What's your type?

Is typifying grief helpful? I'm confused.

I used to lie. A very specific, strange lie that I doubt anyone will have clocked. It wasn’t that Martin Compston once hit on me, or that Ant and Dec personally gave me a cuddly toy in the shape of a spotty dog (though those are both strange, specific lies that yes, forgive me, I’ve told.) 

It was that I cried at television adverts. I’d find a way to work this lie into conversation, aping how I’d seen others, mostly women, confess to how emotional they were. They’d tell people how easily they could shed tears. “I even cried the other day at a sofa advert” they’d say, giggling. I’d copy them, almost word-for-word. “Can you believe I cried at a sofa advert the other day?” I said to a crush (one of many) one night. I can’t remember how he reacted. That wasn’t the point. I suppose, at the time, I thought it was. That I was building this fictional version of myself to impress him, and others. 

I can see now I created a persona out of confusion. Out of shame. I wanted to be vulnerable, feminine. I was Pinocchio, wooden and desperate to just be a real girl.

I had been thrown into a grief that was both unexpected in its sudden sharp circumstance but also in how it displayed itself. I didn’t cry. I was numb. I pulled pints in rainbow jumpers, I learned how to listen and smile through a fog.

Movies and TV shows had kidded me into thinking that loss involved screaming, endless tears, being carried - light, delicate, all bones - in the arms of a tough, yet sensitive man. I wanted that. Instead I was this super noodle stained, plonk-of-a-person comprised of fake laughter and an ability to outdrink most people at a party. I was going against what I thought it meant to grieve, particularly what I thought it meant to grieve as a woman. Did this make me uncaring? Hard? Did it mean I didn’t love her as much as I should have? I wanted to feel sad. But I didn’t. So… I lied. 

One of my visions for this newsletter is to apply my skills as an investigative journalist to grief. To find out what trauma does to us - and why.  I’ve learned that not crying in the wake of a bereavement is incredibly common, particularly in cases like mine, where the person you’ve lost had a terminal illness. A trauma that came in slow motion, rather than a sudden explosion. It’s known as anticipatory grief. Then there’s delayed grief, when you muddle along organising, keeping busy, nodding as people say how “strong” you’re appearing but something (usually an anniversary, or birthday) triggers you into a state of varying grief ‘symptoms’ which include anger, fatigue, sleeplessness, the list goes on… 

There are lots of these different types of grief, scattered across the internet. Lists of emotions you might be experiencing, things you might notice in yourself. But some of these bullet points are so vague, including “sadness”, “loneliness.” Almost as if these states of emotions are easily recognised, and all consuming. When, as Suchandrika Chakrabarti wrote recently in her guest post, “emotions rarely exist on their own, but spill into each other and mix like paint on a palette.”

I could also recognise myself in some ‘symptoms’ and not in others. It began to remind me of the days when I’d search for where I was in the “seven stages of grief” - as if it was a map I had to follow, and somehow, I’d got lost. I felt a failure for that, even though I didn’t actually want to reach its destination of ‘acceptance.’ 

The seven stages of grief has, now, been largely debunked. Its creator Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (who, by the way, wrote the stages based on people who were dying, not on those grieving) has been praised for opening up research surrounding grief, but this particular theory has been criticised. As, when it comes to a state of being so extreme, so mind and life-altering, there can be no route. We can’t check our way through a list, as if grief is homework to be completed. It doesn’t work that way. The seven stages made people, myself included, feel as if there was a ‘right’ way to grieve. Is typifying grief just another iteration of this? 

I don’t doubt that these websites are useful. Many of them are written and run by therapists and grief experts. I am neither of these things. And, at first, I did find it helpful to assign a label to who I was back then. I think I was in a state of ‘avoidance’ grief, and I’ve carried the patterns of that with me since. It’s also worth bearing in mind I’m exploring all of this years after my initial loss, perhaps if I’d been able to pinpoint my grief back then I’d find it so comforting, I’d be able to say to people around me “look, this is where I’m at. Please accept me, or try to help me - if you even know how.”

And it’s here that, personally, I think the real problem lies. It’s not in the stages, or the types (as I really admire those who work in the field and who have identified the different types) but instead in the desperate need to be able to tell others that we’re normal.

To tell ourselves that we’re doing OK. Why do we demand this of others? Of ourselves? Why do we try to slot everything neatly into categories and then beat ourselves up when we’re not who we expected to be?

I keep thinking of that seventh stage, the destination on the map I should have torn up. Acceptance. As, I do wish I could have found it back then. Not acceptance of her death, for I saw that as shrugging her away, nonchalantly pretending she didn’t have an impact. But instead an ability to accept who I was. Being able to see that emotions are as sloppy, messy and stained as that bowl of super noodles. That I didn’t have to be anyone else. That there was no need to lie. Acceptance.

I’d absolutely love to know what you think! Have you found the different types of grief useful? What resources online have really helped you? Also, I’m feeling slightly self conscious that this newsletter has been a bit me, me, me recently - I’ve got another brave, beautiful guest post next week and a few good interviews lined up, so bear with me and thank you, as always, for your support.