The grief that has no name
On losses without a funeral — a breakup, health, the country left behind, the imagined child — and why they are harder to mourn than a death.
When someone dies, people know what to do. There is a ritual, a day off, a “my condolences” that people say even when they don't know what else to say. You are allowed to cry. You are allowed not to be well for a while.
But there are losses for which no one offers you condolences. A breakup that you wanted. A pregnancy lost early, which few people knew about. The health you had before a diagnosis. The country you grew up in and will not go back to. The career you gave up. The healthy child you imagined before illness changed their life. The parent who is still alive but no longer recognises you.
These are griefs without a name. They are harder to bear precisely because they are not allowed to exist: nobody has died, “you should be grateful”, “it was your choice”, “it's only a house”. Without permission, without ritual and without a witness, the pain does not disappear. It moves. Into irritability, into tiredness, into a sadness that feels groundless and for which you judge yourself.
In a family, things get more complicated: each person grieves at a different pace. One wants to talk, another wants to move on. One keeps things, another throws them away. The different rhythms become a conflict in themselves, and the original loss hides inside the quarrel.
What helps? First of all, naming the loss as a loss. Not as a “change”, not as a “stage”, but as something that has gone and will not come back. Then, a witness: someone in whose presence the loss is allowed to matter. And time: a time in which what was lost finds its place in the story and can be left behind — not the time of refusal, which stands still.
When does a psychologist help? When time passes, but the loss stays as close as if it had happened yesterday. When you feel you have lost something, but do not allow yourself to recognise it as a loss. When the family has split into camps around it. Mourning is not an illness; it is work. Sometimes it is easier to do with someone.
If you recognise yourself in this text, you will find more on the page Family.
If you would like to talk
Write me a few lines about what brings you. There is no need to explain everything.
Or write to me directly at radutudorache@protonmail.com.