What is Disenfranchised Grief?

Recently, a good friend sent me a link to an NPR story about disenfranchised grief called “The Importance of Mourning Losses (Even When They Seem Small)”. It’s so good–go read it–but only after you finish here!

This NPR story speaks to all the small losses we experience that society doesn’t recognize, and so we don’t have the rituals or tools to deal with them or get closure. And yet, those losses are real, and they add up. Grief is cumulative, and unless we find ways to resolve it, those losses (even the small ones) keep adding up and weighing us down.

Bereavement expert Kenneth Doka says to NPR, “Disenfranchised grief refers to a loss that’s not openly acknowledged, socially mourned or publicly supported.”

WHAT LOSSES ARE INCLUDED IN DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF?

Let’s talk about what some of those losses could be. People easily recognize death and divorce as losses to grieve. But what about losing out on a job opportunity? What about when a celebrity dies that you didn’t personally know, and yet their life or work was meaningful to you? What about unrequited love? What about being diagnosed with a chronic illness? What about when a favorite natural space burns in a wildfire or is built over by a condo development? What about when your parents sell your childhood home? The list could go on and on.

WHAT WE LOST TO THE PANDEMIC.

A global pandemic brought grief to us all in large, small, and often searing ways. We grieve the loss of life –especially so if we tragically lost someone we love to Covid-19. But let’s talk about the other things we lost in the pandemic, too. Some of us lost economic security, jobs, and opportunities. Some of us lost trust in leaders, government, and humanity. Many had vacations canceled, reunions delayed, loved ones separated by closed borders, celebrations put off. We all experienced a loss of normalcy as we shifted all our familiar patterns of behavior. We stayed home, wore masks, and navigated how to try to go about our daily business during this extraordinary time, all the while wondering just how long this would last and how much worse would it get.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF.

I’ll share one of my experiences of disenfranchised grief with one of my daughters to illustrate. My daughter, high school graduating class of 2020, lost the opportunity for closure at the end of the school year, as no one realized that the day before spring break started would be the last day they’d all be together. She lost out on high school graduation and all those end-of-school rituals like prom, final choir concerts, award assemblies, and senior ditch day. Her favorite British band was finally touring the US last spring, and the day before we were supposed to go to the show, they canceled their tour. In June, she was supposed to take a medical service trip to Kenya with her dad that they had been planning for over a year. Like everything else, of course, that trip was canceled.

In the grand scheme of life, these are not big deals. Definitely something you’d consider to be “first world problems.” No one is traumatized for life because they didn’t get to go to prom. Her graduating class is united in what they lost together. There will be other concerts and other trips. Logic tells us this. But our hearts still feel there were many minor losses – and each of those needs to be mourned and processed.

I didn’t realize how much grief I was feeling over her losses until the spring of 2021. I was at a choir concert at her high school, and her old choir was singing the songs she was supposed to sing the year before but never got that opportunity. I was surprised to find myself crying during their performance, mourning her loss of opportunity to do that the year before. Incidentally, she was fine during the concert because she had already dealt with these emotions. I was the one who had unknowingly bottled them up for a year until they came spilling out. Disenfranchised grief. Even if you’re a grief recovery specialist, it finds you!

I wished her senior year had ended differently. I thought that if her year had been normal, it would have been better. I regretted that she didn’t have more time pre-pandemic to enjoy her senior year. Here’s a helpful hint for you. If you’re ever finding yourself wishing something was different, better, or more, you are most likely dealing with unresolved grief. Being aware of those thoughts helped me to realize what I was feeling. Oh, and the unexpected tears helped, too.

THE SMALL LOSSES ADD UP.

There’s a quote out there that I’m sure you’ve heard. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I think that’s true, and I think it’s good advice. Not always, but often, we know about the big things people are grieving. We rarely know of the small hurts that people quietly carry. We can’t assume ours are the same. Grief is as individual as our experiences and our relationships. We can use big words like disenfranchised and unresolved to describe our grief, but when it comes right down to it, grief is grief, no matter the qualifier.

We all experience different grief, but we all do experience it. When we recognize those small losses in our own lives, acknowledge them, and process them, we are kinder, more compassionate, gentler, and more loving with ourselves. Recognizing it in each other can make us kinder, more compassionate, gentler, and more loving with each other. And I think we can all agree the world needs more of that.