Hi Riders and welcome back to another issue of Ask a Therapist! For those of you who are new to it, my name is Caitlin Clark and I’m Roosevelt’s own individual and family therapist. Each printed issue, I answer a question from students related to mental health. This month, the question is “How do I handle losing a friend/peer/family member?”
Just like change is a constant in our lives, grief is too. We are experiencing loss in really big or pretty small ways on a day to day basis. We can grieve the loss of our ex-partner after we break up. We can grieve the loss of our childhood home when our family has to move. But when someone we know dies, that grief can feel massive and overwhelming compared to other losses we might experience. It can feel like we’ve lost a piece of ourselves or that loss can remind us of all the others that have occurred and the grief can build up until it overflows.
Grief is an incredibly complex emotion and experience because everyone deals with it differently. This can be due to our culture, our values, or our religious beliefs. But one thing that I hear again and again in my work supporting students is that people feel really lonely in their grieving process. They often feel like no one understands what it’s like, that they can’t talk to their friends or family because the friends and family don’t know what to say, or they don’t want to burden other people if it’s been weeks or months or even years since the death happened. So more often than not, once the vigils and funerals are over, people keep it all inside and try to push through it on their own.
However, when we keep all of that grief inside and don’t let it out to others, we can get stuck. That’s why it can be really important to find a person who you know is going to “get it” and talk to them about what you’re feeling. That person could be a friend or family member if you feel comfortable but it could also be a therapist, a priest/pastor, or a mentor. As long as the person doesn’t minimize, judge, or shame you for your feelings, they can be really helpful for getting our thoughts and feelings out of our head. And more often than not, that can help lift some of the grief from our bodies and minds and get us on the path to feeling better.
One last thing to mention is that even if you didn’t know the person who died, you may still find yourself grieving or feeling overwhelmed. Like I mentioned earlier, this can be because that loss reminds us of another we may have personally experienced. Or, it can also be due to something called “vicarious trauma”. Vicarious trauma is the emotional distress that is the result of seeing/hearing/being around the trauma of others. This can be a really tricky way to experience grief because if you talk about it with others, they may not take it seriously because you “didn’t actually know the person”. It can be incredibly invalidating for people experiencing this and it is deeply important you talk to someone who understands what vicarious trauma is.
If you are experiencing grief or any other mental health struggle, please know that staff here at school are trained to support you and are ready to do so without judgement. Your school counselor can be a great starting place. You can also come by room 113 across from the student health center to talk to me or Kristin Buchanan, our school social worker. And if none of us feel like a good fit for you, we can help you find someone who is.