When we’re grieving, we’re often afraid to allow ourselves to feel everything that comes with the loss—not just the full range of sadness (isolation, emptiness, powerlessness…), but also anger, worry, confusion, betrayal, and more. (Keep in mind that there are SO MANY nuanced words to describe emotions. Google “emotion wheel” and you’ll find some really great images, like this one.) And why are we afraid? Often, because we have heard that if we “stew” in our emotions, we might become depressed.
But depression is not the same thing as grief, and despite our cultural biases that push us to blame the victim (suggesting everything from cancer to autoimmune disease occurred because of something the sick person did or didn’t do), you don’t give yourself depression. Depression is an illness. It’s something that happens to you. Medical science doesn’t fully understand the causes or treatments of depression, including why some treatments work or don’t for different people, whether those treatments are drugs or electro-magnetic pulses or one of many different types of psychological counseling.
In fact, sometimes it seems like we know less about the human brain than we do about the most distant galaxies (I wanted to insert a cool-sounding name here, like in Star Trek, but they were just letters and numbers).
I can, however, tell you that sometimes grief and depression occur at the same time. I’ve written about depression, and lived with it to various degrees for over 30 years. But because I knew so little about grief until this past year, I didn’t realize the ways my depression and grief interacted with each other.
Now I know that loneliness can be part of grief, but it was my depression that kept me from being able to imagine a future in which I felt connected to other people again. My sister is irreplaceable, of course, and that loss will always be with me; but I have learned that it is possible for me to feel heard by other people.
I knew, even when I was both depressed and grieving, that my sister wanted me to feel joy, to have fun, to play—but I could not imagine those things until I found some depression treatments that worked for me. I thought the loss of my sister, the person who knew me best of anyone in the world, meant I was bereft of any worthwhile identity. With every feeling of sorrow, longing, or powerlessness, I thought, This is forever.
It is not. No feeling is forever. Our emotions and thoughts are like the weather: they change. Sometimes that change is too fast, and sometimes it doesn’t feel like it will ever change. But it does. It will.
So please, don’t compound your grief by worrying that you will “catch” depression, that if you feel your feelings you will end up with some dread disease like “prolonged grief disorder.” Feel them. Consider writing about or making art about them, dancing them, building them, walking them—when you’re ready. You are a person who has feelings, a beautiful, normal person who loves deeply.
p.s. I’m sorry if this week’s newsletter is a bit disjointed. My ME/CFS seems to be in a flare, probably due to the spring allergy season. I may be writing through a fog of pollen.
Good points here. “Feeling the feelings” has been the most important thing for me in living with grief. And I agree, channeling feelings into creativity can be a way of feeling and moving through them. It doesn’t have to be writing or art to show anyone, it’s the act of creativity itself. At least that’s what has been helpful for me.