Note: This Article was first published in Life in the Delta in August 2004.
It is a prevalent belief in our culture that when we think we are losing we try to cut our losses and run, thereby minimizing them. This can be true of the stock market as well as our relationships. However, I want you to consider a different perspective – that our losses are of great importance and must be grieved, not dismissed nor denied. According to Norm Wright, a leading Christian counselor and expert on the subject of grief and loss, “We have to confront each loss whenever it occurs, because if you don’t and you bury it, you bury it alive – and someday there will be a resurrection.
It is important that we expand our understanding of loss. The death of a loved one, of course, is the quintessential loss. Death is truly our greatest enemy, as the Bible says, and the emotions it awakes are among the most powerful and overwhelming of all human experiences. But Wright lists the following as examples of the many other losses we experience regularly:
1) material loss – from a dropped vase to monetary loss
2) abstract loss – lost love or hope or ambition or control
3) imagined loss – we think a person no longer loves us or wants us around
4) relationship loss – the end of an opportunity to relate, such as divorce
5) moving – to a new house or community
6) end of friendship
7) intra psychic loss – lost image of oneself or death of a dream
8) functional loss – loss of ability to drive, of sight or hearing, of memory, etc.
9) systemic loss – a significant person leaves your workplace or group
10) child leaves home – family will not be the same
11) threatened loss – there is a likelihood of loss but nothing you can do about it, e.g., waiting on a biopsy report
12) disenfranchised loss – loss that cannot be publically acknowledged or socially supported, such as a secret lover, a co-habitation partner, a neighbor, a broken engagement, an abortion, a miscarriage, the loss of a pet
13) ambiguous loss – people cannot adjust but freeze, in such cases as deployment, MIA’s, kidnaped children, a coma, Alzheimer’s disease
This list can include many more things. One that readily comes to mind for me is transitional phases in our lives, such as leaving college or retiring from work, thus losing a lifestyle and group of friends. The important thing is to recognize these various things as real losses. The next step is grieving the losses. There is no way around the grieving process and no speeding it up. Some people try to stay in denial, either by returning to a normal routine and intellectualizing the loss, or by covering it up with drugs, alcohol, or various addictions.
A long-term study indicated that the death rate of widows and widowers is 2-17 times higher the first year following the death of a spouse. Another study discovered that about 25% of those who mourn experience a dramatic decrease in the body’s immune system 6-9 months after their loss. This is one reason why grieving people are more susceptible to illness. Denial may be a good short-term strategy that helps ease our grief, but as a long-term strategy, it is not beneficial. Recovery occurs when we face our losses and give ourselves permission to grieve. (See next month’s follow-up article – “Grieving Our Losses.”)
