Grief, the unspoken truth: Living In A Grief Illiterate Society

I know the script all too well. Tragedy strikes, followed by the acceptance of the requisites, “sorry for your loss,” and “they are in a better place.” There are societal expectations of following the five stages of grief checklist, and suddenly you emerge out of grief a shiny and whole person, having reached a point of “closure” towards losing someone who you love so deeply. 

Anyone who has authentically fought with loss knows that grief is not an organized, linear checklist. In fact, loss is a seismic event that does not make you who you are, but can often shape the person you become–with no expiration date or finish line in sight. 

In today’s society, there is a compulsive emphasis on positivity, tireless productivity and band-aiding over things to get through them quickly. These common societal norms have developed into a collective inability to understand, talk about and generally support the nonlinear process of grief. 

Though the stages of grief are important to understand and acknowledge in the process of healing after loss, they serve as a starting point and not a map to the finish line. “On Grief and Grieving,” a book by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, goes over the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These stages of grief are not intended to be a sequential solution to grief, yet, it is often treated like one. Coping with grief within this framework does not leave room for the often irrational bursts of sadness that hit months and even years down the line. 

When I lost my dad when I was 17 years old, and I felt this pressure instantly. I was a senior in high school and was allotted three grievance days of excused absences. I was expected to dismiss this disruption as if my entire life did not just change in an instant. I pushed myself to “acceptance” as fast as I possibly could, ultimately believing that if I could get back to my usual “productive” routine–studying for AP literature, applying for colleges, hanging with friends–I would heal and be back to “normal.” I recall a desperate need to appear strong for my friends, teachers and family. These “textbook” stages of grief turned into an exam in which I was failing. I had no study methods for understanding how grief truly should look. 

There are many lessons within the process of grief. The most powerful lesson I learned was that grief is not about moving on; it’s about the recognition of beautiful moments co-existing within tragedy. My grief did not follow a schedule, it came unexpectedly, like when I was simply enjoying a coffee with friends, or when I got accepted into the first college I applied for. I slowly grew to learn that I could not fight the pain for the sake of “closure,” but to allow the loss of my dad to change me, giving permission to the non-linearity of grief in all its forms. Within the messiness and sadness, I found beautiful moments starting to emerge, and I allowed myself to start finding peace. 

There is a crucial need for advocacy of grief fluency. Grief fluency is the ability to see, talk about and support loss without the cliches, judgments and demands for recovery. 

Witnessing someone undergoing a loss is not just “sad,” but they are also undergoing a tremendous change. Creating this shift is not an impossible task. Normalizing talking about loss in public and social spaces opens up the conversation of grief. Sharing our experiences, like I did within this article, creates a space for the expression of pain. Even years later, this conversation is met with presence, not cliches. Educational guidance should be integrated into health and even psychology curricula within high school and university courses. Support from communities holds so much power within grief. From the workplace to social friend groups, the building of support systems has the capacity to embrace the long arc of healing within grief and its process that is constantly evolving. Holding space for the raw emotions within grief creates a basis of emotional intelligence. Feeling these unfiltered emotions and navigating through them propels emotional intelligence that carries on throughout life with a skill. 

In a generation that deeply values authenticity and encourages vulnerability, we need to apply those values to the one experience that at some point will touch every single person: loss and grief. Becoming fluent in grief means we can stop marginalizing the pain within and embrace the complex but ever-so beautiful human experience.