grief & loss

GRIEF & LOSS

This page is part of the Surviving Parents with a Mental Illness website

ON MATTERS OF THE HEART

Now as an adult, you may have some questions about your grief and sense of loss such as:

Why is it different for each person even within the same family?
Why is the grief different at different points, phases or moments in a person’s life?
What might determine the size, shape, texture of my grief?

Here are some things that could influence grief responses and/or reactions:

perception of loss rather than loss itself
chronological age
birth order within the family
unresolved intergenerational issues
Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background, indigenous person, refugee, or from another culture or country of origin
Mixed cultural heritage that have had historical conflict or in conflict to this day
current developmental stage in life
temperament
circumstances under which perception of loss occurred
Climate Change
belief system or religious beliefs
relational factors
gender and sexual identity - including levels of acceptance
emotional, intellectual, and awareness levels of both griever and others surrounding the griever
inner/outer coping styles prior to the loss
ethnicity and language spoken at home
the quality of the loss and degree of loyalty invested in an ill parental figure
the degree, quality, and attachment style to the mentally ill parent during infancy, through to adolescence, and the extent to which this has been qualitatively altered over an individual's life span
a capacity to seek, locate and maintain symbolic and actual supports
how established your identity was at the time of loss
the status of your health prior and post awareness of loss
quality and extent of social support network of your family before your birth, after you were born, while you were developing, and now
new grief/loss evoking/provoking old grief
how much therapeutic work you have done on yourself either formally or informally
cultural, religious, social, historical influences (locally, nationally, globally)
current socio-political climate (locally, nationally and internationally)
how supportive/tolerant your community is of diversity or difference
economic and financial influences
family of origin influences / attitudes towards losses (spoken/unspoken)
other simultaneous, parallel or concurrent events occurring in your life e.g. specific life transitions
consequential or secondary losses i.e. loss clusters or ripple effect
your unique individual personality
capacity to express yourself via different modalities
creative outlets
paid and unpaid work life
absence (via physical death or estrangement) or presence of family members with whom you are currently in contact
the degree with which you personally feel or experience social inclusion vs. social isolation (or loneliness) within your community
breadth and depth of reliable/trusted social connections
The extent to which matters were in or not in your control before and after the loss. This can include compounding issues impacting on your or on other people's lives leading up to the loss or straight afterwards, e.g., internal factors, such as addiction or external factors, such as Climate Change or a world pandemic
ULTIMATELY YOU DECIDE… What may have determined your loss and grief experience(s) as a child of parent(s) with mental illness.

Additional things that could influence grief responses and/or reactions:

type of mental illness your parent had and its level of chronicity. This includes at what developmental stage you were at when they were or when they became mentally ill
your personal threshold of internal pain
your physical health and fitness status
window of tolerance for reality or truth of what actually happened
your capacity to take responsibility where realistically warranted
whether other traumas occurred concurrently to losses
perhaps previous trauma triggers have created a ripple effect as they interact, influencing your grief
whether you were parentified, how and to what degree (scroll down on this link:https://suzette-misrachi.medium.com/).
whether you were in any position to win or gain personal boundaries between you and your mentally ill parent during your early years
level and type of guilt and responsibility imposed during your early developmental years
depth and breadth of any uninvited shame or irrational guilt imposed on your identity
degree of felt self-agency for change in family-of-origin
level of trust in oneself, in others, in your or other communities
the extent to which one is able to exercise self-compassion
the capacity and ability to imagine a better existence
level of hope for a different future

A partial Japanese (日本語) translation of grief determinants is available for download here.

Article entitled:“11 reasons why grieving in "stages" makes no sense” can be found here:

See other pages below - just click on topic:

Last Modified: 11th Feb, 2017. Kwotes