WE ARE WHO WE ARE: We can’t run from grief because we’re not supposed to

By Lisa Sugarman

I make no secret of the fact that I’ve spent most of my life accompanied by grief. Because I have, since I was 9 years old. That was when I was introduced — all too personally — to loss when my 18-year-old cousin died by suicide. And grief and I have been together, whether I’ve liked it or not, ever since. Surprising as it may sound, though, I’ve come to appreciate grief for the unexpected gifts it gives us, despite it being one of the hardest human emotions to allow ourselves to feel.

As a three-time survivor of suicide loss, losing my father, my cousin and one of my closest childhood friends to suicide, and, having lost more family and friends to other causes than I can count on both hands, I have way more lived experience navigating grief and loss than I wish I had on my personal resume. And not all that experience is as traumatic and depressing as you may think. Because what I’ve come to realize, after decades of resenting it for occupying too much of my head and heart space, is that there’s actually great comfort to be found in the midst of grief because those raw feelings of pain, as hard as they are to stomach, keep us tethered to the people we’ve lost. It just took me a while to realize it.

Now I know that not everyone has the capacity to stare grief in the face and acknowledge it head on, and that’s OK. The feelings attached to losing someone we love are among the hardest and most painful feelings we can experience as humans, not to mention the accepting-our-own-mortality part, so it’s only natural that we’d want to keep grief as far away from our psyche as possible.

But here’s the thing … we can’t run from grief, no matter how badly we want to, because loss is ultimately going to affect all of us at some point in our lives. It’s one of those inevitabilities we just can’t escape, no matter how hard we try.

For me, I’ve found that when I run toward the things that scare me — like losing the people I love the most — those toxic thoughts inevitably become less scary. Even by just a little bit. Because when I give those fears an actual invitation into my brain, I get to choose how I process and think about them. I do it on my terms and at my pace. So, I stay somewhat in control. I mean, we don’t want to spend all our time thinking about (or dwelling on) the hard things because that can hijack our day-to-day headspace and consume us. We also can’t ignore them either. That’s why it becomes important to dedicate some time and space to our feelings when things come up as a way of ensuring that we address our emotions before they become problematic. It’s all about balance, right?

“Grief is one of those constants in life that comes with both the capacity to hurt us and to heal us. Because it’s when we embrace the idea that moving through our loss by allowing ourselves to experience all the emotions that we can arrive at a place of hope.”

Here’s a reminder that really helped change the grief game for me …

Grief is one of those constants in life that comes with both the capacity to hurt us and to heal us. Because it’s when we embrace the idea that moving through our loss by allowing ourselves to experience all the emotions that we can arrive at a place of hope.

See, the heartache that comes with losing someone close to us is responsible for creating more than just pain. It’s not just all bad. Heartache or sorrow is also another form of love. Those intense feelings of sadness we feel when we’ve lost someone are a sign of the love we feel for that person and of the love they felt for us. And that’s a beautiful thing. Grieving is also one of the most powerful ways that we can honor our person. Because it’s through remembering them and celebrating how they impacted our life that we extend and preserve their legacy. And probably one of the most profound ways grief benefits us is by acting as a bridge to healing. Because if we can’t find a way to grieve, we also can’t fully heal. So even though, on the surface, it seems like there can’t possibly be any value in grief, there is when you dig a little bit.

So, while I know that it’s hard to imagine being able to find happiness again while you’re in the thick of grieving, life has a funny way of allowing space for both joy and sadness to coexist. And once we gift ourselves permission to feel both of those things, that’s where healing is usually found.

If you or someone you know is struggling with grief, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and a trained lifeline counselor will be there to help. You can also bookmark my Grief & Loss Resources on my Mental Health Resources page at lisasugarman.com/resources, so you’ll always have the resources you need when you need them most.

Lisa Sugarman is an author, nationally syndicated columnist, three-time survivor of suicide loss, mental health advocate and crisis counselor with The Trevor Project. She’s also a storyteller with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the host of The Suicide Survivor Series on YouTube. Lisa is also a Survivor of Suicide Loss Grief Group facilitator for Samaritans Inc. and she’s the author of “How To Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids And Be OK With It,” “Untying Parent Anxiety” and “LIFE: It Is What It Is.” Her work has appeared on Healthline Parenthood, Grown and Flown, TODAY.com Parents, Thrive Global, The Washington Post, LittleThings and More Content Now.