When Grief Doesn't Look Like Grief
Why I'm Writing This
During training I learned a great deal about grief.
Theories.
Models.
Stages.
Tasks.
Concepts.
What took much longer was recognising grief when it arrived in forms I wasn't expecting.
The Common Assumption
When we hear the word grief, most of us think of bereavement.
We picture death, sadness and visible emotional pain.
But grief is often much quieter than that.
What I Started Noticing
Clients rarely arrived saying,
"I think I'm grieving."
Instead they spoke about:
anger
anxiety
loneliness
feeling stuck
exhaustion
loss of motivation
relationship difficulties
or simply the feeling that something wasn't quite right anymore.
The Question That Changed Everything
The question that slowly changed my practice wasn't:
"What are they grieving?"
It became:
"What has been lost?"
Sometimes it was a person.
Sometimes it was a relationship.
Sometimes it was health.
A career.
A future they had imagined.
A version of themselves they no longer recognised.
Questions for Reflection
What has changed?
What is no longer present?
What future has been disrupted?
What version of themselves might this person be missing?
What are they trying to hold on to?
Final Reflection
Sometimes grief is obvious.
Sometimes it is nowhere to be seen.
And sometimes it is quietly sitting beneath the whole conversation, waiting for somebody to notice.