How does grief impact the body?
A few scientific things that I recently learned...
Is yours a bruise? One that’s both fascinating and frightening in equal measures, a swirl of purple, blue, meek yellow? A bruise you’re sometimes tempted to press, incite pain on yourself, and you’re not really sure why? One that’s bumped by others, sometimes unconsciously, yet at times, deliberately?
Or perhaps it’s a scar? One that’s raised and tender still? That you feel strangely proud of, for it shows what you went through? But God! At the same time don’t you wish the scar wasn’t there, that there wasn’t this constant reminder of that white hot pain? Has it has been stitched or glued? Tackily repaired in a way that makes others think the wound has healed… but it hasn’t really?
I often compare grief to physical ailments. It’s too hard to grasp otherwise, this thing that we exist within. It also makes it easier for people who, perhaps are yet to experience it intensely, to understand.
I recently had Covid (again) and found great comfort in that second blue line forming on the test. I had a solid reason to pull myself out of my daily life, say to friends, family and work, that I needed to slow down. I liked knowing what was wrong with me. I mused how wonderful it would be if we could have tests for everything - for tummy bugs, colds, headaches - something to tell us when it’s right to push on, and when it’s time to scale back. The whole ‘listen to your body’ thing is too wooly for my liking. My body is in constant war with my brain - I never know which parts of myself to obey. I’m just too conditioned to think of rest as laziness.
Looking back on my past, I can see how much of my behaviour was an automatic reflex. I was living through grief, but I was in such denial about it. If I’d been able to test myself, shove a cotton bud into my brain matter, and it come out as a warning sign - this girl is in trouble, tread carefully - would I have taken better care of myself?
I don’t know. I do know after my conversation with Mary-Frances O Connor who studies the impact of grief on the brain that it is damaging. That although grief (or indeed any mental health issue) does not show up in the form of a bruise or a scar, there are no x-rays or tests for it, it still is silently causing havoc. I also recently wrote an article for Women’s Health UK examining how grief impacts our health and our bodies. You should read the whole thing (it’s in the issue on news stands now, with P!nk on the cover) but it further confirmed this.
I interviewed experts and forced my easily-distracted mind to study complicated scientific papers and, at times, felt utterly hopeless and lost. As all the research glaringly pointed to one thing: grief fucks with our health.
Particularly when it comes to stress. Stress is felt in extremes and scientists have discovered that losing someone is the greatest life stressor we face. And while there’s not actually many studies examining the impact of grief on the body, there’s plenty on stress - it batters our immune system, elevates our blood pressure, increases inflammation in our body… (and increased inflammation contributes to almost every disease in older adulthood.)
I began to wonder at this point of my feature whether I should carry on. Surely by typing all of this out, printing this impact in a magazine read by thousands, I would be further contributing to the stress of those grieving. After all, we can’t take back what has happened to us. Is it helpful to know that, underneath our skin and bones, beyond our brains and all-encompassing emotions, there’s further damage being done? It felt hopeless, negative and pointless.
But then I began to think of the denial I once lived in. A state I created for myself, out of the fear of feeling so pathetic that I still suffered. I know I’m not alone in this, so many of us try to minimise how we’re feeling. We try to brush off how much grief has impacted our lives.
These studies that show just how impactful grief is can be comforting, in a strange way. We shouldn’t deny how deeply distressing it is.
I’m writing this from the UK where we have an extreme stiff-upper-lip, keep-calm-and-carry-on attitude to death. When I went to a death cafe at a music festival I learned we aren’t alone in this either. It’s typical for employers to only offer us five days off, in the wake of a bereavement. I know many people who have taken funerals as holiday. For something that impacts our health, both mentally and physically, from top-to-toe? We need to get better at discussing what grief does to us, how long it lasts, how it isn’t something that we ‘get over’ after a few big cries in a black dress.
We shouldn’t have to relate our grief (or indeed any other mental health issue) to something visible and physical in order for it to be taken seriously. I shouldn’t be wishing for a test for it, just so I can grant myself permission to speak out on what I need.
When I was researching the feature I so wanted some scientist to have discovered a cure. Some form of medicine that, like knocking back a shot of Night Nurse, would take the pain away. I did discover that there are some steps you can take (including embracing ways to keep the person you lost close to you) but mostly what I learned is that talking about grief, how painful it truly is, doesn’t add to the stress. It simply tells us we need more support, we can’t just carry on as we did before.
If you’re feeling destroyed by grief that’s natural. You’re going through something monumental. These studies and conversations are our x-ray, our tests, they help show us - and those around us - that though the pain isn’t a bruise or a scar, it’s there and it’s oh-so-real.
How did you find grief impacted your body? Your health? Let me know in the comments, I’m sure you’ll be far from alone in feeling that way. And please do pick up a copy of Women’s Health magazine - I think it’s really important that we keep paying for journalism, and supporting publications and writers. That also applies to this newsletter so if you can become a paid subscriber it would help me do so much more research. If you can’t afford it right now, that’s OK, please do share my work with others so I can reach more people. Thank you!