Anticipatory grief is a term that might seem confusing at first. If you have not heard of it before, it might even seem dumb or made up. Who in their right mind feels grief before something terrible happens? Well, the answer to that question is simple. Everyone has experienced or will experience grief, even if there’s seemingly no reason to. Grieving is complex and usually involves a great deal of anxiety. So, to feel grief in anticipation of a loss is expected.
Anticipatory grief is nothing but the brain’s way of coping with the possibility of an impending loss. But society often shames people who experience this emotion. If a loved one is about to pass, people will tell you that you must have a positive attitude until the end. They won’t accept that you might already be grieving this loss. Instead, they’ll make you feel like you aren’t trying enough to cheer up your loved one.
This is potentially the most emotionally loaded example of shaming anticipatory grief. But there are many areas of life in which this emotion appears. And it’s not okay to feel like this feeling isn’t valid. You’ll inevitably have to deal with this type of grief. So, it’s best if you don’t feel guilty about experiencing it. To do that, you should understand what causes anticipatory grief and how you can cope with it.
What Is Grief?
Before diving into details about anticipatory grief, it’s best to analyze what grief is. Grief is not easy to describe in words. However, everyone has felt it to a certain extent, so we know how it manifests. But, while grief is an emotion, it’s best described as the state of being after a loss. There isn’t just one feeling that you experience while you grieve.
You can go from sad and angry to shocked in seconds. So, it’s easiest to describe grief as a process. The grieving period is the whole period from when you experience a loss to when you finally heal. Because of this emotion’s complexity, specialists tend to split it into stages. Usually, they split it into five stages, but some stray from this number. These stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Unfortunately, if you don’t go through all of these stages, you can’t properly heal.
Now, anticipatory grief doesn’t strictly follow these stages. And there is one primary reason: if the loss hasn’t already happened, you still have hope. In some cases, this hope can help you avoid a loss. For example, if it seems like the loss of your job is inevitable, you might experience anticipatory grief. But this hope will make you want to keep fighting. This might allow you to pull a rabbit out of the hat and keep your job.
But this is the happiest of possibilities. In most cases, this hope will do you no good. It will only make the loss hurt that much more. Still, this hope is a stage of this process. This eventually helps you accept that the loss is inevitable and is an incentive to find ways to cope.
3 Causes of Anticipatory Grief
By now, you understand what anticipatory grief is. But there’s one thing that might not be clear. What are its causes? And how can you cope with it?
1 – Loss of a Loved One
You probably aren’t surprised to hear that the imminent loss of a loved one will trigger anticipatory grief. But that doesn’t mean you’ll feel it whenever someone …
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