Grief Myth Number One: Don’t Feel Bad
This post is part 1 of a new blog series exploring the 6 Myths of Grief as found in The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman.
Over the next few months, I'd like to take a deep dive into the 6 Myths of Grief found in The Grief Recovery Handbook. These are myths or misconceptions we have about grief and how to cope with grieving. The first myth is: Don't Feel Bad. This myth works in 2 ways.
First, it's so simple; it seems almost silly to say. It's okay to feel sad, heartbroken, angry, disappointed, rejected, or any other emotion you are feeling while grieving. But, we often feel like we shouldn't feel bad because:
It's been long enough (a year, or whatever other arbitrary timeline we've set).
Someone else has it worse. How can I be this upset about my divorce if my friend was widowed?
This isn't a "big enough deal." Everyone's kids grow up and leave the nest, and this is what I want for my son, so it's silly that it hurt so much when he went to college.
These thoughts work to minimize our grief, and we use them to make us wrong. The problem is, when we make ourselves wrong, it doesn't make the grief go away. It's still there, but we judge ourselves for it, and that begins to create shame. Shame is never a helpful emotion. It doesn't motivate us, and it certainly won't help us work through our grief.
The second way this myth takes shape is with other people trying to help us feel better. People are, generally, quite uncomfortable with other people's negative emotions. We don't know what to do, and often it's painful for us to see people we love in pain. We want to fix it, so we say and do things that send the message "Don't Feel Bad."
This starts very early on. When a child falls and begins to cry, one of the first things we say is, "Don't cry! You're okay!" (Don't feel bad.) But as we get older, this turns into comments like:
"She's in a better place" or "God needed an angel."
"Everything happens for a reason."
"You should be grateful for the time you had."
"Thank goodness you have your faith."
"There are other fish in the sea! You'll find love again!"
"You can take comfort knowing there's always someone who has it worse."
And then there's all the "at least" comments.
"At least you got to say goodbye."
"At least he didn't suffer."
"At least you know you can get pregnant."
"At least she lived a good, long life."
"At least you know he loved you."
"At least you got three amazing children from your marriage."
When people say these things to us, I don't believe they intentionally try to be hurtful, most of the time anyway. They say them because they are uncomfortable, they don't know what to do, or they just genuinely do want you to feel better. The problem is when we say these kinds of things, we are trying to shift the painful feelings of grief into logical thoughts, and unfortunately, you can't fight grief with logic. All these comments do is make us feel like we are doing it wrong by having feelings.
Let's take the phrase "At least you got to say goodbye," for example. We can maybe agree that yes, it was a good thing that we were able to say goodbye. However, that is often followed by buts.
Yes, I got to say goodbye...
BUT I shouldn't have had to say goodbye so young.
BUT he suffered for years, and that was so hard to watch.
BUT it wasn't the goodbye I wanted because I wasn't ready to admit this was really it.
BUT do you know how hard that was??
BUT I was too emotional to say what I really wanted him to know.
BUT I still miss her every single day.
So, for those who are grieving, give yourself permission to feel your feelings. It's normal and natural to feel bad and for grief to be hard and full of conflicting emotions. You don't need to try to smooth those over so other people aren't uncomfortable.
For those who want to support grieving people, sitting with someone in their difficult emotions rather than trying to logic them away is so much more supportive. Trying to get someone to see the bright side or point out things they already know doesn't help make people feel better. In fact, sometimes they can make people feel worse because they DO already know these things and still feel bad, which can make them feel like there's something wrong with them. That's not a burden anyone needs on top of their grief. Instead, try to be a listening ear without trying to solve for negative emotion. This is hard to do because we are so conditioned to want to take pain away, but if we really want to support the grievers in our lives, it's more than worth it to make an effort.
