Grief is feeling our feelings and sometimes involves communicating these to others. In fact it can be hugely helpful if someone else can hear and understand how we feel at any stage of our loss. However, the enormous and deep grief of a bereaved parent can be disturbing to other people. This leads to them trying to stop us from grieving so that they can feel better although, even as they do this, they may believe that they are actually trying to help us to feel better. There are several main ways that they do this to us.
Firstly, when we are upset some people offer us platitudes that are designed to sort of tidy away our feelings. “He is in a better place now.” aims to make us feel positive about our child having died as they are now in heaven rather than suffering in this world. “She wouldn’t want you to be sad.” is another attempt to make us change the way we feel. These are roundabout ways to advise us or tell us not to feel what we feel as it’s making other people uncomfortable. This is not good for us.
Secondly, when we talk about our loss and get upset sometimes other people hijack the conversation to their grief about their loss, putting us into the role of paying attention to them rather than being with our feelings. For example, people sometimes respond when I tell them my son died by telling me about their aunt dying or even their pet dog, and equating what I am saying to how they felt or feel about these, frankly, far lesser losses. This is disappointing and exhausting, especially if we end up trying to listen and respond kindly to them.
The third form of grief hi-jacking is when I start to talk how I am feeling about my son and the other person, instead of listening to me, responds by going over (sometimes repeatedly) where they were and how it was for them when my son died. This is an interesting reaction that tells me they perceive the loss of my child as located in a specific time rather than as the ongoing loss that it actually is. It makes me feel lost and ignored.
So what can we do when one of these happens to us?
Firstly, we need to understand that people are often simply not very good listeners! They think that they need to advise us how to feel better with platitudes or match our experience with the closest experience they have on the same topic. They are confusing listening with having a two-way conversation and we sometimes just need to be listened to and heard rather than expected to take turns. Even an introductory listening skills course teaches the listener not to offer advice, especially not unsolicited advice. It would also teach the listener that it really doesn’t help to show we understand by telling our own stories.
It is not our job to teach others how to listen to us, unless we are invested in that relationship and the other person wants to learn and we have the energy to try to teach them. So the next thing for us is to work out whether all three of these things are true and, if not, we need to find someone else to talk to about how we feel,
If they are also invested in their relationship with us and want to learn then we can teach them as follows if, as I say we are prepared to invest our energy in this. We cannot, of course, control how the other person might react so I advise against doing this unless you have sufficient trust in the relationship.
Here is an example: When you said “She wouldn’t want you to be sad.” I felt upset because it really matters to me that other people understand how I feel and you seemed to be saying I shouldn’t feel sad but I am sad, very sad. I would really like you to tell me that you know how sad I am and that it’s OK for me to be sad.
So the formula is
To be specific about what they said.
To say how you felt as a result.
To explain what matters to you that led to you feeling this way.
To make a request for them to do it differently.
For example: When you talked about your cat dying after I told you how I was feeling about my daughter I felt disappointed because I need to know that you realise this feels a million times worse than a cat dying to me. Maybe you could ask me a bit more about what I was talking about instead? I love to hear people say her name.
If you get a helpful response then this person might be open to learning how to be there for you. If you get an unhelpful response then stop and choose someone else to talk to next time. However, you might find that the other person is a willing student and that your relationship benefits from this process.
Be gentle with yourself - this stuff is not easy!