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When it comes to grief, it’s impossible to say that one person’s is the same as another’s. There aren’t just a number of different types of losses. The circ*mstances of each loss are unique.
My experience losing my mother to dementia after nine years of caregiving, for example, is not the same as someone else’s experience caring for an elder parent with dementia, even if they had a similar journey along the way. Consider that the relationship with their parent, their culture, their values, and even their sense of self could impact how they deal with the loss.
That’s why it’s important to consider the various forms of grief.
10 Types of Grief You Should Know About
Until I went through individual and group grief counseling with the hospice company that provided palliative and end-of-life care to my mother, I did not know that grief comes in many forms. As Dr. Alan Wolfelt, a clinical psychologist and grief expert, said at a recent seminar on grief in Largo, Florida, “Never think of grief generically.”
Below is a breakdown of the types of grief. Note that the examples I have used relate to the death of a loved one, but grief can arise under many different events or losses can lead to grief.
1. Normal Grief
Normal Grief is that experienced after a loss such as a death of a loved one, what we are most familiar with. It follows the normal expectations of grief, with sadness, crying, anger, lethargy, and fatigue, among other symptoms.
It may also include “grief bursts,” which are sudden onslaughts of emotion. For example, you could be walking through the grocery store and spot your loved one’s favorite cereal or fruit and become overwhelmed with emotion. Or you could be sitting in a restaurant you frequented with your loved one and remember what they most loved to order (this happened to be over lunch recently). As I learned in hospice counseling, it’s important to let the emotions flow at such moments. Don’t stop them (though you may want to excuse yourself for some fresh air for a few minutes).
Normal grief does not include self-destructive thoughts or behaviors (such behaviors would fall under exaggerated grief, below).
2. Exaggerated Grief
Exaggerated grief is a step beyond what is normal and can include more intense feelings of emotion. People experiencing exaggerated grief may also exhibit self-destructive behaviors like suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, or intense nightmares.
3. Collective Grief
Turn on the news on any given day, and we’re faced with a barrage of intense events. Whether it’s war, a shooting, a natural disaster, or contentious politics, we are all as a society affected by events that impact our families, communities, and the world at large.
It could also be what people experience after a layoff. In such a case, people are losing their identities as – and note that those “left behind,” so to speak, after a layoff (the survivors of the layoff who keep their jobs, also experience grief in that they have lost their colleagues, have shifts in work duties, may need to work longer hours.
4. Disenfranchised Grief
Grief is considered to be “disenfranchised” when it doesn’t fit the mold of what one’s community or society thinks it should. The expectations are often reinforced by film, television, and media, as well as family or even our workplaces.
5. Absent Grief
Also known as denial, the term absent grief is used when a person does not show the usual signs of grief. There are other signs of absent grief, though, including hypervigilance, control issues, guilt, detachment, or clinginess.
Although this type of grief is largely seen in men more than women, likely due to society’s messages that men must be strong and should not cry. However, it can also be the result of personality.
Absent grief may also arise when someone chooses, for example, to step to make funeral arrangements when others are unable to do so due to the severity of their own grief.
6. Delayed grief
Sometimes, the shock of a loss or the effects of absent grief lead to grief manifesting days, weeks, or even months later than expected. the shock of the loss pauses your body’s ability to work through these emotions. People experiencing delayed grief may initially show no emotion.
7. Masked Grief
This type of grief refers to a refusal or inability to speak about the grief one is experiencing. Like absent grief, masked grief is most common among men in our society. Per Psychology Today, symptoms can include “feeling empty, blunted, and numb, with frenzied periods of time in between when your emotions change on a dime.”
8. Loneliness
Loneliness is a grief that arises from a feeling that losing someone or a situation has left a hole that no one else can fill. It can include “separation and isolation from others,” as the Hospice Foundation of America states.
9. Anticipitory Grief
We feel this type of grief when we know a loss is coming, whether it be for days, weeks, or even years. For example, in my own case, I was a caregiver to my mother, who had dementia, for nearly a decade. Although medication could ostensibly slow down the progression of the disease, I knew that she would never recover, that the situation would only get worse. I was grieving all along the way.
According to Dr. Wolfelt, who leads The Center for Loss and Life Transition in Colorado, types of losses that cause anticipatory grief include:
terminal or life-threatening illness
a diagnosis of a progressive disease, such as dementia
the natural aging process
pending major medical procedures
an upcoming major life transition, such as divorce
10. Abbreviated Grief
Finally, abbreviated grief arises when you move on quickly from grief because you feel you should. The reasons for doing so may be extrinsically or intrinsically motivated.
As the Cleveland Clinic notes, abbreviated grief often follows anticipatory grief because “you’ve already done a lot of emotional labor” leading up to the loss.
Everyone is on a different timeline when it comes to grief. Be patient with yourself, and more importantly, be compassionate.
