Examples Of Disenfranchised Grief

In our reading for this week, we learned about two different terms: complicated grief and disenfranchised grief. The former can be defined as a constant state of grieving that keeps you from healing and moving on, while the latter is grieving a loss that is not supported or recognized through social practices or observances. An example of complicated grief could be someone who is experiencing survivor’s guilt after being in a plane crash with their friend who was killed, but they survived. They may have a difficult time moving on from this because they were present for the death of their friend, and experienced the same thing as them, but came out alive. An example of disenfranchised grief could be a mom who has a miscarriage early on in her pregnancy, and there is no funeral or mourning service of any kind because the baby was unborn.
This activity would entail journaling—more specifically, starting each day with “Morning Pages.” This would look like immediately doing this type of writing at the start of the day, where you open your journal and just write. There is no prompt or set question; you simply write everything that comes to your mind for anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. If it feels too daunting to write for fifteen minutes, even three minutes would still be beneficial in understanding your thoughts and feelings, and you can begin to cope with whatever you may be feeling surrounding your complicated grief. An activity that would help someone cope with their disenfranchised grief (using the example of a mom who had a miscarriage) could be encouraging them to commemorate the child they lost. It could be introduced by reminding them that whatever they are feeling is normal, and this is not going to be easy to move past, but they will feel better