What an arrogant and presumptuous title! As if I could tell you how to manage your own feelings, much less know your feelings. Perhaps I could have titled it, How Not to Grieve, or An Alternative Strategy to Grieving. Even then, what I am going to propose is not novel, though it is controversial. So be it. Let’s get started.
Trauma and bereavement are not the same and we know much more of one than the other. The industry man is wrong about trauma. Just as the neuroscientist tends to be wrong about the nerve cell and the Keynesian economist is wrong about the exchange, so too the psychologist tends to be wrong of trauma. First and foremost, “trauma” is arbitrary and can be used to manipulate others, so it can’t always be believed to exist when one claims it does. Secondly, it is less common than believed (at least “chronic” symptoms are), people are far more resilient to it on average than the industry men would have us believe, and most treatments actually cause more harm than good.1 What I would like to focus on here is that the hyper fixation on the thing which caused the trauma (“treatment”) is not healthy for up to 96% of patients while the ignoring and deliberate forgetfulness of the event (repressing) tends to be more helpful.
That’s trauma. What of bereavement?
Well, to no one’s surprise, I don’t know how to handle grief. No one does, yet this common lack of knowledge has not stopped the industry men and women from claiming that they do know. Meet one of them and there is a high chance that they are believers in sharing feelings in the hopes that such sharing will help in bereavement.
I don’t believe them.
There is no evidence that the sharing of one’s grief helps one. At least, there is no general rule applicable to All that this is the case. In fact, there is more evidence that this sharing process harms more than helps.
I don’t have a solution and I hope, reader, that you would be suspicious of anyone who claims to have a solution.
A bad thing happened. I can’t change it.
Those are just the facts, and any experiencing the grief of a loved one passing will know this to be true. A thing happened that you did not want to happen and you cannot change it.
If no acts can change it, why would words help? Perhaps repressing the experience and seeking joy and distraction elsewhere are the more healthy options for you.
