What is grief?

How do you define grief? 

The Collins dictionary defines grief as ‘deep or intense sorrow or distress, esp at the death of someone’.  

In other settings, such as a workplace, you may hear grief being used interchangeably with bereavement. 

We can feel grief in many different areas of a bereavement, for example anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief or secondary grief.

What is anticipatory grief?

One of our amazing volunteers, Alice, wrote a great blog post on this question as she believes the internet definition doesn’t tell us enough. You can read the full article here, but Alice describes it as, ‘This [anticipatory grief], rather simply put, means the preemptive feelings of grieving that you might experience when your unwell loved one is still alive, but faced with a life-limiting condition or illness. But anticipatory or preemptive grief, in my experience, is rather ill-defined. This does not necessarily mean just the grief you feel knowing your parent is going to die, but rather a weave of interconnected feelings that come with seeing transformations and changes in a person due to their illness. And for many of us, it is both.’

What is disenfranchised grief?

Disenfranchised grief is a type of grief that happens when you feel like you cannot publicly mourn. An example of this could be if your person died in a stigmatised way, for example if they died committing a crime.

Obviously, we understand that it is absolutely okay and necessary to publicly grieve your person, no matter what anyone else thinks. We are a community here to support you, so we understand.

You may also feel disenfranchised grief years after the loss of your person in situations where people may minimise your grief. For example, if you say to someone you feel upset about the loss of your parent, they say ‘oh I thought you’d be over that by now’. Again, we understand that your grief will always be there, and no matter how long ago it was, our community is here for you.

What is secondary grief?

Again, one of our amazing volunteers, Ben, has written an article all about his experience of secondary grief after his dad passed away. You can read it here but he describes it as ‘Secondary grief: when you attach meaning to a date or experience, and you go through that feeling of loss all over again.’ 

Secondary grief could happen on birthdays, anniversaries or important days like graduation or your wedding. Big days like this, highlight your loss and can bring up all the difficult and intense feelings of grief. 

How long does grief last?

Unfortunately there is no timeline and you will likely feel your grief for the rest of your life. This isn’t a life sentence to being sad though, you can live a full life, experience happiness and still experience grief. This is where Lois Tonkins model of growing around grief can be really helpful. You can read it here.