Ambiguous Loss: Is this what we are Feeling?

In this article, Ellie and psychologist Allison Keating discuss how women are really feeling at the moment and what to truly do about it…

Ellie

I've been feeling something that feels a little like grief lately; it's not as intense or distinct as mourning the loss of someone I knew and loved, but it's still a sadness that feels like there is no available closure to it. I'm not sure if it's pandemic-related, or homesickness for my life beforehand, or even whether it's midlife related and the dawn of menopause and the emotional shift that brings - something just feels unresolved...
Can you shed some light on this?

Allison

hiraeth

(n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.

What is missing in ‘hiraeth’ in terms of what many are experiencing as ambiguous loss is not just a yearning for the past – these tenuous feelings have spilled into our today and most certainly into our uncertain tomorrows. A triple threat to the senses. The whole uncomfortable shebang has left us a bit lost, betwixt and between an agitated peace-less state as we try to say goodbye to our past, and adapt to our present and unknown future. Not the easiest of transitions, so maybe let’s start there.

As you sit with how challenging it has all been, bring in some gentle softness to the rough edges of what has felt so emotionally tough. Like so many forms of grief, it can feel like you need permission. So, take the slip and sit with it, for a moment or two.

Maybe life isn’t easy, easy as Sunday mornings. Maybe this is, the unattainable fight, as we are superglued and bonded to the concept of attachment and of things staying the same, which, very unfortunately, they won’t, they don’t and they just can’t. Rationally, we know this yet we emotionally hang on and this is where the suffering enters. Stop being mean, if you think you are the only one who thinks these thoughts. You have been conditioned to see change as bad, anyone over the age of 40 is given the same message that it’s all downhill from here with the loud and specific message of how we are supposed to look and ‘be’. The cultural and financial value placed upon this impossible task is big business.

Much-needed conversations

Let’s open a much-needed conversation on the menopause and how it is talked about, in small circles in hushed voices why, because we can’t even keep a Tampax ad on air. With 84 complaints, hardly representative, who found their current ad ‘offensive, crude, vulgar, unnecessary, embarrassing and grotesque’. Seriously, the continued shaming of women and their bodies continues. Procter and Gamble said the ad was in response to finding out that 42% of women weren’t inserting the applicator correctly and 79% experienced discomfort whilst wearing tampons, so for once, this was an informative ad about how to use the applicator properly, rather than the rubbish we’ve had to endure of women out in their white shorts or whatever other clothes you would never in your wildest dreams wear when you have your period riding bikes. Being direct and clear was offensive to 84 outraged people about how to use the actual product women buy and use themselves. Cue, more ridiculous period ads of women jumping out of planes coming our way soon.

When we have been moulded and conditioned to know beforehand how people will respond – especially with evocative responses such as shame and disgust – it keeps the silence going and we lose out on being informed about our own bodies. Because it seems your discomfort doesn’t matter if it isn’t visible.

The time for avoiding discomfort, challenging conversations and conditionality of what we’ve been told is unacceptable has come.

Coming undone, is the first step, letting go is the harder part. Trust me I will inject hope, but not just yet. To process pain, we have to acknowledge its very presence. As your body physically and emotionally sends pretty clear cues, most of us, myself included, ignore them until the knocking becomes too loud to ignore.

Change

Let’s bring Kali into the mix here, the Goddess of time, change and destruction. It seems like she had 2020 in her sights. A fierce-looking feminist who clears the path in a direct and indiscriminate way, something that is again discouraged in women.

Covid has brought grief, and death brings clarity that things need to change. This is why I resonated with ‘hiraeth’ as perhaps all was not as well as we thought and maybe, we knew this pre-Covid. Many will get through this without it physically affecting them but I think most have been emotionally impacted. This is the thing with change, especially behavioural change, no matter what anyone says, it is hard. Change that you didn’t ask for and or feel is out of your control is even less palatable. I’m reminded of slivers of liver as a child as you’d come in the front door and no matter how much my mum tried to dress it up with bacon and honey it was still vile and impossible to swallow. So, let’s stop dressing the unpalatable up as a #blessing. Please, spare me.

Restless cravings for a sense of closure or how you at least thought, things, people, work or relationships would be, may be gone physically, but not psychologically. There are a lot of shocked systems out there, as the world as we knew it stopped in March. There’s no silver lining, there’s no shallow smiley to take from this, so many people have died and the overhang is as we head into flu season we are not out of these woods yet. As we watched the horror unfold at a speed that was hard to get your head around, give yourself time to feel and recognise the collective grief that we all consumed and absorbed. There have unfortunately been many human disasters from war to disease, this is the first time it affected everyone. The fear was real, our threat responses are still alight as we batten down the hatches.

This ambiguous loss isn’t that ambiguous, we are all grieving a lot.

Transformation is never easy, but it is often magical. The question is, what needs to go for you right now? Outdated belief systems and attachments? What needs to grow; your voice, your courage, your strength? Maybe it has always been here, maybe this next stage is about being re-born but to yourself? Maybe this is what menopause is about? A pause, where the emphasis for care, comes back to you. Where you, self-nurture and protect you, your time and your energy? What does destruction and difficult times teach us?

Honestly, a lot. The clearing has happened, what way you choose to go next is the opportunity within you to listen and connect to your own heart and mind. Sit, listen, connect, write it out. This is not another ‘to-do list’ this is a ‘to-be list.’

Ellie Balfe & Allison Keating, July 2020.

Dear readers, how are you really?
Let’s talk to each other in the comments box below…