Navigating Ambiguous Loss
“Ambiguous loss makes us feel incompetent. It erodes our sense of mastery and destroys our belief in the world as a fair, orderly, and manageable place.”
My brain is unfocused; I cannot concentrate on even the most mundane task. The butterflies in my stomach these days are not from excitement but instead, signify fear and uncertainty. My digestive system is completely out of whack and my body aches. I partly understand why I feel this way. After months of thinking that the life we have been living through this pandemic would eventually end, I am now coming to the realization that we don’t know what the future holds.
Many of my friends feel the same. But is difficult to put this feeling into words – unsettled, stressed, anxious, discombobulated, maybe sad? For me, sad is the emotion that resonates most these days. I feel like I am grieving.
The work of Pauline Boss, an educator and researcher, has helped me understand that I am grieving a loss that is unclear and has no resolution. Boss, who has worked with families who have lost family members during 9/11, through ethnic cleansing, and as a result of Alzheimer’s, calls this ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss describes a loss that is not clean cut, as when someone is physically present but psychologically absent, or when a loved one suddenly goes missing and there is no opportunity to say goodbye or understand what happened to them. It’s when, she says, something is “both here and gone.” These are losses minus facts.
Boss recently joined Krista Tippett for an On Being interview to talk about how many of us are feeling ambiguous loss during this current pandemic. She shared that the ambiguity of this experience is difficult for us because "We like to solve problems. We're not comfortable with unanswered questions, and [ambiguous loss] is full of unanswered questions ... And so, that kind of mystery, gives us a feeling of helplessness that we're very uncomfortable with as a society."
I would recommend reading the whole interview as well as her original interview, Navigating Loss Without Closure, from 2016 as she provides a clear overview of ambiguous loss and weaves this type of loss through some of the more recent research on grieving. She also provides some guidelines or practices to help us navigate this loss, guidelines that offer me a deeper understanding and comfort, far beyond the self-care tips I have been reading.
The only way to live with ambiguous loss is to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time.
Boss offers some examples of what this might look like. With the physically missing, people might say, “He’s gone, he’s probably dead, and maybe not,” or “He may be coming back, but maybe not.” This kind of thinking is helpful, and the only way that people can lower the stress of living with the ambiguity. She says, “Now and then, there’s a problem that has no solution. Now and then, there are problems that don’t have a perfect fix. And then this idea of holding two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time is very useful for stress reduction.”
Decide to live with ambiguous loss
Boss says she has learned that you can live with it. “You can”, she says, “eventually, not embrace it and maybe not even accept it, but you can decide to live with it. You can decide to accept it. Decide is the main word there. And then you can live well, when you decide that is your choice and then you are not helpless.”
Find meaning in a meaningless world
She also says it is important to know what you have control over – “And that’s why everybody’s baking bread or cleaning a cupboard, whatever, and maybe doing more physical exercise. Those are good things because you can control that. And you have to have that because we’re going to have a year of not being in control of the virus, so you’ve got to have something you’re in control over.”
Allow yourself to feel sad
We may not think we are grieving, but we are grieving, Boss shares, “Because this has gone on so long, I think there are days when you should just let yourself feel sad. And be easy on yourself on those days.”
She also suggests that we don’t judge grief, or focus on who’s hurting more. As she says, “You get yourself into real trouble if you go that direction. And mostly, we shouldn’t do it for ourselves, either. For one thing, many of us have a history of grief that just piles up at times like this. That is, there is some memory of past grief. Grief comes, past losses come to the fore now, because of this big one.” Personally, I find this advice extremely helpful. I wrote last week that I feel like I am carrying the anguish of the world on my shoulders, this helps me realize that my own anguish is already heavy enough.
Boss also offers a valuable piece of advice as to how to talk to others. Before assuming how someone feels, she suggests asking, what does this mean to you? Yes, some people are devastated right now, but others are fine.
I wonder what these times mean for you? I wonder if you are feeling something similar to what I am feeling? I am thinking of all of you as I write this and I hope it brings you a different perspective to consider, as well as some comfort.