Why everyone grieves differently

One of the commonest experiences in loss is being misunderstood.  People can foolishly think they’ve got the market cornered on another person’s grief when they really have no idea.  Everyone grieves differently, and these are the reasons why.

This is just a start.  These factors at the very least individualise grief responses in loss:

Personality Variables

The first variable that makes our response to grief unique is that, while we can be similar to each other, we’re all absolutely unique.  Every single one of us is different.  Some of us are introverted and some of us are extraverted.

Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a rule, some are more inclined to sense their way through grief, and others are more inclined to use their intuition.  Some are cerebral and think deeply or not so much, while others feel their way through the torment of loss.  Thinkers can be immobilised in seasons of numbness and overwhelm.  Equally thinkers can be blessed not to make much ado about nothing.  Feelers can also be either overwhelmed or tempted not to go there and remain in denial.

The MBTI categorises 16 personality types, yet truly we’re all a mishmash of several of those types because nobody is classically one type and one type alone.  Personality differentiates our grief response a huge amount, but there’s more than personality that sets our responses apart as unique.

Situational Variables

If personality is a massive differentiator when it comes to grieving loss, situational variables add a huge set of distinctives to make the scenarios of our losses absolutely matchless.

There are the types of losses we experience from deaths of loved ones and friends to shattered dreams to betrayals to expectations that aren’t met.  The error we make is comparing losses when the grief in one loss doesn’t equate with the grief in another.

Then there’s the frame of our own mental health at any given time, where at times we’re stronger than we usually are, and times when we’re average, and equally there are times when we’re weaker than we normally are.

It’s best not to pathologise our mental health.

We all have times when we’re either weaker or stronger; that’s what it is to be human.

Then there’s the stresses we’re under when losses come, or perhaps the loss comes when there are fewer stresses, just like there are seasons in loss that are harder when stress abounds.

Then there’s the situational factor of what cultural environments we’re in, some highly supportive and some truly toxic and many in between.  If we have support through grief the experience can be easier, yet if we feel alone it can feel excruciating.  Then there’s the faith dynamic—if we feel God present with us in our grief it’s a game-changer.

Of course, there are many other nuances of situational variables.

5 Stages of Grief

This is where the situations of our losses are further differentiated and the stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—come to be magnified throughout the grief journey which can often last several months if not years.

To add a further variable, some of our personality factors impress themselves over our responses, depending also on the circumstances we’re facing.

Some situations of loss, like when there’s injustice, like betrayal, or the loss of a loved one in unjust circumstances, the character of our grief can be marked by great surges of anger and even rage.  Anger complicates grief when guilt and shame follow it, but if we can only validate our own experience of the injustice of our circumstance, and endeavouring not to harm anyone, we can justify our anger at least as understandable.

Other situations are just so incredibly dreadful that sorrow marks the character of our grief, and it can feel impossible to procure any hope.  In these seasons of grief all we can do is trust that if we face our sorrow, we will ultimately be healed into the deeper place of being, and a joy that transcends the cosmic sadness that envelopes us.

Denial commonly marks many grief experiences when the circumstances are so unbelievably unprecedented or unpalatable.  There are many realities of loss that mark our grief as unable to be accepted.  Equally, bargaining fits the form of realities of loss where we feel we must be able to influence our situations when much of the time we cannot.

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Everyone’s experience of loss is unique, and therefore everyone grieves differently.  A person’s experience of grief is to be honoured, and they’re to be respected for simply bearing their unenviable position.