Lisette Lahana, LCSW
My favorite aunt called me after the recent presidential election, bereft.
“I haven’t slept all night.”
“I cried for hours.”
“My heart is breaking.”
These are words we hear when a person goes through a major loss, like a death, divorce, or relationship break-up. So how do we mourn a loss we cannot see? How do we grieve something that clearly existed, but we never held in our arms?
Understanding Our Invisible Losses
Some of us in the United States are managing a type of grief we may not have experienced before. Grief that can be compared to the concept of ambiguous loss. Pauline Boss (1999) coined the term ambiguous loss to describe a type of loss that is unresolved and lacks closure. This could be the physical loss of a person where there is still a psychological presence (such as adoption, or someone missing in action) or when you lose a person psychologically, however, they are still present physically (Eg, dementia).
When we speak of losing freedom, it’s essential to acknowledge that for many people, particularly those in Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, freedom and safety could not be counted on. For over four hundred years on these lands, many have never known true safety. If you are BIMPOC, an immigrant, or part of the LGBTQIA community, you may face daily threats of harm. This ongoing reality of violence and systemic oppression is different from, though deeply connected to, the psychological losses of this post.
As I write, I do so with awareness of my positionality. I possess intersectional identities around ethnicity, identity and ability, while also acknowledging multiple privileges as a white person.
A Gradual Erosion of Freedom
Returning to the psychic loss of freedom, a challenge with this kind of loss is its slow build. First, you may watch yourself delete or censor your social media posts. A short time later, your beloved family member cannot access gender or abortion care at their clinic. You may stop exercising your First Amendment right to freedom of speech due to fear that you will be incarcerated or killed during a protest. You plan to leave a country you called home. You’re physically unsafe and at risk of being detained or deported. For some, these dangers are not new, they have always been part of daily life. But for others, the shift feels sudden and disorienting. The changes are clear. The loss of freedoms has escalated. The difference is palpable. Our grief brings the ache of sadness, numbness, anxiety, rage, heartbreak, and physical symptoms.
Ambiguous Loss and the Long Goodbye
How do we cope with this loss? Unlike a sudden death that happens on a specific day, the loss is indeed ambiguous with no clear closure in sight. It feels similar to losing my mother to Alzheimer’s. Little by little, a loss of words and dates (I told you five times I was coming on Saturday), forgetting how to eat a strawberry (Don’t eat the stem…Mom, that green part), and finally, total disorientation. Like dementia, this loss of freedom keeps building upon itself and has intensified with the passing days. Each news story can disorient and take us down further.
How to Cope
What to do? Is it best to stay busy? Take on more and more at work to keep your schedule full? Tunnel into an emotional cave, letting the darkness take over? There is no one way to cope with ongoing loss, but here are ideas for how to manage.
Let yourself have your feelings. Invalidating your feelings or distracting yourself from them rarely works for long. Feelings related to grief tend to catch you off guard. You may find yourself yelling at your partner or feeling irritable with a co-worker. These feelings are normal, but it’s helpful to know where they are coming from. Slow yourself down and let yourself think about and feel this loss. If you hear the news and notice a welling up of frustration, let yourself take a breath and experience it.
Use humor to lighten your mood. Listening to podcasts (The Daily Beans) or TV shows that point to the ridiculous or humor in what is happening. Finding like-minded people who can share a lighter perspective on the news during dark times can help you detach, even if only briefly. These breaks can give you energy to make it through this ongoing grief experience.
Take breaks from the news. Curating your news and titrating it…meaning limiting your news to small amounts. This can help decrease how much pain you expose yourself to. This is different from distracting yourself, as you still know what is happening but give yourself time to emotionally digest and recover between headlines. Decreasing your exposure to news, if you are struggling with mental health, is an important way to avoid being buried by your grief.
Express yourself. Use art, writing, music, dance, and crafts. There are ways to express your feelings that involve your heart and body, and mind, that can help you process all you are going through. Sometimes doing this with others is helpful, such as in a writing or walking group, a workshop or a community event.
Get involved in change efforts. Part of what fuels depression is feeling powerless. Become active in halting the loss of freedom by finding like-minded people. That could be a grand or small effort, but any effort can help decrease depression. That may be getting involved in political action, protests, postcarding, or phone banks. For others, it feels risky to be political. Taking action to support community members can also support your mental health. These efforts may be aimed at diminishing the impact of the loss of freedom, such as bringing food to an immigrant fearful of shopping, or volunteering ‘behind the scenes’ doing non-profit work.
Go inside. Practice mindfulness meditation on your own or with a spiritual community. Use apps like Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer to access hundreds of meditation teachers. Find a local or online Sanga or meditation center, where you can learn meditation within a community setting. Or sit. Just sit for ten minutes each day, breathing in and out. Sitting with your thoughts and feelings is another way to be with what you are experiencing without having to change anything. This too can help cope with thoughts and feelings connected to grief.
Get outside and into nature. Nature helps us keep everything in perspective. Taking a long walk in green space can bring a sense of calm when you feel overwhelmed. A break can help get you out of your head and into your body. Movement and being in nature are both associated with improving your mood. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to negative feelings. You do. But becoming lost in your feelings can make it difficult to live your life.
Talk to a professional. Therapy can be one tool in processing and being with the pain of ambiguous loss. Finding a therapist (in person or online) in your state can help when you feel stuck in your pain. The therapists at Authentic Alliance are here for you during this time of profound loss. Your heart can ache while you keep moving forward. It is possible to be in your grief and still live your life.
