Dear Grief Guide, My Friend Shamed Me For Grieving

An outraged letter-writer was recently insulted by a friend for taking time to tend to her grief over her father. I read her anonymous letter and then offer her practical tools and compassionate wisdom for growing through grief.

Dear Grief Guide is a weekly advice podcast where I answer anonymous letters from people feeling lost, stuck, or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

Music © Adi Goldstein, Used with Permission

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Dear Grief Guide,

A podcast where each week I answer one anonymous letter from a listener feeling lost,

Stuck,

Heartbroken,

Or overwhelmed in the midst of grief.

My name is Shelby Forsythia.

I'm a grief coach and author,

And I'm here to help you create a life you love from the life loss forced you to live.

Let's get to today's letter.

Dear Grief Guide,

Recently a friend texted me and told me that I am,

Quote,

Coddling my trauma and grief,

And that I'm putting my feelings first.

This message came at an extraordinarily low point since losing my dad,

And I feel devastated.

I have lived my whole life giving and caring for others,

Always putting their needs above mine.

This person knows that,

And yet they still sent me that hurtful message.

I feel like this is the one time in my life where I should be allowed to be sad and not have to do everything for everyone.

I hate people,

And I hate life.

Even during my grieving process,

I've done my best to support the people in my family and people who were close to my dad,

And still,

I got hit with this soul-destroying comment.

It is the worst and most hurtful thing anyone could ever say to me,

And I am so angry because this person has seen and known grief themselves.

Seriously,

How could they say that to me?

I would really appreciate some comfort or acceptance.

I feel so alone and misunderstood.

Thanks.

Crushed Caregiver Hello there,

Crushed Caregiver.

Thank you so much for writing in,

Because this letter demonstrates the power of a single text,

A single interaction,

In absolutely destroying a grieving person who is trying their best to make it through the day.

I want to validate you immediately in a phrase,

Through a phrase that I use quite often with clients that I'm working with who are lamenting that they're worried that their grief has made them selfish or that people are going to think they're focused on themselves or that they're coddling their trauma or that they're using grief as a crutch.

No,

Grief is inherently selfish,

Because it's happening to you.

Grief is a selfish,

If you'd like to call it self-indulgent experience,

Because the person to whom the grief is happening is you.

You are the thing,

The living organism that is at the center of your grief experience.

Let me tell you something else.

We all need to coddle our grief.

I think people use the word coddling in the negative as if you're babying a toddler who's angry that they can't get their way.

But grief makes children out of all of us,

No matter how old we are and who we've lost or what we've lost,

We enter into this state of need.

We revert back to what we were when we entered this earth,

Babies,

Infants in need of care.

Metaphorically,

We need to cease outpouring because we don't have the energy capacity ability to do that often when we're grieving.

And instead,

Our arms reach out,

Our voices cry out.

We reach ourselves out in the hopes and with the intention of,

Sometimes for the first time in our adult lives,

Being cared for by others,

Asking for help and being allowed to receive it.

Grief is something that is injurious to the soul and to the mind and the body.

And to reach out and to receive care and to treat grief in and of itself with a tenderness and a constant attention and a desire to help it.

I'm sorry,

I just can't agree with this shaming definition of coddling at all.

Your grief,

My grief,

Everyone's grief,

Even the grief of this person who made this comment towards you,

Deserves to have their grief comforted and loved and cared for and paid attention to.

The thing I want to logistically ask you is,

How close are you to this person?

If you've been listening to this podcast long enough,

Or if you've ever worked with me in any sort of one-on-one or group capacity,

You probably know that I'm a pretty big fan of cutting people off quickly.

If they cannot be there for you in your grief,

Maybe a block for a week,

A block for six weeks,

Or just a ceasing of communication or a dwindling of communication until you have more energy to return to that or to be exposed to that.

But if this is somebody that you're extraordinarily close to and have been close to for a long time,

It seems you're close enough to know their grief story and to have supported them in some capacity through their grief.

I wonder if you're close enough to them to check them on this and say,

Hey,

Did you mean to send that to me?

Or did you mean to say that to my face?

Or did you hear what you just said?

And really prompt them to think about the words that they just lobbed in your direction as if it was nothing at the worst and hardest moment of your life.

And you may not get a good response.

You may not get a bad response.

You may get no response at all.

But I wonder if you are close enough to them and if you have the capacity to,

What would happen if you invited them to take a closer look at those words?

You could even include how they made you feel.

Did you mean to send that to me because it sounds really hurtful and this is the worst moment of my life.

This is the worst,

Hardest season of my life.

I'm really trying to make it through here and that did not feel good.

Did you mean to send that to me?

I would not feel afraid of sending that because honestly at this point,

All things considered,

What do you have to lose is what I would be telling myself in that scenario.

Now whether or not you take the same action I would is neither here nor there.

No pressure if that does not resonate,

If that feels very,

Very scary or just not who you are in the world and how you prefer to show up,

Feel free to set that down.

You are not required to act on that.

But I wonder if that's not something that resonates with you,

Maybe this will.

You say that this person has seen and known grief,

But I wonder if they have ever let themselves feel grief.

I wonder if they have ever given themselves the grace and the permission to let grief make them selfish,

To sink into the fullness of that experience and allow themselves to have it and to move through the emotions and the incubation period of grief and the coddling and the constant attention that grief requires,

Especially in the early days.

Did they let themselves have that?

Do they feel they have that permission or did they shame themselves out of grieving and call that growth and call that progress?

Because sadly that happens so often in our society.

People think that if they stay busy enough or that if they suppress their emotions enough that they are no longer grieving,

That they've moved on,

That they're over it,

That they've checked the box,

They're done,

And that other people can very easily do the same.

But their grief is not your grief and they may not have the tools that you have to give themselves permission to feel and experience all they really need to feel and experience In their grief,

And in that case,

An exercise I can offer you for as much bandwidth and room as you have is to open up a space of compassion in your heart for their inability to allow themselves,

And by extension you,

The grace and permission to simply experience grief.

Lastly,

I don't necessarily want to plant this idea in your brain because it sounds like this person is somebody that you're close to in your life,

But because of what you highlighted in your letter,

The ways you've been giving and caring for people your whole life,

It may be worth pausing and asking,

How does this person specifically benefit from that caring and giving behavior?

That essence,

That identity of who you are or who you have been leading up to the loss of your dad?

Is this a person who may be consciously or unconsciously rushing you to get back to being that old self,

That old version of you,

Because they gained something from that?

Are they ready for you to become a caring and giving person again because that's who they need you to be in the world?

And if that's the case,

This really may be a person who cannot come with you into life in the after.

They may not be able to comprehend,

Accept,

Recognize,

Be okay with all the ways that grief has changed you,

And you deserve friends who are capable of that.

I wish you love,

I wish you luck,

And I'll be standing by,

Should you choose to send an update.