Written by: Eleanor Silverberg, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
It is the anniversary date of my brother's death that compelled me to write about grief. I am aware as a grief specialist that intense reactions can surface on significant dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. You may be aware of the same occurring related to the death of a significant person in your life. You may be less aware though if it involves the grief experience from other loss circumstances that can similarly impact such as anniversary dates of a job layoff, illness in the family, divorce or fleeing from your home country due to war. You may not be connecting emotions of sadness to these other loss circumstances that occurred in the past, a year or years ago. Making the connection could help though in dealing with the distressing feelings as part of the grief experience.
Applying the 3-A Coping Framework: Acknowledge, Assess, Assist to address loss is beneficial in raising awareness, inserting a context to adverse reactions instead of not knowing what the reactions are about. Acknowledging the loss; Assessing the impact – validating triggers of anniversary dates, birthdays and recognizing that it is not just about death circumstances; Assisting in understanding and working through the grief.
A question arises frequently, one that you may have asked especially when caught in the heat of loss: Will this grief ever end? The answer can be explored from the perspective of time, grief processing, and closure:
Time as a Healer: Grief is commonly considered to be a natural reaction to loss that begins with intense reactions that diminish over time. Grief is actually more complex though. For instance, it may not even manifest at the time of the loss but surface months or years later as a delayed grief reaction. Because the symptoms of grief resemble depression, the grief can get treated as depression and go undetected if you are not monitoring with self-awareness, acknowledging and assessing to link with a past loss. This may even more likely occur in loss situations that are not death related.
Also, time may not necessarily heal. When the last Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) was revised, there was a new disorder added related to the grieving experience. Prolonged Grief Disorder is a diagnosis made after a specified length of time has gone by since the loss occurred where the grief has not subsided and there is difficulty coping with activities of daily living. Although, it pathologizes grief from being a natural reaction to loss, it still connects the reaction to the loss context rather than not making that link. In these cases, there is treatment available to assist in coping through the loss. But would the grief end here?
Grief Processing: It is understandable that you do not want to actually embrace the grief because grief involves experiencing pain, at times unbearable. If you push the grief away, though, it does not mean it goes away. Pushing grief away does not end it. It is still in there, that grief part just gets tucked away. Although it may appear like it is gone, repressing buries the grief to just resurface again perhaps more intense at a later date as it lingers in the present within the cells of your system.
Although we live in a culture that discourages sadness and distressing emotions, facing the loss applying the 3-A's of Acknowledge, Assess, Assist is a means of processing the grief for better outcomes of coming to terms with it, working with it rather than pushing it away. Assisting by acknowledging the loss and assessing the impact can lead to using assisting grief strategies such as journaling, normalizing, self-monitoring with self-awareness as you adapt to the changes brought on by the loss. Facing the challenge, making peace and meaning from the loss is the next best thing. It does take time.
Closure: Many people seek ways of attaining closure believing that is what is required in order to "move on". But closure does not end the grief experience either. You may move forward thinking you are "over it", able to "move on" only to have the grief surface months or years later.
Another way of looking at recovery is that the grief does not necessarily shrink over time after a loss but that your life grows bigger around the grief. Just as grief does not end, neither does life. Hopefully, in moving forward, there are new memories created of life moments to fill space alongside the old memories and enduring grief.
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Eleanor Silverberg, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Eleanor Silverberg, founder of Jade Self Development Coaching, is a social worker, author, speaker and grief specialist whose intention is to help adults move forward stronger through diverse life-altering situational losses, applying the innovative 3-A Coping Framework she developed. Her specialty is assisting family caregivers of the chronically ill to cope and prevent burnout. Her mode of practice stands out as she combines existing grief models with conventional and practical strategies, featuring them in her books “Caregiving with Strength” and “Keeping It Together”. She has also created a modified mindfulness program in her book “Mindfulness Exercises for Dementia”. Eleanor holds a BA in Psychology, Master of Social Work, Certification in Bereavement Education, extensive training and practice in Mindfulness and over 20 years of Independent Grief Studies.
