Anticipatory Grief
This article on grief was making the rounds about a week ago. It’s a great read, in case you somehow missed it. The article begins with this thought: What you’re feeling is grief, and “if we can name it, perhaps we can manage it.”
Manage it. It’s what you’ve been doing since your infertility diagnosis. The difference being that you were alone, navigating the loss of normality while life continued on around you, and now everyone is in the same boat. Before, you were navigating anticipatory grief alone, and now everyone is navigating it, too.
“Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain.”
It made me wonder if we’ll emerge from this experience a more understanding society. Will we be able to reference COVID-19 and say, “What I’m feeling is anticipatory grief” about something else, and everyone will nod and say, “Oh, I get it.”
In fact, one of his recommendations is to “stock up on compassion.” To understand that someone is not themselves and is in a stressful moment and to have a little grace and leniency if they’re not on their best behaviour.
But maybe my favourite part of the article is this:
The truth is a feeling that moves through us. We feel it and it goes and then we go to the next feeling. There’s no gang out to get us. It’s absurd to think we shouldn’t feel grief right now. Let yourself feel the grief and keep going.
This too shall pass. Right? I need to believe that.
6 comments
Yes. And I’m glad that feeling the grief is the phase we are in right now. Because all the “get all the things done” at the beginning of this was overwhelming. Learn a language! Deep clean! Organize! Do, do, do.
Forget the fact that many are still working from home. Forget the fact that kids are now distance learning and many need support from parents. Forget that our lives are now upside down. This is also a moment of grief and we don’t need to pile on top of that a feeling of not measuring up because we are simply getting by, or trying to make this less scary for our kids, and are not also “accomplishing” other things.
I have talked to my kids a lot about feeling their feelings, but also about focusing on what Anna tells us in Frozen 2 – right now, all we can do is The Next Right Thing. We don’t have to do any more.
Yes, this, too, shall pass. But it’s unclear when, or what our lives will look like once it does, and therein lies the uncertainty and associated anticipatory grief.
xkyademiqz has a an interesting counter to that article that I really liked:
https://xykademiqz.com/2020/03/28/lovecraftian-times/
and I don’t want to add too many links, but the non-consumer advocate had a great post diagnosing her feeling as anger.
It would be lovely if after this we could talk about anticipatory grief, but considering we (Western societies in general) are all crap at talking about grief at all, I am not crossing my fingers. That said, it is okay to feel loss and grief at this time, to roll with our feelings. And the compassion is an important component of this. A key message from our Prime Minister and in all the COVID-19 lockdown information that has been disseminated here is “Be Kind.” Her calm message has in fact given me and many NZers enormous comfort. Being kind sucks out the anger and even grief, in some ways.
We are talking a lot about grief and loss these days. At first I was annoyed because what students were grieving was the loss of graduation, and they were demanding that we hold it. As if we could make decisions about that. But the more I talked with them, the more we understood that they were grieving something else: the loss of a future. They dreaded what they knew would happen, that many of their loved ones would die. Some of them are grieving the inevitable layoff of parents from jobs.
The other thing we talk a lot about is grace (offering it to themselves and to other people trying to do their best ever day) and compassion. I don’t think I’ve ever used those words quite so much in my professional career. I hope that they remember them when this is all over, too, if we will ever be “over” this (which, if it’s really grief, and a reaction to trauma, we won’t).
I love that quote you pulled from the article. It reminds me of one of my faves, which is on our bulletin board now as our kids struggle with their own anticipatory grief:
“I am not the clouds; I am the sky.”
Like your quote, it speaks to the temporary nature of thoughts and emotions.
I like what Justine says about grace and compassion. With others and with ourselves.