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Why we need a
Grievolution
ein Text von
Milla Brettschneider | 17.02.22
Disclaimer: This is my perception of grief. It’s what I experienced, I don’t want to simplify (your) loss and the grief that comes with it. I only want to share my thoughts.
My name is Milla. I am 18 years old.
I lost my mum to breast cancer about a year ago.
There is nothing like death to make you feel like an outsider.
And there’s nothing our society is more uncomfortable with talking about.
I guess when confronted with it people often ask themselves about the best way to help a grieving person...
Give them advice?
Cheer them up?
Remind them that life is for the living?
And yes it is hard to know what to do when friends are suffering sometimes.
Fact is, you can’t cheer someone up by telling them to look on the bright side or by giving them advice.
It just doesn’t work that way.
Why we need a grievolution
The feeling of being endlessly misunderstood, unable to put my grief in words that wouldn’t be met with platitudes is what made me believe that we need some kind of grief revolution.
Or as I like to say, a grievolution.
To learn how to talk about and listen to each other's emotions.
To learn how to talk to each other about grief, love and loss is important.
But in our society today where grieving people have to listen to cliches:
”everything will be okay, this feeling is going to pass”,
”even at your worst you can find something positive”,
in a society in which grieving people are told to keep positive,
”she is with the angels now”,
”only the good die young”,
”they’ll live on in everyone they’ve come across”,
”she was in a lot of pain and is in a better place now”,
in a society in which grieving people are denied to think of what will come after,
”your pain will stop”,
”everything is gonna be alright”,
”you’ll move on eventually”.
In a society like ours there is actually not much space left for the grieving to grieve in a way of their own choice.
Grief-supports are loaded with well-meanings and dis-information on what it means to be in grief or help someone who is.
Even if these sayings up there are more or less true they lack one thing that anyone who has lost someone really needs...empathy.
That I am grieving doesn’t mean that I have lost my Common-sense.
I know I will be fine sometime in the future but that future is something I can’t quite grasp, for now. Grief is not a problem that needs to be solved or swept away or related to.
A grieving person needs comfort, understanding, compassion and validation.
A grieving person needs to hear ”my shoulder is here if you want to cry on it, I won’t think less of you or that you’re weak or broken.”
Feelings are important
When my mum died last year I needed someone to look at me and tell me that it’s okay.
That it's even okay that I hate her.
I hate her for leaving.
My siblings.
My Dad.
Her mother.
Her friends.
Me.
Leaving me –without saying goodbye.
It’s okay to be angry and sad and frustrated and even okay to be happy at the same time. That it is okay.
Okay to cry and laugh and dance and sing and even to cry while laughing, dancing and singing :)
When she, my mom, died I needed someone to say ”it’s okay, not to be okay!”
A grieving person needs to hear ”my shoulder is here if you want to cry on it, I won’t think less of you or that you’re weak or broken.”
They need to hear that they don’t have to justify any expectations society has, that they don’t have to function, pretend or be okay.
But at the same time they need to know that it’s okay if they don’t feel any of that.
They need to hear that they don’t have to act or talk about the stuff that goes on inside of them, if they don’t want to. And even though they shouldn’t feel pushed to, that you are open to listen to anything they feel the need to share.
I would have needed to hear that it is normal to be joyful and in those moments forget about all of it, for sometime.
It’s about having allies
A grieving person needs a person who does not make them feel as if they were walking around with a big sign over their heads that reads ”I lost someone”, a person who supports them no matter what; a person who does not tiptoe around them as if they would burst into pieces when hearing about someone else’s happiness or sadnesses for that fact.
It doesn’t help to repeatedly tell the grieving good hearted compliments about how strong they are and how brave they’ve been because that can make them feel that they have to be strong and that otherwise they’ll disappoint you.
I know... it’s a lot to take in.
But I promise, you’ll find a way.
For me what helped most was that my friends didn’t stop seeking my company and advice and that we did a lot of stupid stuff, I could laugh about. It helped me to get away, press pause. And even if it was only for a few hours... These tiny breaks kept me sane.
If you don’t understand our behavior, just ask.
Feelings haunt you day and night. Try not to judge.
Everything I did somehow was connected to my mum.
Whether I was making coffee or creating new memories with my friends, I always saw a connection to my mom, everything I was doing was something I could never again have with her or even share with her. And even when I was sad and felt as if I had to cry until there were literally no tears left, I mostly didn’t until I was alone because it felt weird, just bursting into tears everywhere.
So try not to judge a grieving person whatever they are doing, how they are reacting or acting probably helps them to figure out how to cope with the constant pain of loss in a world that is no longer the same!
If you don’t understand our behavior, just ask.
Keep communicating just like you did before, be honest.
About 10 months after my mum died I met the mother of a friend of mine for the first time.
It was at his birthday dinner and we had already spent some time all together celebrating, eating, talking, when she asked about my family and not much later she figured out that I was the one who had lost her mother.
That was when she said something right about this:
” I would have never guessed that it was you, you are so happy and don’t act like someone who has just lost her mother at all.“
While I tried to figure out what to say she added:
„Well, I guess you got over it pretty quickly then.”
At first she didn’t realize what she had just said. But when I couldn't hold back my tears, tears also came to her eyes and she understood that she had said something wrong and apologized a lot.
There is no overcoming
I know she didn’t mean anything by what she said but it threw me off anyways because it wasn’t the first time and it surely wasn’t the last time I noticed people using the word „Overcome“.
It threw me off because of course I could’ve cried because every five minutes I have to think of the fact that I’ll never be able to tell my mum about any of this or because I see families and get really jealous. I could’ve cried because I’ve been there on that corner of the street where we sat celebrating before, with my mum.
I could’ve cried because everything I do reminds me of the fact that she is not here and that she’ll never be back.
We’ll never share a birthday dinner again or any dinner for that matter.
But, instead I tried really hard not to cry because I didn’t feel comfortable and also because it's very exhausting to be sad all the time and I normally try to enjoy all the joyful moments that I can. But now I sat there and I cried anyways.
So I guess no, I wasn’t anywhere near „over it“
I chose to write about this story because I think it reflects what I’ve said before pretty well.
It’s important that we learn what grief means. And what it doesn’t.
It’s important to learn to be empathic with each other’s emotions and to politely ask if we don’t understand something.
I think the wrong word in her assumption was OVERCOME.
It made me feel as if I had behaved entirely wrong trying to live with the pain while she called it overcoming.
But you don’t ”overcome” grief.
It's not about moving on
It took a lot of time and I didn’t even notice the changes but slowly I am well again, most of the time at least.
You don’t move on, you just move forward. And that’s good because I guess to move onwards from somewhere you must be finished with it...
And I’ll never be finished with this. Never ever.
Because to me being finished with this would mean that I leave all these memories I have of her behind. Without trying to keep as much of them and her alive as I possibly can.
But watching, feeling, and understanding what happened has shaped me.
She was my mother, an extraordinary human that I look up to, the only person in my life that I have always known, that loved me unconditionally and the only love that is somehow embedded in all my memories and expectations of life.
In all my dreams and imaginations of the future that now won’t ever come true.
I love her, I love her so much it hurts, but I don’t want to move on from that because I’m so afraid of forgetting her, if I don’t acknowledge what happened.
She died.
And I’m grieving while finally moving forward.
To put it in a nutshell
If you ever find yourself in the situation of accompanying a grieving person in their grieving process, you must somehow find a way to make one feel comfortable again.
A grieving person needs to find recognition that they are not only grieving for the loss of someone important and what was, but also for the person's future and their own future with them.
And don't stop to make sure everything is okay.
Because even if you feel like you might catch a grieving person in a happy moment and you don't want to risk bringing them down, just remind them that you're there and care about how they're doing.
It's nice to know that you haven't forgotten that I may still be struggling, even if you can't perceive it the way you used to.
And, that what happened will always be a part of me and therefore a part that matters to you.
So I ask you to pay attention to your actions and words.
But only to a certain extent, as I said I am still me and you are still you.
And give some space and understanding to those who are grieving,
because losing someone you love is messy, complicated and very, very frustrating.