Jodi’s Corner – 16MAY2023

Naming Your Grief 
There is a name for grief that isn’t routinely acknowledged: disenfranchised grief. The term was coined in the 1980s by Kenneth J. Doka, a bereavement expert who began studying unacknowledged grief while teaching graduate students at the College of New Rochelle. When the class discussion turned to the death of a spouse, an older student spoke about the lack of social support when her ex-husband died. His new wife was the widow. Her children had lost their father. But she felt she had no standing to grieve for a man with whom she’d gone to high school prom and shared 25 years of her life. 
 
The conversation prompted Dr. Doka to begin studying grief that isn’t acknowledged or supported by social ritual. It can happen when we don’t have a legal tie to the person we lose, as is the case in a romantic affair or after a divorce. When the loss makes others uncomfortable — like a miscarriage or suicide — we might also lack support for our grief.  But often disenfranchised grief happens around smaller losses that don’t involve loss of human life, like the loss of a job, a missed career opportunity, the death of a pet or lost time with people we love.  
 
“A constant refrain is, ‘I don’t have a right to grieve,’” said Dr. Doka. 
 
Acknowledging Your Grief 
One of the biggest challenges with disenfranchised grief is getting the person who is suffering to acknowledge the legitimacy of their own grief. Once you accept that your grief is real, there are steps you can take to help you cope 

• ·   Validate the loss. Identify the thing or things you’ve lost this year. “I’ve gotten a number of letters from people who read my book and said, ‘You gave my grief a name,’” said Dr. Doka. “There’s power in naming it. It’s a legitimate loss.” 
• ·   Seek support. One of the challenges of disenfranchised grief is that we often suffer in silence. Going to a support group or a therapist or reaching out to friends to talk about your grief is an important step in coping with it. “I think sharing helps, because people feel a lot of times with grief, especially disenfranchised grief, they feel alone and isolated,” said Ms. Zoll. “They think nobody else is experiencing what they’re experiencing. Someone has to be brave enough to bring it up. When you talk about it, people will say, ‘I’ve been experiencing that too.’” 
• ·   Create a ritual. Funerals, memorial services and written obituaries are rituals around death that help us process our loss. Consider creating a ritual that honors your loss. Consider planting a tree, for example, or finding an item that represents your loss, like canceled airline tickets or a wedding invitation, and burying it. Host a pretend prom or graduation ceremony. Some people might want to get a tattoo to memorialize the loss. “What we struggle with is to find meaning in the loss,” said Ms. Zoll. “Grief and loss don’t make sense. The rituals are part of finding the meaning.” 
• ·   Help someone else. Dr. Zoll said small acts of kindness have helped her cope with her own losses during the pandemic. She overheard a woman in a grocery store whose mother had died, and she was making her mother’s favorite meal as a way to honor her. “We waited for them to get to checkout, and we paid for their groceries,” said Ms. Zoll. “I wanted her grief narrative to include something nice that happened. When she talks about remembering her mom, she also remembers that someone paid for her groceries.” 
• ·   Find small moments of enjoyment. Don’t force yourself to be happy, but try to find things to do that you enjoy. “Joy is a lofty goal,” said Ms. Zoll. “Sometimes the best we can do is find moments of enjoyment that are enough of an escape that we get a break.”