APril’s Focus: Grief
Grief Is Not Just About Death — And That's Exactly the Problem
When most people think about grief, they picture a funeral. A casserole on the doorstep. A sympathy card. Permission, in other words, to feel devastated.
But what happens when you're grieving something that doesn't get a casserole?
What happens when you're mourning the friendship that slowly dissolved? The version of yourself you had to leave behind? The marriage that looked fine from the outside but felt hollow for years? The child you imagined raising — and the adult they became instead? The life you thought would be yours by now?
These losses are real. They are heavy. And for so many of the women I work with, they carry them completely alone — because somewhere along the way, they learned that this kind of grief doesn't count.
This month on Healing Is My Hobby, we're talking about all of it.
The Grief That Doesn't Get Named
There's a concept in grief therapy called disenfranchised grief — grief that isn't publicly acknowledged, openly mourned, or socially supported. It's the grief that gets minimized, redirected, or met with a well-meaning 'at least.'
At least you're still young.
At least you have other kids.
At least it wasn't a 'real' relationship.
At least you knew it was coming.
The 'at leasts' don't help. They actually do the opposite — they teach you to shrink your pain. To talk yourself out of it. To feel embarrassed for still being sad.
And when you're embarrassed by your own grief, you stop processing it. It doesn't go away. It just goes underground.
Grief Beyond Death: What Actually Qualifies
In my clinical work, I hold space for grief that looks like a lot of different things. Here are just a few of the losses that absolutely deserve acknowledgment:
The end of a friendship or chosen family relationship
Divorcing or separating from a partner — even one who wasn't good for you
Losing a version of yourself — to illness, motherhood, trauma, time
The gap between who you were and who you became
Unmet expectations for your life, your body, your career
A relationship with a parent you always wished you could have had
The child you hoped for, before grief became infertility or loss
A role you outgrew — or one that was taken from you
None of these come with a funeral. Most of them don't come with much acknowledgment at all. But they show up in the body, in sleep, in the way you go quiet in certain conversations. Grief has a way of making itself known.
Ambiguous Loss: When There's No Clear Ending
One of the most disorienting forms of grief is what psychologist Pauline Boss called ambiguous loss — loss without closure. Loss where the person is still physically present but emotionally, relationally, or cognitively gone. Or where someone is gone, but their presence lingers in a way that makes it impossible to fully move forward.
This shows up when you're caring for a parent with dementia. When you've estranged from a family member who is still alive. When a relationship has been over in every meaningful way, but the paperwork hasn't caught up. When you're waiting for a door to close that never quite does.
Ambiguous loss is particularly painful because it denies us one of the things humans need most when we grieve: a narrative. A beginning, middle, and end. Without that, we keep circling back — looking for resolution in a place where resolution isn't available.
Healing here doesn't always look like letting go. Sometimes it looks like learning to hold two truths at once.
What Grief Actually Needs From You
Here's what I want you to hear: you don't have to justify your grief. You don't have to compare it to someone else's loss or measure whether it's 'enough' to be real. If something mattered to you, losing it — in any form — deserves space.
That doesn't mean you have to fall apart. It means you get to be honest about what you're carrying.
Grief needs acknowledgment before it can move. It needs to be named, witnessed, and allowed — not fixed, bypassed, or rushed. The work of grief isn't about getting over it. It's about learning to integrate it. To carry the loss without it carrying you.
What We're Covering This Month
Over the next four weeks, we're going deep on grief in all of its forms. Here's what's coming on the podcast and in the newsletter:
Week 1: What grief actually is — and why so many of us are carrying it without knowing it
Week 2: Disenfranchised grief — the losses nobody validates, and why that silence makes everything harder
Week 3: Grieving a person who is still alive — ambiguous loss, estrangement, and the grief that has no clear ending
Week 4: Identity grief and life stage loss — when the hardest thing you've lost is a version of yourself
If any of this resonates — if you're carrying something you've never quite had permission to call grief — this month is for you.
Subscribe to the newsletter below so you don't miss a single week. And if you're ready for support that goes deeper than a podcast can offer, I'd love to work with you.
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Learn about working with Jessica: jessicacolarcolcsw.com
