Sometimes Grief Doesn’t Look Like Mourning. Sometimes It Looks and Feels Like Relief.

Most of us are familiar with Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross’s five stages of grief. She studied people who were dying. Her model, introduced in the 1969 book, On Death and Dying, identifies 5 emotional stages of grief. These are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages are enormously helpful to people as they try to navigate sometimes intense emotions. There are many, many emotional reactions to grief, not just these five. What is less often talked about is relief. Relief is one of many emotional responses that one can experience when someone dies. 

The American Psychological Association defines relief as “a positive emotion that occurs as a response to a threat that has abated, disappeared, or failed to materialize.” 

There is the relief that comes as an expression of love, for example, following a long and painful dying process. Any compassionate person wants the pain to stop. They may not only feel relief when death comes, but gratitude or even happiness to have spared them further distress. 

And the caregiver may experience relief. They can simultaneously experience prolonged pain, anxiety, worry, fear, and suffering. Sometimes caregivers lack sufficient resources for their own welfare during the dying process. They don’t want the person to die, but there is a tinge of relief when death comes. 

On the other hand, there may be a different kind of relief. For example, what if your mother is a narcissist? Or your uncle abused you? Or your grandfather was just plain mean? There are many situations in which this kind of relief is a common and appropriate response. But you don’t dare say it out loud. This kind of relief does not fit our cultural narrative. This kind of relief causes us shame and we think it is evidence that there is something wrong with us. 

These feelings are a deep, dark secret. Have you heard of PostSecret (postsecret.com)? It is an ongoing project, created by Frank Warren in 2004, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. Selected secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website or used for PostSecret’s books or museum exhibits. The concept of the project was that completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they had never previously revealed. No restrictions are made on the content of the secret, only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before. Check out the website. It’s fascinating. 

Do you have a grief secret? Here’s my shameful secret. I felt relief when my mother died. 

My mother was a lovely person in most respects-–smart, gifted at bridge, friendly, and highly social. She loved a party. She was the woman that I turned to when I needed a recipe. I wanted her company and advice when shopping for household furniture. I enjoyed her home and often visited on weekends. Most of all, I felt safe knowing that my parents were there for me in case of an emergency. But there was a dark side. Alcohol controlled her words and mood. I never knew when she would say something hurtful. When it was no longer possible to be hurt, I noticed that I was a much calmer person. I could breathe more deeply.  

Although I felt relief, I also felt a wide range of other grief emotions. It’s a mixed bag. If you have mixed feelings about someone in life, you will continue to have mixed feelings about them in death. Death doesn’t bring closure. There’s a good chance the complicated emotions remain, even though the person died. 

Your feelings of relief might conflict with other people’s feelings of sadness. This disconnect might cause you to feel isolated and alone. You want to be sensitive to your audience. If there are things best left unsaid, you might want to seek out a trusted person, grief group, or grief counselor to express your thoughts. You could also express your thoughts in the form of journal, a letter to the person who died, artistic expression, or with a therapist. 

I talked with a grief expert about the experience of relief after a death. Fortunately for me, Thom Dennis, D. Min., LCPC, LMHC, FT, shares my office suite. He said, “Grief is more than just the sad feelings we feel after someone dies. It also involves all the thoughts, all the emotions, and all the physical manifestations we associate with the loss. This description makes room for the individual to have their own experience of grief, rather than having their experience judged by other people or defined by the dominant culture. From my perspective, grief only becomes problematic when the person feels as if they are stuck in a whirlpool, replaying the same thoughts and emotions over and over and can’t seem to move forward or get to the shore without help.” 

Thom is the creator of the Grief River model, a metaphorical approach for understanding loss across the lifespan.  For more than 30 years he has helped individuals and families come to terms with the death of loved ones. He is also a trained spiritual director and sponsors weekend individual and group retreats. If you need help, he’s your go-to guy.

I highly recommend the book “What’s Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss” by Eleanor Haley, MS, and Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C.