A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Tommie,

Thanks for your note and questions, and for your honesty about yourself.

As we read your note, a paraphrase of the famous line fits here, “caregiver, heal thyself!”

Sadly, we’re not surprised that you’re confused about how to identify what you’re experiencing. There’s so much misinformation and so much psychobabble floating around out there, we’re surprised when anyone can accurately identify what they’re feeling.

Based on what you wrote, we have no doubt that it can all be said in one word, and you already said it, “grief.” Not depression [especially if you were not clinically depressed before], and not what you called anticipatory grief, because we don’t think any such thing exists. The idea of anticipatory grief being that you can predetermine what you will feel if and when something happens in the future. At best, that’s inaccurate; at worst it causes you to live out-of-the-moment, which makes you essentially unavailable to those who are actually in your life today.

However, we do think that fear is a real component of grief. Fear is the normal and natural emotional reaction to loss. When someone important to us dies, our brain asks the fear-based survival question, “How will I go on without that person?”

With all that said, talk is cheap. It’s time for action. Go to the library or bookstore and get a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook The subtitle of the book is, “The Action Program for Moving Beyond Death, Divorce, and Other Losses, including Health, Career, and Faith.”

As you read the book and take the actions it outlines, you’ll find the fear lifting; you’ll regain some of the energy that the unresolved grief is draining from you, and you’ll be able to live more effectively in real time.

From our hearts to yours,

Russell and John