Grieving a person or situation that caused us pain can pose a challenging pathway through grief. Maybe we have stayed, hoping things would change. That hope leads to complicated grief when the person dies or the situation ends abruptly, and we have not been the ones to end it ourselves. Why? Because while our hope has not died, we may still grieve the loss of what might have been. All our fantasies of that person or situation turn upside down. Their removal or death ends the problem, but we have not finished working through it.
When someone with whom we are in a problematic intimate relationship dies suddenly, we may experience conflicting emotions: relief that the situation is finally over and grief for what we could have had with that person. And sometimes we hit a wall—our grieving occurs only months later. The same applies to life losses.
I unexpectedly left a job because of a bully manager. A few years later, I learned this manager also left the organization. A new wave of regret and questioning occurred. What if I had toughed it out? I could have found relief in surviving and outlasting a stressful work situation. Albeit briefly, I grieved my loss of a job I loved all over again. While some might say, “Good riddance,” grief is not straightforward nor rational.
Hope is a beautiful human endeavour—it highlights our resilience despite the most challenging life obstacles. How can we temper our hope with realism? And how can we take care of ourselves during grieving to allow that same patience we accorded to hoping things would change?
Photo courtesy of Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash