1. Loss of identity: A lost role or affiliation. Examples include:
- A person going through a divorce who feels the loss of no longer being a "spouse."
- A breast cancer survivor who grieves the lost sense of femininity after a double mastectomy.
- An empty nester who mourns the lost identity of parenthood in its most direct form.
- A person who loses their job or switches careers grieves a lost identity.
- Someone who leaves a religious group feels the loss of affiliation and community.
2.Loss of safety: The lost sense of physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Examples include:
- Survivors of physical, emotional, or sexual trauma who struggle to feel safe in everyday life.
- Families experiencing eviction and housing instability who feel unprotected and unstable.
- Children of divorce who grieve the loss of safety in the "intact" family (though they may not articulate it this way).
- Members of a community that encountered violence feel destabilized and unsafe.
- A person discovering their partner's romantic infidelity who may feel emotionally unsafe in the relationship.
3. Loss of autonomy: The lost ability to manage one's own life and affairs.
Examples Include:
- A person with a degenerative illness who grieves the loss of physical or cognitive abilities.
- An older adult no longer able to care for themselves who grieves their decline (this may also tie to a lost sense of identity as a contributing member of society).
- A person experiencing a financial setback who feels a lost sense of autonomy as they rely on others' help.
4. Loss of dreams or expectations: Dealing with hopes and dreams going unfulfilled.
Examples include:
- A person or couple who struggle with infertility.
- An overachieving student who struggles to find their place in "real world."
- A person whose career trajectory does not reflect their expectations.
- A person whose community took a political turn in an unwanted direction.
Restoring the word grief to its proper place
Loss of identity, safety, autonomy, and expectations are all losses the warrant a sense of grief. Grief and mourning as a framework can help each of us work through a moment or chapter of chaos with the gentleness we give a mourner. The mourner receives compassion and is entitled to anger, sadness, numbness, disorientation, and nonlinear healing. The word grief both accurately characterizes the internal reality of the process and legitimizes and concretizes the process to ourselves and others.
While many experience the setbacks and tragedies of life with grief and mourning, many feel they are not entitled to the word.
So I give you permission.
You may grieve.
You may mourn.
Your loss is real.
About The Author
Sarah Epstein, MFT, is a couple and family therapist working at the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia, PA. She is the Amazon bestselling author of the book Love in the Time of Medical School: Build a Happy, Healthy Relationship with a Medical Student, a book about overcoming the challenges of dating somebody in medicine. Sarah has contributed and been featured in a variety of publications, including Family Therapy Magazine, Business Insider, Physician Family Magazine, Brit + Co, KevinMD, BestLife, and Thriveworks, among others.
Sarah is also currently taken on new therapy clients at her practice n Center City, Philadelphia. You can reach her through her Psychology Today profile or her website.
Reader Comments
2. Homelessness twice
3. Financial
4. Career
The longer one lives, the more likely to experience them all. Some kinds of grieving never go away. The worst of it? Finding long-term, sustained empathy. Like the SCI quadriplegic struggling to find something about life to make the struggle worthwhile. People come and go in their lives like flies.