Our society does not get grief. We have been brought up with a number of unhelpful messages about grief. Unless people have been in the throes of grief themselves they have not generally stopped to consider whether these are actually true or helpful. They are often deeply ingrained into our thinking. Even 5 years after my husband died and as a grief expert I still sometimes catch a fleeting thought of one of the grief myths. Our programmed responses have come from how people behaved around us whilst we were growing up, teaching us lessons directly and indirectly about grief. Let’s look at the most common grief myths as described by the Grief Recovery Institute in more detail.
Time Heals
“Time heals” is one of the most prevalent and unhelpful myths around grief. Put very simply time does not heal. If after your person had died you were in a coma for 5 years and you woke up with your memory intact, would your grief have magically evaporated? Of course not! It is the work we do to process our grief that takes time, but we have to do the work to heal. We also must accept that our grief is now part of us that we will carry with us for our entire life. Once we start to accept that our grief is a reflection of our love and not something to be fixed we can start to make progress.
Our brains are subjected to a huge amount of information and so to function work on autopilot a lot of the time. We learn from experience. Your brain will have learnt certain assumptions, like a particular ringtone means your person is phoning. Your automatic neural pathways work faster than the higher controls of your brain. Although rationally you know your person is dead your default thinking has not caught up yet. Each time that trigger goes, you hear that ringtone, and your brain does not get the outcome you expect of speaking to your loved one, you are learning. You still have to live through that overwhelming wave of grief every time, but you are learning and will be moving forward with your grief.
Stay Strong
“Stay strong” has been drilled into us from a young age. It stems from telling kids not to cry and to get on with things. At times of immense stress, such as your person dying, it is not surprising that we revert to our default settings. When you become the sole parent to your children it is incredibly easy to slip into this myth of “stay strong” for the kids. Understandably we worry about our kids, especially when they have already been through so much.
It is easy to assume that it would be best for kids to see you coping, but when that means faking how you are feeling it can become very unhealthy. It is also important for children and to see you experiencing emotions and processing them rather than just suppressing them. Children often follow the example set by their caregivers and really the last thing you want to be teaching them is to just suck it up and “stay strong”.
When you are going through one of the hardest things you have ever done your support network is crucial. People want to help, but they often do not know how. When they think “time heals” and you pretend to “stay strong” they mistakenly think you are over it and move on.
Keep Busy
As a widowed parent there is a lot to do! It is very easy to keep busy and absolutely exhaust yourself. After the unbelievable happened and my husband died in a car crash driving to work I was on constant alert for danger. My adrenaline was pumping, ready for fight or flight, anything to protect my babies. My threshold for worry had changed and now everything was a possible threat. That is why grief is so exhausting.
As a solo parent just running the house is exhausting. Doing all the things you used to do, on top of the roles your person had, with some extra bereavement bureaucracy thrown in for fun. People tried to be helpful at the start, but that tails off quickly as everyone knows “time heals” so they think you are fixed. They would be there if you asked, but you hate asking because you need to “stay strong”, so you just keep going and “keep busy”.
Grieve Alone
Grief is incredibly lonely. I have never felt more isolated and misunderstood than when my husband died. Even surrounded by caring family and friends trying to support me, it felt like I had wandered into a parallel universe and no one else was getting it. When you are grieving one of the last things that you have energy for is to consider other people’s feelings, so it is often easier to isolate yourself.
We buy into the other myths of “time heals”, “stay strong” and “don’t feel bad” and when grief does not turn out quite like that, we think that we must be doing grief wrong. Along with the pressure from society to fix your grief this often leads to people compartmentalising, putting on an act and pretending that they are okay. Spending your time faking life is utterly exhausting and soul destroying. It becomes easier to just isolate yourself than to summon the energy to interact. Also, the invites dwindle as people worry that some events might be too difficult for you and truthfully they do not like witnessing your sadness.
Don’t feel bad
Everyone knows that being sad is quite simply bad. We don’t like to see people upset. To watch someone grieve the death of their partner reminds us of the fragility of human life. No one likes to think that something like this could happen to them and their family.
Our primitive brain knows that for survival its important to remain part of the tribe. It knows that showing your sadness does not gain you friends. Your sadness is tolerated for a while, but as everyone knows “time heals” and you should “stay strong” so they start to think you should be fixed. Unfortunately, you know by now that grief does not work like that so you fake it and compartmentalise so that you can “grieve alone”.
Replace the loss
“Replace the loss” is another classic grief myth that often stems from pet death and messages about general loss. I remember considering this one quite early on, looking at dating websites when sleep eluded me. One night at 3am I completed a detailed online questionnaire about me and what I was looking for, which was basically my husband, but not dead. However, when I was presented with my potential matches I realised that I must have selected the wrong gender preference. Clearly, I was in not fit state of mind to be looking for love at that point. Replacing the loss is just a form of distraction to avoid the pain of having to process our grief. At some point that grief will catch up with you as you cannot “keep busy” and “stay strong” forever.
When we understand the main grief myths we can focus our energy on the things that help you process your grief and move forwards. Telling your story, free of judgement to someone independent, who gets grief and that you trust, helps you make sense of it all and move towards acceptance. If you want support processing your grief and learning to love your life, book in for a chat.
