As y’all can see, this blog has been quite silent for a while, until today.
I am working to be honest and communicative in all aspects of my life and that includes the academic areas. So that prompted me to research this topic and to write this post, but as all blogs do (especially the food blogs where you need to scroll for like 10 minutes to get to the recipe), I must provide some background.
As a preface, I am not writing this looking for pity or wishes of compassion, but to be honest and real with the world and break the stigma that surrounds talking about grief.
For months, my family has been on edge, waiting for the moment of my childhood dog's death. We knew it would end in compassion and empathy with putting him down since he was so geriatric and had such severe dementia that he was no longer truly living or even present. It was heartbreaking to see him at Christmas and see just how much his health declined in the 4 months of being at school. My dog, Tucker lived 14.5 years and in his old age had many health issues that were able to be managed for a time, but had worsened to a point that felt wrong to have him endure. The hardest part was being ready for the moment of his death. Knowing that something is coming to a close is much different than actually being ready for it. I thought I was ready. I had been preparing and waiting for months, even years at some moments, but he held on. Tucker loved and cuddled and ate for so much longer than we thought he would. Even though I had spent so much time “preparing” and I felt emotionally ready, I was totaled by the grief that came. On the day we finally booked the official appointment for Tucker (which was to happen in 4 days at the time), I wrote this poem:
 “[O]ne always thinks they are ready and have prepared for the grief until it comes like a tsunami and flattens everything in its path as the crashing wave approaches there is a false sense of security until one knows their feet are pulled out with the tide as time hastily shortens (I'm not ready for what will happen in the coming days, I'm not ready for goodbye, I thought I was, but god no I want to fight tooth and nail for every second and moment I can get my hands on)” (Webb, 2022).
The grief hit me so hard, I didn't know how to function. Even though I knew that the moment was coming for months and I thought I was ready, I crumbled, and still am piecing myself back together now. This breaking and rebuilding has changed my outlook on life in so many beautiful ways. It also prompted me to research and attempt to take away the stigma that exists in our western society about grief. I shared what I was going through to people who were complete strangers and asked for no sympathy, but quiet support and I am eternally thankful for those who were around me in these moments. Even if we did not talk about the situation specifically, having you around gave me a foundation to lean upon and to grow from, just like how Tucker would have wanted me to.
The grief caused me to shut down and stop functioning how I knew to. I was not able to cook, barely eat, take care of my body, sleep consistently, attend classes, do any homework, or even exist as who I thought I was. Some of these symptoms were felt leading up to the day of putting Tucker down and I still feel some today. I might feel some or more for a long time, and that is okay. Grief is valid.Â
BJ Miller states that “grief is not a pathology, it's an altered state of mind” and I could not agree more. We as a society have normalized shrinking our feelings and attempting to get rid of them as fast as possible (Miller, 2019) and it is not very healthy for our emotional and physical bodies to do so. Kübler-Ross (2009) gave us the “5 stages of grief” which are a linear progression of grieving and despite this being debunked scientifically, it is something that is still upheld by many. While it is one experience of grief, it is not something that is one-size-fits-all. This model is actually built for those going through hospice and palliative care, basically grieving their own selves and their own deaths. Kübler-Ross not only gave one view, but opened up the door to the communication of grief as it exists in our world today, normalizing it. Grief changes the way we view the world, “the surreal becomes real” within our constructed realities, the fabric becomes ripped and life collapses. In modern psychology, if we are sad for more than two weeks, we pathologize it and label it as depression when it is truly so much more than that. Grief, like any feeling, can take months and even years to process fully. In past times, grief was respected as a long term altered state. We physically showed and accepted grief as a major change. There were months of wearing black, having memorials continuously cared for, and other visual manifestations of the process.
The brain plays a major role in grief. There is an immediate acute response in the pituitary gland which produces chemicals that trigger the stress response. This response does not diminish at a quick rate, but persists for a time much longer than other stress situations. Grief causes the brain to be traumatized and the lower areas of the brain are overactive while the higher is the opposite. This causes persistent panic response and lowered emotional regulation. All of this can impact the heart and body nervous systems. This can lead to longer term disruptions such as depression and all of the systems that come with. (NBC, 2018)
The major thing is that there is no timeline or quick healing with grief. Our society today is all about timelines and productivity, but grief flips this idea on its head. There is no predictability, no planning, no standards for grieving. There is also no expectation for what causes individuals to feel grief for, one person might not feel much grief for a family member passing and another might feel extreme grief for a stranger.
Researching grief while I am going through my own grieving process has been extremely healing and informational. It allowed me to accept my feelings as valid and allow myself to follow whatever timeline is needed. To seek support and to understand that I am going to be different compared to before grieving my childhood dog. Grief is so much more than 5 steps to follow, but a life changing experience that is an altered state of mind (Miller, 2019).
To sum this up: GRIEF IS VALID. Allow yourself to feel whatever emotions arise since there is no time like the present to feel it. Process things now so you can grow as a person, if you “shove the hard stuff in the basement and shut the door on it” it will accumulate and be much more effort to clean and sort out in the future. Our emotions affect our physical bodies. Emotional health and healing is just as important as physical, it all impacts each other in the end.Â
KĂĽbler-Ross, E., & Kessler, D. (2009). The five stages of grief. In Library of Congress Catalogin in Publication Data (Ed.), On grief and grieving (pp. 7-30).
Miller, B. J. (2019, July 23). Grief isn’t a pathology. It’s an altered state of mind [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/1_nKGZMsCpM
NBC News. (2018, June 14). How grief affects your brain and what to do about it [Video]. Youtube. https://youtu.be/eEcaUhxAH2g