Ambiguous Grief: What it is & How to Deal

Being a human means that at some point, you're going to deal with grief. It's one of those guarantees, there's no escaping grief. Even young children can empathize with the grief experience: losing a pet, a grandparent, or witnessing loss in a movie. Grief is universal - it does not care about your race, your ethnicity, your religion, your income, or anything else. All humans grief at loss.

Ambiguous grief is more challenging to understand - there's still loss, but it's less definitive.

Ambiguous grief—also called ambiguous loss—is a form of grief that occurs without clear closure,

Examples of ambiguous grief can include:

-A parent with dementia, who is still physically present but mentally gone

-Your boyfriend stopped responding to texts without an explanation

-A child in a neighboring county has been missing for several weeks

-A friend has been deployed, and you haven't heard from them in months

-Your wife filed for divorce out of nowhere

-Your child is struggling with drug addiction

The person has not died but is emotionally, mentally, or physically unavailable. Or, in the cases of military deployment, missing persons, etc., you don't know if the person is alive.

Ambiguous grief is challenging for a number of reasons.

-Your nervous system remains activated because the "threat" has not dissipated. This is your body's attempt to protect itself.

-Other people might not realize that the grief is real. This leads to a lack of compassion or a lack of validation. When someone dies, there's a funeral, an obituary, and a stockpile of dinners in the freezer. When you break up with your boyfriend or get a divorce, there's nothing.

-People often struggle with identity - who am I, now, in relation to them? Who am I now that I'm not a husband/wife? Who am I, if my child is missing? Who am I, now that I am no longer in this friendship?

People struggling with ambiguous grief may experience crying, confusion, anger, self-blame, depression, rumination, or feeling stuck or frozen.

A majority of the population experience ambiguous grief at some point in their lives. However, since many people don't have the language to express what they're feeling, the grief becomes internalized as shame or embarrassment ("why am I not over that guy yet? He was a jerk!"). This causes grievers to not seek support as often.

Regardless of what caused your ambiguous grief, I hope that you can find healing and support, and over time, be able to integrate the grief and live a happy and fulfilling life. And, if this is a challenge, there is no shame in seeking therapy. If you are local to Greensburg, PA, or virtual in Pennsylvania, give Caring Conversations Therapeutic Services, LLC a call. Healing Happens Here.

This blog is written and maintained by non-clinical staff. The contents of this blog should be taken as psychoeducation, and not as medical advice or a replacement for therapy. If you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency please call 911. If you are experiencing a life-threatening emergency that is not life-threatening, please call 988.

How to Deal

Dealing with ambiguous grief is challenging, but possible! Some tips are:

-Validate your loss. Acknowledge that your grief is real and valid.

-Build Meaning. Reconstruct meaning in your life without closure, even without closure.

-Strengthen your support. Support groups, therapy, time with your friends. Intentionally seek out helpful supports

-Focus on What you Can Control. Your rituals, boundaries, and self-care practices.