I'm grieving

What’s happening

Grief is what love does after a loss. It’s not a problem to be solved. It’s a process to be moved through. The trouble starts when the moving stops, when the grief becomes a place you live instead of a place you pass through, when the way you’ve been holding it has become its own structure that has nothing to do with the loss anymore.

Your grief isn’t the problem. Grief getting stuck is the problem.

Which version of this is yours?

• I lost my parent. And the loss is bigger than you expected. → I lost my parent

• I lost my child. And the world has become unrecognizable. → I lost my child

• I lost my spouse. And the life you built around them has come apart. → I lost my spouse

• I lost my pet. And people don’t understand the size of it. → I lost my pet

• I had a miscarriage. And the grief has nowhere culturally sanctioned to go. → I had a miscarriage

• I had an abortion and I can’t get over it. And it doesn’t fit the political scripts. → I had an abortion and I can’t get over it

• I’m grieving a divorce. And it’s a death without the funeral. → I’m grieving a divorce

• I’m grieving the end of a friendship. And it’s a loss our culture barely names. → I’m grieving the end of a friendship

• It’s been years and I’m still grieving. And you’re starting to wonder if something is wrong with you. → It’s been years and I’m still grieving

• I feel guilty that I survived. When others didn’t. → I feel guilty that I survived

• I’m grieving someone who’s still alive. Dementia, addiction, estrangement. → I’m grieving someone who’s still alive

Is this grief or depression?

Why grief gets stuck

The standard “stages of grief” framework assumes grief is a sequence you move through. It isn’t. Grief is a system you organize your life around for a while, and then reorganize again when you’re ready to carry it differently. The moving doesn’t always happen on its own. Sometimes the way you’ve been holding the grief is what’s preventing the next reorganization. The loss is real. The structure you’ve built around the loss can become the obstacle.

Grief moves when the conditions for moving exist. Sometimes the conditions are about what you’ve been doing.

How we work with it

Strategic therapy never asks you to let go of the person or to be done with the loss. We work on what the grief has been doing structurally in your life, what role it’s been playing in your identity, and what you’ve been doing daily that’s been keeping it in its current shape. The reorganization happens because what was holding it stops being needed, not because the love stops.

Your loss stays with you. It stops being the only thing you carry.