4 Myths About Grief

In the last year, we have all dealt with an enormous amount of grief. We’ve lost people, community gathering places, jobs, homes, etc. But for something that is so common, we don’t usually know a lot about grief. It is an uncomfortable and difficult feeling to have, so many of us don’t talk about it. 

But grief is common, and not understanding it actually makes it harder for us to navigate our grief and, eventually, move past it. And what’s even harder, is there are a lot of common myths about grief that get passed around as general wisdom in hard times. Today we’re going to unpack some of those myths to hopefully help you understand your grief a little better when it shows up. 

MYTH 1: Grief is just about death 

The death of a loved one is of course a source of grief, but grieving actually isn’t referring to a loss from death specifically. It is any sort of loss at all. You can grieve the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, losing a job, moving out of your house, etc. Grief is simply the recognition that what you once had (or wanted to have) has been taken away. And the grieving process is however you navigate that loss, whatever the loss is. 

MYTH 2: There are 5 stages of grief

There are many stages of grief. Most of us have heard about the 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance)–so much so that they’re even mentioned in popular media like The Simpsons, 30 Rock and New Girl. And while one may experience one or some or all of these stages, it’s not the checklist we believe it to be. You don’t neatly go from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance. Some people won’t feel every single one of the five, some people will feel all five at once. Sometimes you will feel angry and accepting at the same time–that’s the complicated part about grief. It’s messy. You might go from denial to acceptance right back to denial. You might be angry the whole time. You might not be angry at all. While the five stages can happen while grieving, the roadmap we seem to think it is is just too neat to really reflect how people process their emotions. 

MYTH 3: Grief looks the same on everyone

As you might have been able to piece together from the second myth–grief isn’t going to look the same for any two people, because we aren’t following a handy little grief recipe. We’re feeling real, complicated, and intense emotions. And every person feels and processes their feelings differently, so of course your grieving process will look different to someone else's. Some might need to cry a lot. Some might not cry at all. There is no wrong way to grieve. The only “wrong” way to grieve would be to stop yourself from grieving at all. Refusing to acknowledge the loss won’t make those feelings go away, it will just make them stronger when they come up later. 

MYTH 4: There’s a clear end to grief

Grief and mourning are not the same. Mourning is the actions you take when grieving (for example, if a loved one died, mourning would be things like a funeral service, a wake, a memorial, etc.) but grief is that feeling of loss–and that feeling might not go away even when you’ve “completed” your grieving process. And by that I mean, you have acknowledged your grief, you’ve sat with it, explored it, allowed yourself to feel it fully. You’ve taken your mourning steps, and you feel as though it’s no longer debilitating, and you feel as though you’re ready to move onto a new stage of your life. Finishing that process doesn't mean you’ve dumped out all of the grief you have for the loss. It might come back in waves later on. You might think you’re “over it” and it might come back later and make you sad. That’s okay. Grief does that–it lingers. While time eases how much it stings, it doesn’t erase the loss. 

If you’re looking for support as you navigate your grieving process, therapy can be a great place to start. Get in touch with us today and we can help you.