauma: How to Overcome a Painful Childhood to Become Happy and Whole Again. Although I also try to make sense of the many traumatic events of my childhood involving my dad, I see this book as an offering of love to him.
He was a huge figure in my childhood, both his selfishness and anger, and his humour, warmth and unshakeable love. His complexity also made my grief complex, which is true for so many of us. What we call ‘simple grief’ is when we love someone and they die at the appropriate life stage, like losing a beloved grandparent after a long, well-lived life. Losing my dad so suddenly, as well as the tricky nature of our relationship, leads to ‘complex grief’. And this kind of grieving can get stuck, as we will see through Carol’s story.
When grieving Never Starts
Carol* was a successful lawyer in her forties who came to see me a year after losing her mother. What brought her to therapy was that, as she put it, ‘I never cried for my mother, even at her funeral. And now it feels like something toxic is stuck in my chest.’ Carol had a strained relationship with her mother, who was highly narcissistic and overbearing. Nothing Carol did was good enough, however hard she tried. ‘I built a thriving law firm, have a beautiful home, a loving husband and two gorgeous kids, but all my mum did was criticise and find fault. Nothing was ever good enough for her.’
Sadly, Carol’s story is all too common for the children of narcissistic parents. Her mother saw Carol as an extension of herself, so all of her daughter’s successes were really hers, as well as her failures. Narcissistic folk can’t bear to be seen as weak, or failing in any way, so she directed a scathing eye at anything Carol did which didn’t meet her exacting standards.
Helping Carol get unstuck involved first getting her to see that there is no set way to grieve. We might have an idealistic notion of what ‘proper’ grieving looks like, gleaned from Hollywood movies. But if your parent is cruel, unloving and hurtful your whole life, why should you cry for them? I told Carol that whatever she felt or didn’t feel – at the funeral, in the weeks and months that followed – was perfectly normal. This freed her from the ‘shoulds’ around grieving, which made her feel guilty and like she was failing at this too.
Explains but doesn’t excuse
We then spent time exploring her mother’s traumatic childhood and her own rageful, narcissistic mother. This was what shaped her into the mother Carol knew. And, as I often say to my clients, it explains but doesn’t excuse her behaviour as an adult. It helped Carol make sense of her mother’s often bewildering behaviour, so she could stop blaming herself for it.
And it allowed her to be compassionate for the little girl who was traumatised by Carol’s grandmother, which freed up space in her heart and allowed her to stop feeling bitterness and hatred – the ‘toxic lump’ in her chest, which soon dissolved.
If you are struggling with your own grief, I’m sorry. I know all too well how painful that can be. And if, like Carol and me, you’re processing complex grief, let it be just that – complex. There is no set way to grieve, or find your way through the grieving process. You may need to shout and scream, shed oceans of tears, fill countless journals with your innermost hurts, fears and thoughts too painful to say out loud. Any or all of this is just right, if that’s what you need.
Find a loving, supportive person to help you, whether that’s a partner, friend, family member or therapist. Take your time. Grief cannot be rushed and, like an undammed river, will find its own way if you remove the obstacles in its path.
May you find peace.
May you find comfort.
May your pain and suffering ease over time.
Love,
Dan ❤️
*All case studies in these posts are composites – I never tell the stories of real clients, as confidentiality is very important to me.
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