Good Grief- The Blog! (Why People Are Afraid of Grief)

Oh, hello. I’m Lauren-Blair Donovan. I’m a puppeteer, collect vintage 1970s prom/disco dresses, and…I’m an adult orphan. What’s an adult orphan? It’s an adult whose parents are dead. There isn’t really a word besides orphan, but when people hear the word “orphan” they automatically think of Annie, Party of Five, or generally speaking sad childhood imagery. So we have to slap “adult” in front of “orphan” or people start making assumptions and may even cry about our tragic childhood (that never happened) right in front of us- though all of us, regardless of age, feel “orphaned” when the last parent goes (but that’s for another post). I was an adult when my first parent died (barely as I was nineteen) and my mom died a few years ago. What surprised me was that despite mental health and other types of otherness being more widely accepted and understood in the 10+ years between my parents respective passings so many people had wildly unrealistic expectations, projections, and tone deaf statements regarding my mom’s death. I was genuinely stunned that so many so-called progressive folks in Hollywood, the types who are very pro therapy and love to tell you all about how everyone should go to therapy, were frankly kind of awful and rough with me throughout my grieving process. What gives?

I’ve also been through other losses like all of my grandparents, other relatives, and friends, -many at untimely ages. I’ve seen death and loss through different degrees of closeness and have a lot of thoughts as I have something of a unique perspective because of what I’ve been through. Initially I started to share these thoughts on YouTube (also called Good Grief, like this post) but that series is officially over though you can check it out here. There’s a lot of reasons why I ended the series and because I don’t want to be redundant if you’re interested in why the short answer is I don’t want to be a video personality anymore and the longer answer can be found in this blog post about my other series ending. Something about writing about grief appeals more to me now too because it feels more accessible to everyone. When reading an article people hear it in their own voice. The written word has a certain power verbal words can’t always have. And hey, it’s easier to read this in the dentist waiting room than watching it so…I got you and you’re welcome.

I’m excited to get into a lot of specific nuances of grieving and how society ill prepares anyone to experience it (let alone how to support people who are grieving). As I’ve said, I have a lot of thoughts and I feel like I can better dive in with writing about it. But for now, for this inaugural post, let’s cover the initial question: why are people still sucking at being supportive or at least even sensitive when someone is grieving?

It took a while for me to figure out what I believe to be a big part of the answer and it came around the better part of a year after my mom died. One day it just hit me and that thought was, “Oh…I’m everyone’s worst nightmare. I’m the poster child of who people don’t want to be and am afraid of being.”

Save the comments about how I shouldn’t be so self deprecating- I don’t mean it like I’m a literal nightmare and people’s worst fear is being me. What I mean by that statement is that there are several terrible things that can and may happen to us in a lifetime. Car accidents, cancer, predjudice, divorce, etc make up all too common traumas that through a huge wrench in the works for anyone going through those times. I fear those things as much as the next person. But in all reality, not everyone will experience all of the bad times life has to offer. Many will get cancer, but not everyone. Car accidents will probably happen to most, but some of those accidents will be fender benders. Not everyone gets divorced- only roughly half of the population (give or take your age bracket and other factors, but that’s a topic for another time). And not everyone will experience real prejudice. But everyone will die, and if things happen in the natural order you will experience the death of your parents. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I live in the USA and while we definitely have problems, we are first world enough where we’re not dealing with people walking on land mines or experiencing young deaths at unusually high rates. Most people until they’re well into adulthood have only lost their grandparents and hell, I know people who are forty who still have their grandparents. (Good for them, in all honesty.) When someone like me waltzes into the room and in some shape or form it gets announced that I’m the chick whose parents are dead, it scares people. That could be them. And one day, sooner or later, it will be them. I am the less than friendly reminder of that, even if I’m being all warm and smiling.

Because this fact makes people uncomfortable, their actions become equally uncomfortable. Maybe they push a silver lining that may not be true for on me because they need it to be true because their brains cannot deal. Maybe they’re bad at anything deep or emotional so they become evasive and aloof because they lack the tools to go there. Humans also tend to like predictability and when hearing people died young or at least youngish it throws them off. This becomes doubly so if someone considers themselves smart and worldly and a lot of their self esteem is wrapped up in that; the second they realize someone has had an experience above their pay grade they feel insecure and as everyone knows, insecure people tend to take our their insecurities out on others. I could do whole separate posts on all of these varying options and I’m intending to (or at least will touch on them in other posts in more detail). But these are some of the main reasons why people fail to be present in someone else’s grief.

Now this isn’t to say that people don’t equally suck at showing up for other types of grief at times. We’ve all had a tone deaf friend or two while going through a break-up or other type of chaotic time. A lot of us have had friends minimize our health battles. And quite obviously, we’re still as a society have to do better with having people showing up in a way that actively listens to and helps those who are victims of systemic otherness and the prejudices around that. But I’d argue that the batting average for people having a little more wherewithal in those situations is a touch higher, or is at least trending higher in some cases. We are afraid of death in this culture that has yet to be addressed in a mainstream way. And by “afraid of death” I don’t mean it in the Captain Obvious way in that we’re all technically afraid to die. I mean it like we sweep death under a rug. We send our deceased to mortuaries to be cared for and prepared for burial (if doing a burial). Other countries and even in some cultures through different parts of US history deal with the dead and its aftermath in different ways. Many families sit with the bodies for longer periods of times, even washing them. Mexico has a Day of Dead celebration where they grieve in a more positive way every year those they lost. But here, in present times, talking about death is still somewhat taboo and definitely still morbid in most people’s eyes. It’s the life fact that shall not be spoken of. And it sucks for those of us who have lost significant people to us because we’re considered morbid for acknowledging our deceased. Which is silly, because if you didn’t think the movie Coco was morbid then you realize death and grief isn’t as morbid as you may believe. Talking about the dead is literally about remembering them (like in the movie).

I have lots of thoughts. About how to better show up for people grieving. What not to say to people who recently lost someone. What the grief process is really like and yet is never discussed. What helped me the most. I also have a lot of thoughts when people make false comparisons regarding loss (and spoiler alert- those thoughts are not good!). But you’re going to have to come back in the future to hear them (and please do). If you need more grief content, check out my old video essay series on YouTube and/or check out my Trauma Resource Page. I have links to books on trauma, including two about grief that I highly recommend (for everyone and not just those who are grieving because again, it’s going to happen eventually). Also please check out my social media to get updates. Thank you so much for reading and I look forward to sharing more with you.