Have you ever felt guilty for feeling grief?

We’ve talked before about ways to cope with loss and access appropriate social support in difficult times. But what happens when you don’t think you have the right to feel the way you do? 

Disenfranchised grief refers to grief that is unacknowledged or invalidated by others or by social norms. The concept was first proposed in 1989 by Dr. Kenneth Doka and has accumulated significant research support in various contexts since that time. Disenfranchised grief can occur in a number of different situations, including:

• Loss of a pet;
• Loss of an ex-partner;
• Loss of a distant relative; or
• Loss of an individual when that loss is “part of the job.”

Many healthcare professionals work in roles exposing them to intense and repeated loss. Since  these losses are an expected part of the work, individuals can begin to feel that they should be able to take them in stride and not be bothered. But just because losses are expected, that doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt. 

When we feel like our grief is not valid or that we need to hide our grief, we can experience additional distress on top of the grief itself. We may even begin to disenfranchise our own feelings (“maybe I shouldn’t feel this sad”) and blame ourselves for “inappropriate” reactions. When our grief isn’t recognized and we aren’t given permission to grieve, our recovery is more difficult.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to help you manage disenfranchised grief:

1. Don’t dismiss your feelings. You feel what you feel and your feelings cannot be wrong. Hold space for your grief even if it feels like nobody else is. The longer we avoid feeling our natural feelings, the more distressed we become. When we face our feelings, we can begin to resolve them. We will not experience high-intensity emotion on and on without ceasing. If acknowledged and processed, our emotional tension will also dissipate.
2. Name your feelings (sad, angry, disappointed, etc.). You may, and probably do, feel a combination of feelings. That’s normal and healthy. It is also normal and healthy for emotions to ebb and flow and change, often in a short period of time. Naming your feelings is a step to managing them adaptively.
3. Look out for “shoulding.” You may find that people in your life want to tell you what you should (or should not) be feeling and how long those feelings should last. You may even be giving these messages to yourself. But once we begin putting those kinds of constraints on our emotions, we introduce inauthenticity. We are no longer dealing with our actual emotions, but with our interpretation of which emotional responses are acceptable.
4. Just because people don’t seem to be acknowledging your grief doesn’t mean they don’t care about you. Be attuned to “all-or-nothing” thinking, a cognitive distortion in which we fail to recognize nuance in interpersonal interactions or other situations. You can challenge these distortions through asking yourself:

• What is the evidence that supports those thoughts?
• And what is the evidence against those thoughts?
• If a friend told you that they were having those sorts of thoughts, what would you say to them?

5. Take care of yourself. To the extent that you are able, get enough rest, ensure proper hydration and nutrition, and engage in regular exercise. If you begin to feel overwhelmed, change your physical state. Stand up if you are sitting. Drink a glass of cold water or hot tea. Splash water on your face. Do the small things that physically soothe you.
6. Engage in a ritual marking the loss. This does not have to be an elaborate ceremony; a brief moment of silence and reflection may be enough to honor the loss and begin to move forward. The best ritual is the one that’s best for you. Grief is an intensely personal experience and so is coping.
7. Your ritual may involve writing. Journaling, poetry, and other written forms of expression are powerful tools for processing and managing emotions. If you worry that writing will feel like too much, set a timer for yourself before you start. When the timer goes off, it will not switch off your emotions but will bring you back to the present.
8. Use grounding techniques. One effective grounding exercise can be called 5-4-3-2-1. Gently focus your attention on yourself and your environment and identify:

• 5 things you can see;
• 4 things you can touch;
• 3 things you can hear;
• 2 things you can smell; and
• 1 thing you can taste.

If you are unable or prefer not to do one of these steps, simply leave it out. 

Offer yourself kindness and understanding. Remember, your feelings are your own and you have the absolute right to them.