If you’re confused about why you’re feeling grief – strong feelings of loss and intense sadness – when you haven’t suffered a bereavement, don’t be. You might be feeling disenfranchised grief. Unlike the grief we may feel when someone dies, disenfranchised grief often goes unrecognised, both by those experiencing it, and by their friends and family. That’s because there’s a perceived hierarchy of grief – a tendency to minimise feelings of loss if they’re not accompanied by the death of someone we love. But just like the grief of bereavement, disenfranchised grief feels exactly the same – sometimes worse.
Wait, you say. How can disenfranchised grief be worse than bereavement?
The first time I experienced grief unrelated to a bereavement was when my young child was diagnosed with a life-altering and life-threatening medical condition. I say “awareness” because now I know what disenfranchised grief is I can see that I also experienced grief at the end of my first serious relationship, and at other times in my life.
Ken Doka, a grief researcher, coined the term disenfranchised grief. He describes it as:
“Grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned or publicly mourned”. (Doka, 1989).
People sometimes describe the death of a serious relationship (in my case a formative relationship with multiple ‘first-time’ experiences) as heartbreak, but they rarely see it as something serious. My mother, when I told her of my breakup said “Oh, I’m sure you’ll have lots more boyfriends.” (There’s another potential blog post on attachment here, but this minimising of my distress was common, and something lots of us do to ourselves without realising it. How many times have you heard someone say “Oh it’s not that bad, look at what Sarah from number 12 has had to deal with – that’s much worse”?)
What makes disenfranchised grief so hard?
Disenfranchised grief can feel harder to bear than the sadness which accompanies a bereavement because it carries an additional layer of distress over and above the loss. in most cases, the person dealing with the grief doesn’t typically receive the validation they need in order to heal. When you do get validation, it’s often flawed and unhelpful (it frequently begins with “at least…”), whereas in the event of a loss by death, validation is more often given and can be reasonably expected.
In other words, when someone in your life dies, everyone knows that it will feel painful and is quick to offer words of understanding. If you’re lucky you might be surrounded by community who will support you. People get it, and that helps. But when you experience the pain of a great loss (in my case the health of my child) without getting that recognition, you feel alone with your grief, which can feel even worse.
When might you experience disenfranchised grief?
Examples of disenfranchised grief include:
- The death of a pet, an ex partner or a co-worker
- The loss of a home
- A job loss
- A miscarriage
- Divorce
- A burglary
- A child leaving home
- Finding out that someone you love isn’t who you thought they were
- Grief that has ‘gone on too long’
What all these things have in common is that there is no common experience. Whilst everyone acknowledges that the death of a child or much loved partner is likely to feel very hard, people bring their own perspectives to your experience, and judge it as worthy or not worthy of compassion. I’m angry just re-reading that final bullet – the suggestion that there is a timeframe for grief. And who says that losing a friend isn’t as bad as losing your mum? This is where counselling can be important; a good counsellor will want to know what it’s like for you, not offer opinions based on their own personal experiences.
How do I know if it’s disenfranchised grief?
It can be hard even to validate our own feelings when we’re not getting recognition from anyone else. It might help to compare your physical symptoms to your last experience of grief – if they’re similar, it’s a good sign that you’re grieving. If you’re lucky enough (and young enough – grief comes to all of us eventually) not to have experienced grief, here are some of the common feelings:
- Shock – a churning stomach, feeling wobbly, shaky, and tearful.
- Anger – If you’re asking yourself “Why me?” and running over in your mind all the reasons why it’s so unfair, there’s a chance your anger is a cover for the sadness and fear that comes with grief.
- Denial – telling yourself it can’t be true, or waking up and having to relive the nightmare again every morning before you remember is a sign that this is something that’s really hurting you.
- Bargaining – another form of resistance that tells you you haven’t accepted this new situation. This usually comes in the form of What ifs: What if I hadn’t picked that fight? What if we hadn’t taken that trip? What if I’d spotted this earlier and gone to the doctor? It might not have happened if I’d put the alarm on.
- Depression – by the time we get here, we sometimes don’t even relate how we feel to what happened originally. But depression is one of the stages of grief that most of us will go through on our way to acceptance. If you’re feeling low, tired, achy and like there’s nothing to look forward to, you may be experiencing depression. And it might be related to grief.
What can you do about disenfranchised grief?
Find someone to talk to. When we got the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, I would talk at length to anyone who would listen about how I felt and was met mostly with minimising responses. People didn’t believe in my grief because they couldn’t relate to it. In fact, society and the media even confirmed their views that I was overreacting, because diabetes in general is stigmatised. It wasn’t their fault but it meant I had to make concessions for their lack of understanding, at a time when what I really needed was support and an outlet for my emotions.
I found that in various online groups of people who were going through the same as me. The beauty of the internet is that there is always going to be someone out there who gets it – you’ve just got to find them. If you don’t, you will carry the feelings around inside of you, where (unless you’re very lucky) they will probably start to cause other problems – physical symptoms, addictive behaviours, loss of concentration or relationship problems.
If you’re struggling with grief and can’t find the right kind of support, a counsellor might be a helpful place to start. They can help you make sense of your feelings, find coping strategies in the short term, and help you decide what you want to do going forward as you learn to accept difficult new realities.
