Minimizing Grief is like a Spinning a Spider's Web

“I’m fine.” “Everything is back to normal.” “I was down for a day or two, but it passed.” These statements are used by someone who is denying their pain or sorrow. They are pushing away their grief with the intent that if they don’t make a big deal out of it, it will all go away. Wrong. Minimizing your grief is really pretending that nothing bothers you about someone who left you or died. Much like a spider’s web, this dangerous behaviour can go unnoticed for a while and then suddenly you find yourself wrapped up in the middle of it with no way out.

I was guilty of this when my brother, Brian died. We were very close and his death was devastating to me as it was for others, especially his wife and three children. Because he had a family and because my mom was still alive, I did everything I could to minimize how I felt. It just didn’t seem right for me to call attention to myself… after all his family and mother were suffering terribly. In my mind… I was only his little sister.

What happened to me happens to many individuals who attempt to deflect their pain. My body forced me to stop and pay attention. Within months of his death, I developed a large mass on an ovary and was hospitalized for emergency surgery. In the hospital I contracted a brutal pneumonia that kept me flat on my back for weeks. Well, what do you think happens when you are forced to stay put for days on end? That’s right, you think.

All of my grief pushed forward in those weeks. It was like a dam broke and I was floundering in an ocean of emotion. There was no escaping my broken heart then. In order to survive, I had to do the work of grieving and mourning. I learned something valuable from that experience. I learned that we survive much better if we are proactive in our sorrow than if we are forced to be reactive. I am honest when I say that my husband’s unexpected death the next year was far easier for me to cope with. Not because I loved him less, but because I knew that I had to do it differently.

Photo Credit: Brand
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