The Grieving Brain, Complicated Grief, and Disenfranchised Grief

The Grieving Brain

Mourning the death of a loved one is about as universal a human emotion as exists, and it's not even confined to humans; there's evidence of it in other primates and even elephants. From its beginnings, psychotherapy has recognized the special challenge of grief and its relationship to depression (or, as Freud put it in the title of one of his best-known essays, "Mourning and Melancholia").

The dead never quite leave us; they return in dreams and reveries, they inhabit the pictures on our walls and lurk in our cell phones and disk drives. Some people find dreams comforting, while for others there is nothing as sad as the moment when the vision of a dead parent, spouse or child slips away with the dawn, and they awaken reluctantly to a day their loved ones will never see. But as researchers have turned their scanners on the dark realms of the psyche that grief inhabits, they are discovering the unsettling power of waking reveries. How one relates to them can make a large difference in how one recovers from the death of a loved one.

Complicated Grief

This insight comes from studying what therapists call "complicated grief," which basically means grief that doesn't go away. "It has to persist for six months or more in a way that interferes with your daily functioning," says UCLA researcher Mary-Frances O'Connor. "Every day you're experiencing yearning for the deceased, looking for them in a crowd, or expecting them to come home."

Read in entirety: Health Matters: Jerry Adler on The Grieving Brain
...or continue reading, my take on "Disenfranchised Grief"...

Disenfranchised Grief

As long as we're discussing levels of grief, I am surprised "disenfranchised grief" was not mentioned. Turns out, I more often in my life have had "disenfranchised grief" which can be, indeed "quite complicated" if not liberated.

Disenfranchised grief is simply put, that "grief" we feel yet are not "permitted" socially to acknowledge feeling. To be sure, it is grief that is not liberated. And in my own experience, this grief, having no clear social permission to be expressed, is expressed secretly and usually in a quite secretive and solitary manner.

This has been harmful, for me, because I notice then that the loss remains large and seems to grow larger because it cuts me off from sharing my innermost feelings with others I could, say, share a "regular loss" with. And then, compound that with my feeling even more separated from my fellow human beings. Compounded with that would be then the thought that I must be some kind of freak to have such intense feelings over this loss - when, remember - the loss is now growing after having been compounded with separation and loneliness and feeling not so understood.

Examples of disenfranchised grief may be the loss of a pet or a foreclosure. For a woman it may be a miscarriage or even an intended abortion. It may be putting a child up for adoption or giving away an animal. It's basically any sense of loss in any capacity that a person feels s/he cannot or "should not" feel.

I Liberated my Grief

It was test day and I'd just gotten news my cat had died. Social acceptance be damned, I walked into my boyfriends office, who happened to be a University professor and he walked to my Professor's office with me. I will be forever grateful that through my tears he calmly explained to my professor that I was a highly sensitive person, as he knew me well, and there was no chance I would be making up my reaction to the loss of my cat.

I was a very sincere collegiate academic and belonged to all sorts of societies. I was paying full price out of state and was not there on scholarship. I say these things to persuade the doubtful that I was, indeed, very distressed over my loss. It could not have hurt more had it been a human family member.

By liberating my otherwise "disenfranchised grief" on that day, it changed my life. And had I not had a test it would have probably remained secret as I tried to deal with it. And this, I can only imagine, would have prolonged it. But because of this liberating and understanding experience from two compassionate people, I was able to recognize and process any and all sorts of losses that came rolling at me. And they do come at us. As long as we are alive we will suffer losses.

As I have gotten older, however, I have understood that there are still people in this world who will try to downplay, shame, or belittle your unliberated grief. It does not mean they are "right". It just means they are insensitive to your needs.

So find a friend you can speak honestly and openly with. Feel your grief, process it, and liberate yourself! Nothing can heal in secrecy and silence. In fact, I happen to be of the mind that by sharing our "loss" with friends who will understand, that the love, compassion, and understanding we receive will quickly fill ~ at least partly ~ the hole that has been left behind by our loss. And that the pain we feel will be lessened.

Volunteer at Animal Rescue Facility gets Attacked and has Leg Amputated

The St Louis Post Dispatch

Wed Aug 6

20