In Defense of Denial

Like most therapists, I'm a big proponent of feeling your feelings. (In fact, if you’ve met me in real life, you’re probably well aware of this, as I share every feeling at every moment). Experiencing your emotions (namely the tough ones) is a key part of good mental and emotional health. After all, ignoring your feelings doesn’t make them go away. In fact, your feelings don’t care that you don’t want to deal with them; they will find a way to make themselves known.

All that being said, sometimes denying our feelings, for a little while, is a necessary coping mechanism. Remember Kubler-Ross and her stages of grief? The first stage is denial. You know, “this can’t be happening, there has to be some mistake.” There’s a good reason we start there when hit with bad news: some experiences are just too hard to process all at once. Instead, we sometimes have to pretend they’re not happening until we’re ready to handle them.

Notice that last sentence: denial needs to be a temporary response. At some point, you do have to acknowledge what’s happening, be it a poor prognosis or a financial crisis or a death. You can’t ignore your circumstances forever. But you can sort of ignore them temporarily. Our brains are not made to withstand constant distress. Denial exists so that we can continue to function while bad things are happening to us.

So if you need, for a little while, to live in the land of Denial, be my guest. It can be a really pleasant and helpful place to visit. Just make sure you aren’t there to stay; those feelings you’re avoiding won’t stay hidden forever. Better for you to the be the one who decides how to deal with them.

Caring for yourself as you grieve

It is easy to list for ourselves all the things we didn’t start or finish in any given day. “I should have called my sister/run a load of laundry/exercised today;” the list is endless. When we are grieving or in a depression or having big anxiety, the list also comes with some serious self-judgment: what is wrong with me? Why can’t I do anything?

In those moments, I invite you to remember that there are very few things you must do every day. You have a set of basic needs: food, water, and shelter. If you’re really feeling ambitious, you can add personal care (showering, brushing your teeth) and socialization (as much of it as you can handle; even just texting someone hello is good enough here). On days when your emotions are heavy, when you are weighed down by grief or pain, you do not have to accomplish anything except very basic self care.

Self care conjures up images of bubble baths and good chocolate. That’s lovely but it’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about some Maslow’s hierarchy of needs stuff. Remember your intro to sociology class? I shall refresh your memory, just in case:

See how those physiological and safety needs are at the bottom? That’s because you can’t reach the other levels without first meeting the basic needs. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds, especially when we are not well. Instead of berating yourself for not doing enough, look at what you can do: get out of bed; feed and water your body; try to connect with another human being or a pet or a plant or a book. Focus on what you need to stay alive. Everything else can be done tomorrow.

Try breathing through it

Imagine you’ve stubbed your toe, or banged your shin on the coffee table. When that pain hits, you suck in your breath and hold it for a second. Your brain has sent a signal to your body that you are in danger. You freeze.

Now imagine the way you exhale after that moment of intake: slowly and steadily, right? When you breathe that way, the pain subsides a little. Breathing is the best way to remind your body that it is safe. But when we’re in pain–be it physical or emotional pain–we don’t necessarily remember that. Our lizard brains can only report DANGER and so we hold our breath. How can we make the change and remember to breathe when we are suffering? Only with practice.

Here I should tell you that I am not good at practicing this in my real life. I won’t pretend here that I am an expert in mindfulness or even deep breathing. Just like doctors make for bad patients, therapists are not always beacons of mental health ourselves. But that kind of work–being mindful, and present in your body, and taking deep breaths when you are dysregulated–is a practice. That means you don’t have to do it perfectly or even all the time. It means you can practice doing it as you are able. It can be a process made up of small changes; you don’t have to become Zen Master You. The goal here is just to try it out.

So the next time you are in pain–a stubbed toe or a broken heart–take some deep breaths. Remind your body that you are safe. See how it feels. And if you don’t do it perfectly, or every time, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the practice of it. What matters is caring for yourself.

Find the light

It has been literally quite dark the past few days here in the Philly suburbs. Between the rain and the time of year, the sun feels like a distant memory at the moment. However! It is also the holiday season, which means there is (other) light everywhere. There are intricate light displays on homes and businesses. There are sparkles and sequins in shop windows. There can be candlelight. There is brightness to combat the dark.

You don’t have to celebrate a religious holiday this time of year to bask in the glow. Light can be found and celebrated without having to subscribe to Christmas or Hanukkah. It can be found in being with others; in volunteering your time or money (if you have it to give); in window shopping; in fancy light displays or wandering through your neighborhood. In the cold, wet winter—when it is mostly dark and often difficult because of grief or family or winter blues or any number of other things—I want to remind you that you deserve some light. If you can’t find it, create it. If that’s beyond you right now, ask someone else to help. And remember, darkness passes.

Have a joyful holiday season—and if that’s beyond you as well, just get through it. Wishing you all light and lightness as we enter the new year.

Creative ways to explore your grief

People who are grieving often ask, "what should I be doing?" Usually I reject the premise of the question: there's nothing to do except experience your grief. You have to feel your feelings, even (especially) the hard ones.

That being said, I do appreciate the idea that there should be an action that accompanies grief, something to help move through it. There are any number of options in that vein. What follows here is a (small and not at all comprehensive) list of creative ways to experience and honor your grief. If they make you feel weird or too silly, don’t do them! But let me encourage you to consider doing something a little different (and maybe a little weird) in order to give your grief the attention it deserves.

1. Write a letter to your person. It can be about whatever you want: a list of things you miss about them; an update about the family; a rehashing of an old argument. You can write as much or as little as you want. You can burn it after it's done or tuck it away or share it with others. The object here is to connect with the person you love and miss, keeping a part of them alive for yourself.

2. Tend to a plant. I say "a plant" because I have a black thumb, not a green one, so an entire garden feels off-putting to me personally. But maybe gardening is your thing! Take your grief there. Tend to the living, green things; put your hands in the dirt. Talk to the flowers.

3. Write a song or a poem or a haiku or paint a picture. It doesn't have to be Pulitzer or museum-worthy. It doesn't have to be shared with anyone else, though it can be. Again, the only objective is to take some intentional time with your loss and find what’s beautiful in it.

4. Make a shrine. (This is my personal favorite). It can look any way you want. It can be tucked away in a corner or right in the doorway of your home. It can have pictures and ticket stubs or candles and symbols. Spend some time building it and looking at it so you can honor the memory of this person that you love so much. It’s a gift for you both.

Remember, in grief there is no way out but through. You may as well find a way to make the journey a little more interesting. And if you’re feeling particularly brave, share what you’ve created. I, for one, would love to see it.

When grief is bittersweet

I took my daughters on a walk in the woods the other day and happened upon some birds taking a bath in a stream. My very first thought was, “I have to call Mom.” Almost simultaneously, I remembered that I can’t call her; she’s been dead for more than seven years.

But she popped into my head in that moment because she used to tell this story about me waiting next to my grandparents’ birdbath to see the birds. There’s even a picture to commemorate the story: three year old me in a pink winter coat, staring determinedly at the (very empty) birdbath. My mom told me how they tried to convince me that I was too close and the birds wouldn’t come but I waited and waited anyway. She loved telling that story. So when I came upon those robins bathing in the stream while I walked with my own children, I was seized with the desire to call my mother to tell her, I finally managed to catch the birds in the act.

It was sad, obviously, to realize I couldn’t actually call her. But what a lovely moment, to forget for just a split second—to have her be so alive to me still.

This is what I mean when I describe grief as bittersweet. The long, winding road of bereavement is filled with these moments: listening to a song that reminds you of your person; finding their handwriting in an old card; hearing a story you’d forgotten or never known about them. It’s sad, of course, but it’s lovely too, that the person you lost is still with you.

Grief isn’t all sharp edges and painful black holes—though those are part of it. It can also be a gift. Let it be. Let your heart feel full, even if it hurts. Find the sweetness in your grief.

Grief can be complicated

For many of us, grief is straightforward: we feel sorrow and sadness and our loved ones can understand our mourning process. For other people, it’s much more complicated than that. If there are past traumas, if you were estranged from the person who died, if the relationship was challenging or abusive, your bereavement is not a straightforward period of sorrow and sadness. And because your grief isn’t typical, it can feel isolating and confusing.

It isn’t easy to talk about this kind of complicated grief with others, even those who know you well. That old adage, “don’t speak ill of the dead” is deeply ingrained in us. When someone dies, it’s tempting to only view them fondly and warmly; they can’t defend themselves from criticism anymore so the default is to not criticize. But death does not make saints of everyone. Sometimes people are abusive or addicted or they made mostly bad choices, or they were barely present at all. Then, when they die, it’s difficult to find the right words to explain your grief.

The good news is, you don’t have to explain your grief (or lack thereof) to anyone. You don’t have to be sad about someone’s death if ultimately their death is a relief to you. Instead, your grief can be about what you never had from that person, and what they will never be able to repair for you. You can decide how you want to forgive them—if that’s what you want. You can decide how to move forward and how to mourn. Your loss is your own. Your grief is your own. Other people don’t have to understand it or accept it.

Photo by Ian Stauffer on Unsplash

Therapy is work

Sometimes people aren’t ready for therapy. They think they are. They make the phone call, schedule the appointment, show up and answer the first session questions. But then, when the work really begins, it turns out they’re just not ready to do it.

I confess, I have sometimes been one of these people who thought I was ready and then… wasn’t. I have walked into a therapy session, confident in my ability to get down to business, and then discovered it’s actually really hard. And I didn’t always have the bandwidth to do the hard stuff.

There’s no shame in that. It’s just a fact: if you aren’t ready to really look at yourself and do some work with what you find, you aren’t ready to be in therapy.

Notice I wrote that the work is “on yourself.” This is an important distinction: some people come to therapy because they want to change someone else. They want their marriage to get better, their mother to apologize, their best friend to commit to something important. But that’s not what therapy is for. You are the person in the room. You are the one who has to look at your own stuff and figure out what to do with it.

There are a lot of reasons not to commit to that; it’s expensive, it’s time consuming, it’s emotionally taxing. And yet, when you are ready, when you have the time and the resources and the mental and emotional space, it can be life changing. So if you aren’t ready now, take heart: you will be one day. And when you are, you are going to do great work.

When someone we love is suffering

The problem with loving someone—there are many but let’s start with this one—is that sometimes the person you love will suffer. They will have pain or disease or grief or distress and you will not be able to magically take it away from them. Watching someone you love suffer, physically or emotionally, is awful. And yet, it’s part of the whole deal.

Once, after my mom died, I told a colleague, “I just don’t want my brother and my dad to be sad.” I ended up laughing instead of crying because of the way my sweet colleague stared at me and said, “Elizabeth.” It was, in fact, a bonkers thing to say. It was also true. My own grief was hard enough to bear; I couldn’t stand that the people I love were also suffering.

This is a common theme for my clients, whether they are caretakers or bereaved. Their own grief is awful, all-consuming, exhausting; and yet, they cannot bear to think that other people in their life are also having a hard time. Ignoring the grief and pain of others is doable but doesn’t feel great and also can be hurtful to said loved ones. On the other hand, taking on the pain of others also feels awful and doesn’t take anyone’s pain away. So what to do?

The answer, of course, depends: on what kind of day you’re having; on how the relationship usually functions; and on the cues you’re getting from the other person or people. But in general, as I’ve written ad nauseum, our grief is much easier to bear if it’s shared. You are not protecting your loved ones if you deny your grief or theirs. On the contrary, talking about it opens the door gives them permission to grieve with you instead of protecting you.

We don’t want the people we love to suffer but they will; that’s a part of life. And if that’s true, we may as well suffer together.

Say no: Setting boundaries when you're grieving

Therapists love to talk about boundaries and I am no exception. Boundaries are wonderful! There are so few things we can control in our lives; setting limits with others is one of them. That being said, knowing we can make our own rules in this way is easier than actually doing it.

Setting boundaries can be frustrating, to say the least. That’s because most frequently, the response you get from others when you set a limit with them is not ideal. It is not, “oh, thank you for telling me! I will honor your request with good humor!” Instead, setting a boundary or a limit with someone in your life often leads to hurt feelings and frustration. Asking someone to give you space or not bring up a certain topic or whatever can be difficult for a number of reasons: you’ve never said no before; or the situation has been the same for so long, it seems weird to suddenly ask for a change. Likewise, the person who is being asked to step back or stop a behavior often feels defensive: what’s wrong with the way things are? Why are you suddenly changing the game on me?

But life is always changing (which is out of our control) and we need to be able to make changes that suit us (which is in our control). This is especially true when we are grieving.

Grief is exhausting. It takes up so much of our energy, mentally, physically, and emotionally. In a grieving period, we need to be able to tell others (who may be well meaning) what we need. Most often, what we need during our grief is to say no.

I don’t mean you should hide away in a cave until you feel better (though there may be days when that sounds appealing). Rather, I mean you don’t have to go on as if everything is normal. It isn’t, for you. Your life has changed and you need time to adjust and figure out how you want to move forward. People in your life may not understand this; they may want you to show up in the ways you used to, at work, in your family, in your social life. I’m giving you permission to sometimes say no, without guilt. Your grief deserves your full attention. You deserve to honor it by asking for what you need.

Grief before loss: Anticipatory grief

Most of the time, we think about grief in terms of a death loss. After a death, your grief may be all consuming but it’s also clear: someone you love is physically gone and their absence is painful. But sometimes we lose someone before their body dies. That grief—the more ambiguous, murky loss of loving someone who leaves us by degrees—is called anticipatory grief.

Just as it sounds, it’s the anticipation of a loss before the loss itself. Perhaps the person you love is still physically present but they’ve had a major change in their functioning. I don’t just mean dementia, although that has its own devastation. It can also be that your loved one has cancer or ALS or some other illness that is changing their mind and body over months or years. It can be that you’ve lost the person you knew to their addiction or a traumatic brain injury that’s changed their personality. The person you love is technically alive but they aren’t themselves anymore.

In some ways, anticipatory grief is even more difficult to deal with than the grief that follows a death. When someone dies, there is a clear date to point to as the “beginning” of your grief. There are milestones to mark: one month without them, six months, a year. When your loved one slowly leaves you, it’s harder to name your grief and figure out how to cope with it.

That naming is the first step. Acknowledging anticipatory grief will help you move through it. Remember, we don’t “get over” grief, no matter what kind it is; instead we learn to grow around it. Rather than trying to ignore it or avoid it, speak it aloud; share it with others; carve out the space and time to honor it. Anticipatory grief is normal, even if it’s hard to wrap your mind around, and it deserves your attention. Reach out for support; you don’t have to do this alone.

How to talk to someone who is grieving

The prevailing reaction from people when I tell them what I do for a living is, “ugh, how do you do that?” Which, I get: listening to people talk about their grief all day sounds like it would be depressing. It certainly can be at times. But it’s also an honor to hear people’s love stories, which is what grief pretty much amounts to: ongoing love for someone who has left us.

That being said, I realize not everyone feels the same comfort when talking about death, grief, and loss. So if you aren’t a grief therapist, what on earth are you supposed to say to someone who is grieving?

First, let me release you from the idea that you are capable of curing someone else’s grief. You are not. Grief does not have a cure, nor does it have an expiration date. This is not to say you should throw up your hands in despair and ignore someone else’s grief entirely. Rather, I want you to let go of the idea that you are responsible for fixing someone’s grief by knowing the exact right words to use on them. There are no exact right words.

There are, however, some less right words. By this, I mostly mean stay away from cliches like “she’s in a better place” or “it’ll be ok.” I know those phrases are tempting to use; they’ve become cliche for a reason after all. But that doesn’t mean they’re particularly helpful. You may sincerely believe in your heart that someone is “in a better place” but you don’t have to say that out loud to the bereaved. Likewise, you don’t have to say that “everything is going to be ok” or that “they wouldn’t want you to be sad.” Again, those things may be true but they aren’t useful to someone who is grieving a loss.

What is useful for grievers is to be truly heard. This means listening without trying to come up with an answer. You aren’t fully listening if part of your brain is working on a response. There’s also no rush to reply immediately with a profound and heartfelt speech. “That sounds so hard,” is enough. Or, “I wish you didn’t have to go through this.” Both of those statements convey that you hear what the bereaved is saying and that you aren’t going to try to convince them of anything. You’re just going to let them be sad. And if they’ve said something that you really don’t know how to respond to, admit that! “I don’t know what to say” or “I don’t know how to help” are both completely reasonable responses to someone’s grief. Sometimes there are no words.

That doesn’t mean we are powerless to help. When someone is grieving, even if you can’t think of the right thing to say, you can sit beside them and help shoulder their burden for a little while. That, I think, is far better than talking.

Grieving together as a family

Grief is easier to navigate when we share it with others.

That’s easy for me to say: I share everything with everyone. I realize not everyone has this particular… gift. For some people, sharing their grief (or any tough emotion) is simply terrifying. It’s not just the vulnerability of talking about their pain with someone; it’s also a fear that the other person won’t be able to handle it. Naturally, we want to protect the people we love from pain, especially if they're also suffering. This is especially true inside families. My clients often tell me that they don’t want to burden others (usually their adult children) with their grief. Their reasoning is, “what if they’re having a good day and I ruin it because I start crying?” To which I respond, yeah, what if they do? What if you both start crying? What if they’ve been waiting for you to bring it up so they don’t have to? What will happen if you share your grief with each other?

For some people, sharing like that is just too big a risk. After all, families are complicated. The dynamics between parents and children and siblings and extended relatives are deeply set over years, sometimes generations. Every milestone, be it a birth, a graduation, a wedding, a divorce, an illness, or (especially) a death impacts each member of the family in a unique way. And because the same loss can be experienced differently by each member of the family, their grief can also be expressed in distinctly different ways.

These different grieving styles can be hard to understand and accept from each other. Some people (myself included) are external processors: we want to talk (and talk and talk and talk) about our feelings. On the opposite end of the spectrum, internal processors need solitude and silence to work through a loss. And of course, a great many people fall in the vast middle between. Different expressions of grief and different expectations for each other after a loss can cause conflict in the family during what is already an extremely difficult time.

All that being said, none of this has to be avoided or even just endured. Families can shore each other up after a loss and gain new understanding and appreciation for each other. This can be a time to say out loud, “I am having a hard time” without fear of ruining someone else’s day. The fact of the matter is, when someone dies, the people left behind are sad. It doesn’t have to be a secret. In fact, bringing your grief to the other people who love you can increase intimacy and belonging. Understanding that you may be dealing with this loss in different ways—and accepting that no one is right or wrong—can strengthen your family bond. Take this moment to trust yourself (and the people you love) enough to grieve together instead of alone.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Therapists don't give advice

I love advice columns. I always have; even as a kid, they were my favorite part of any magazine. My Google tiles are mostly suggestions for Dear Amy and Dear Abby and Dear Prudence. I have a subscription to the Savage Love newsletter. I am addicted. I love that the problems are concise and (mostly) straight forward and that the answers are the same: here’s what to do!

But as a therapist, I don’t get to give advice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s sometimes tempting to just tell someone what to do. As your therapist, I have the benefit of objectivity; you may not know why you’re having such a hard time but it’s usually rather clear to me. I’m able to clarify and reflect back what you’ve told me so that you can decide how you want to move forward. It’s not advice but a different perspective.

This difference can be a tough distinction for clients to make. Often at the end of a session, my client asks, “so do you have any advice for me?” Of course the short answer is yes! I have very strong opinions about many things! As I said, the temptation to tell my clients what to do is sometimes very powerful. But advice is often best for the person giving it, not the one who receives it. Tempting as it may be, as right as I think I am, therapy is not like an advice column. The goal of therapy is to help my clients come to their own conclusions and make their own path.

You may not get advice in therapy but I think what you end up with is even better: trust in yourself to figure out how to change or move forward or let go. You know the answer; you just need someone to help you see it. Even Dear Abby agrees.