My Why audio version of this blog available here.
The answer is - Yes!
And, no.
Why am I asking this question? Well, it was prompted when I was browsing in a local charity shop. I overheard a lady say her Nan had died. The deceased was 92 and known to many in the area. One of the volunteers was talking about it, and as part of the conversation he said this (about his own experience, but also referring to hers): 'You're happy she's no longer suffering and is at peace, but you also cry a lot. It's selfish really.'
As I walked home I pondered his words: Is grief selfish?
It fascinated me. I mean, I’ve been around grief on this podcast for three years now. I’ve heard a lot about it, spoken to many people about their greatest losses, but I hadn’t really stopped to seriously ask this question.
I thought about the immediate stages of grief and ultimately, you are mourning something you lost. You do only think about yourself for a while, it's hard to do anything else. Then there’s the fact that a lot of grief is about self-reflection, self-preservation, self-healing. What about counselling or therapy where you mostly talk about - yourself? And we even expect grieving people to be selfish, don't we? We expect them to think about their own needs, not be involved in things for a while, not return our messages, not be able to talk about our stuff, not be able to be at work, not remember your birthday, not notice your grief perhaps.
Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears? Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body
So, I’m asking the question - is grief selfish?
And if you’re anything like me, this question immediately makes you uncomfortable. Especially in the climate we live in where you have to be very careful what you say about certain topics. It feels like it comes dangerously close to the type of questions we all have behind closed doors, and we want to talk about, but we can’t because they touch on areas that are too volatile or contentious. You know, like questions about; parenting, marriage, sex, death, politics, society, culture, race, religion, gender, sexuality, etc. And I think there are aspects of our good ol’ friend grief that fall into this as well.
Nowadays you can be shot down in flames just for asking a question that might be deemed as judgemental, wrong, stupid, ignorant, nasty, or misinformed by someone else. Sadly, this shuts down a lot of debate, discussion, and educating others. We have a habit of throwing the baby out with the bath water in these circumstances. And I feel like this question could rally the same sort of feelings. Grief, selfish? How dare you?!
But I am daring to, for two reasons:
I can and you can’t really stop me!
I think it’s important to explore areas like this because if we don’t open up these questions to discussion, I believe it can actually cause more harm than good. Some grievers need to know that there are parts of, or sides to, grief that can be selfish and if we get stuck there - it’s not healthy.
So, that being said, is grief selfish?
I’m going to start with the ‘no’ answer first, because I feel that if I don’t mention this side of it, all through the ‘yes’ side people are going to be yelling at me through their speakers.
So…No. Grief isn’t selfish. Debate.
Now, there is one group of people in this camp that will die on the hill saying ‘No! Grief is not selfish, it is necessary, it is natural, it is healing… How dare you even suggest such a thing?!’ And there’s definitely truth in that. We need to grieve, it is natural, it is necessary and it is healing. So I want to get that out there first. Most of you who know me will already know that I believe all this to be true, but in case there’s a newbie out there threatening to switch off the episode immediately if they hear me say ‘yes grief is selfish’. Full stop. Then I think it’s important I clear that up early on.
Grieving is something we will all do, we all need to do, and in fact it can be very dangerous if we don’t.
So to grieve a loss, in itself, is not a selfish act. Even if it was, it’s still something we need to do, respect, and allow in our life. It’s like eating food - we do it to survive, so is that selfish? Not really. Unless we eat all the food of course!
Grief often gives us no choice in the matter. We have to grieve. We can’t not feel it. Surely it’s not selfish if it’s outside of our control?
What if the person we loved didn’t share the same beliefs as us and so we believe we won’t see them again in the afterlife. Our grief might be for us, and not seeing them again, but it might also be for them and what we believe they’re gonna miss out on. Is that selfish?
What if someone died in a way that’s hard to talk about, embarrassing, silly, or preventable, and we’re grieving their reputation and legacy which has been changed forever because of one careless moment or a not-great choice they made. Is that selfish?
How about when mixed into our own grief, is also grief on behalf of others. When someone dies young, or untimely, or in a preventable/unexpected way (plus, loads of other scenarios), then the feelings, sadness, and emotions aren't just about our loss, but also the loss on behalf of others. Therefore it can’t be selfish. Loss of a future, grief for what could have been, ways things could have been different, grief over relationships that will never happen, people that will never meet (children that won’t know a parent or grandparent etc), health issues that prevent someone doing something or being who they are. In these situations, and many like it, our grief isn’t just about what we lost, but also what others are losing or have lost too. This is a very real, very heart-breaking part of some losses. Can that really be selfish?
And seeing others grieving, seeing people we love broken because of the loss, and grieving that, surely that would be considered not selfish too?
What about if it’s not a death, what if it’s the loss of health, an ability, a job, your identity, and all the many other losses we look at on the podcast, there will surely be aspects of those losses that aren’t selfish too.
So, there’s a whole host of reasons why grief isn’t selfish. And some of you will need to hear that message more than others, because if you have a learned behaviour, response, or belief that to grieve is selfish, then you perhaps need to know this more than other people. If you believe it is selfish it probably means you don’t want to do it, don’t allow yourself to do it, or more likely, don’t know how to, or are scared to. So if that’s you (and it’s definitely me at times) you need to hear this side of the argument stronger than other people. No, it is not selfish for you to grieve your loss. Whether that’s a bereavement, an identity, a situation you’re in that you never wanted, regrets, loss of a friendship, job, health, a limb, a sense, an achievement - whatever it is - you need to stop and grieve it.
Of course, there are also some of you that need to hear less of that message, and we’ll get onto that on the other side of the argument.
Right, so there’s the ‘no grief isn’t selfish’ side. And as I’m someone that always loves balance in a conversation (will walk away or play devil’s advocate if there isn’t any!) let’s wander into the other more precarious side of the debate. Something that isn’t explored enough in my view, or at all, maybe, but really should be.
When is grief selfish?
Feeling uncomfortable? I’m sure some of you are thinking; are you really going to tell a grieving audience, the main listeners to your podcast, that you think grief is selfish? What are you doing, woman?! Surely, that’s like sugar companies advertising you shouldn’t eat it because it’s bad for you?!
But I also know there are others of you that have experienced being around someone that’s got stuck in selfishness with grief (whether intentionally or not), and sometimes we need to hear the effect it has on others and why it’s not always a good thing. I know, as someone in the childless community, that if you fixate on not having children, being isolated, being different, being alone, on every unintentionally hurtful comment, if you only look at the effect on you and how you feel - it’s a bad thing. A damaging thing. Grief isn’t so dissimilar and it needs talking about, to show people there are options with how grief can shape you or sink you. Otherwise we leave people thinking grief is the worst thing ever and when they go through it they’ll never get over it, their marriage will end, they’ll lose the ability to go out and do anything and ultimately you may as well just die yourself. Not really the best advertising for something everyone will face. And it’s the same with childlessness, seeing the people that have survived it, that can make a life without children, is one of the best adverts for helping people more forward, because they think - ‘hmm if that’s the worst case scenario, maybe we can get through this’. Which is a message of hope. And you know I’m all about those! And marzipan.
Individuals and families can get ripped apart by grief, and it’s not necessarily a choice they’ve made, but I do think there are choices we make along the way that can steer us one way or the other, and the selfish side of grief doesn’t want you to make good choices. So it doesn’t hurt for us all to know and be aware of it, either before grief, after grief or during grief.
So when is grief selfish?
Well, I suppose in a situation where an old life has been well lived, where it was right and timely for them to die, when their suffering is over, then yes, surely grief is selfish. It's us, mourning something we have lost, and our feelings are entirely for ourselves, not the person who died, who might be in a better place and is completely unaware of what’s going on now. We are sad because the world no longer contains someone we love. We are not grieving for them, we are grieving for ourselves and what we’re facing. Again, I want to reiterate, this isn’t wrong, and it needs to be grieved, but it could be argued it’s a selfish act and emotion. Especially if the person who died wouldn’t want us to feel that way. I have an old adopted Auntie who I love dearly, she’s 105 years old, she’s not in a great place physically, mentally, and the home that looks after her is doing a terrible job, it’s hard to watch. However, it is her time to die soon, I know that. Will I grieve that? 100%. Will it hit me hard, even though I know it’s coming? 100%. Is that selfish? Urgh, I don’t want to say 100%, but I’m aware all my feelings are for my loss, not for her. Wanting her to stay now would be entirely selfish when she’s in the situation she’s in, she wouldn’t want it, she wouldn’t want me to be sad about it either. So I think it’s like how people describe holding joy and grief together, you can also hold thankfulness (which I have for her, in bucket loads), and selfish grief together side-by-side. So I can understand why someone might say it’s selfish.
What about when we have regrets, and we’re grieving those when someone dies?
Intrinsically selfish in nature, grief was for the living. It was a measure of how keenly one felt their own personal loss, and in some cases, as Kim knew, their regret. Angela Marson, Silent Scream
Surely that’s about us again? What if the grief itself isn’t that sad to us, but it triggers other things that are, and so our grief isn’t really about what’s lost, but it’s about how we’re responding to it. It’s about self again.
Now, again, this doesn't mean it's wrong to grieve, like we said it’s natural and it’s important, and grief is actually a kind of self-care (which could also probably sneak under the definition of selfish, but let's ignore that for now). And self-care, just like grieving, is good for you. Necessary in fact. But there's a thin line between self-care and selfish (which some of us have to be careful not to cross).
Grief made you selfish; engulfed as you were in your own pain, it was hard to remember the others were suffering too. Jill Mansell, Maybe This Time
Now this is where grief is automatically selfish in a way we can’t control at the beginning. Grief (if done correctly and not pushed down and ignored) doesn’t give a lot of thought to other people. It might for those directly involved, like if you’re looking after children who lost a parent, or a sibling who lost the same parent etc, but it doesn’t allow space for peripheral cares like remembering to check in on a friend’s first day at a new job, or find out how their kids did in exams, or whether their divorce went through etc. It doesn’t allow mind space for things outside of the loss, because suddenly the basic day-to-day task of living is more than enough for our bodies to handle, without anything else added in. So yes, it’s a sort of selfish, but also self-preservation, vibe going on. Nothing wrong with that, but we could probably admit that’s selfish behaviour, because take away the grief and we wouldn’t put up with that kind of behaviour in people for long. We would call them selfish if they only thought about themselves like that.
Sometimes, like I mentioned before, we might be grieving on behalf of others, maybe we see a child lose a parent or vice versa, even if we don't know them, we might shed a tear for that situation or find it affects us in some way. In that example, which could look very unselfish, we have to ask some questions. Are we honestly crying for them specifically? Or are we imagining having to go through that situation ourselves, or someone we know, and then grieving the thought of what that might be like? Are we turning it into a selfish thought-process by projecting emotions and feelings that even those going through it might not have? Sadly, sometimes, this can turn into grieving unnecessarily for a situation that isn't ours to grieve, which at its worst can hurt those that are.
We have to be careful we don’t allow some griefs to be an excuse for selfish behaviour on our behalf. I could say I’m grieving because my friend is grieving and that makes me sad therefore I can’t do x, y, and z, when actually I just don’t want to do that and I’ve started to adopt and wallow (unnecessarily) in a grief that isn’t mine in the first place. We need to be careful when grieving on behalf of others - all too often it’s actually just triggering something in us.
Too many of our guests have had experience with people around them who seemed to adopt the guest’s loss as their own, and almost expected the griever to comfort them! That’s not ok. If you’re feeling that affected by someone else’s loss, you need to process that, with others not affected by it, or see a counsellor to explore why.
And when I said before that some people need to be told it’s ok to grieve, or still be grieving, and that it’s not selfish, there are other people that need a swift sharp kick to help them out of the selfish side of their grief. That might sound really harsh, but grief is sneaky and if we let it, it will ensnare us and drag us into an unhealthy place.
And this is why you need to open up both sides of this debate, because there are times when some people will need to hear that their own grief is damaging them, and usually that’s because they’ve got stuck, and it’s often because of too much focus on self. Picture the parent that loses a child, and grieves for them (all very natural, even if they completely lose all grip on reality for a while), what if they completely ignore, repel and reject their other children, and years down the line have a shrine to the child they lost while the relationship with the living children completely disintegrates. Is that ok? If we only have the message ‘it’s not selfish to grieve, go ahead and do it as much as you want and any way you want’, isn’t that a damaging message? To say it’s ok, grief isn’t selfish, you keep doing what you’re doing? If we open up this conversation to both sides of the argument, then we have permission for someone to have the conversation with the griever about this, and help them see there are other ways to carry grief, work with it, and also start to look outwards to others around.
The world isn’t all about us and our loss - and while that’s a painful side of grieving that we all have to come to terms with eventually, this is where counselling and therapy can be so important to help us work out where we are with things and what affect our behaviour is having on others. If you turn selfish in your grief to the point you’re hurting a lot of other people - it’s not just damaging them, but you as well. If you hide your grief and don’t deal with it, it also hurts others and is damaging to you, and sometimes we need a professional to help us discern what path we have chosen, and why, to find a different way to grieve healthily.
I saw a post on Instagram recently that said this in it:
“Everybody says discipline is so important but they never want to tell you why. I’ll tell you why discipline is so important. It’s the strongest form of self-love, it’s ignoring something you want right now for something better later on. Discipline reveals the commitment you have to your dreams, especially on days when you don’t want to. The future you is depending on the current you to keep the promises you made to yourself yesterday.”
We need discipline in our lives. It’s no different to parenting, why do parents discipline? Because they love their children and they want to mould them into an adult that is secure, safe, respectful, kind, strong, whatever values they have for their offspring. A child doesn’t become a great adult that’s secure in themselves on their own. It’s the same with us. We don’t become stronger, braver, or more secure in the future with our grief without making choices and employing disciplines in our life. We have to make choices in our grief, or before our grief even, that will help us be who we want to be in the future. Who do you want to be with grief? How do you want it to affect your life? Because it can go both ways, and sadly, this might involve some very hard choices right now, especially on days when you don’t want to, to help the future you carry and hold your grief in a healthy way. That’s why in my Let’s Chat episodes I ask the guest what sort of tool the subject is to help us with our grief. If you fill your tool box up now, you’ll have all you need to endure, get through, suffer, tolerate, (whatever word you want to use), grief when it comes.
It’s different for every human of course. I need permission to grieve (in fact I did a blog on that very topic), but I know others that would read that and take it as an excuse to never move from the initial pain of grief, and so that could be bad advice for them.
Every person is different.
Every grief is different.
It’s complicated, and we often need others to help us. Which is another reason why turning only inwards with our grief can be harmful, and could shut out the very help we might need.
I heard a good example of how grief can change once, using pain. Annoyingly, I can’t be certain who I heard it from so I can’t name anyone. The man said that when he was younger he went ice skating and fell over, and someone ran over his finger with their ice skating blade, he said the pain was excruciating and did a lot of damage. For a while whenever he thought about that injury he experienced the pain all over again, but over time that changed. Now, many many years later, when he thinks about the incident he knows it hurt a lot, but he doesn’t experience the pain like he did when he thought about it in the early days. And this was likened to grief. When we think about our loss in the past (the timeframe will vary depending on the loss and person) we know it was awful, we remember the deep, heart-breaking pain and grief, but when we think about it now (years down the line, let’s say), we shouldn’t still experience that physical pain in the same way we did in the early days. This is how grief can change for us if we make healthy choices and allow grief to be grieved as it needs to be. But this involves action; taking it one day at a time, seeing the right people, having the right support, knowing we will never forget the pain, and yes there will always be moments of sadness, tears, and things that trigger that in us, but thinking back on the situation it doesn’t render you helpless and hurt like it did when it happened. Grief changes, morphs, and grows with you. If, twenty years on, you are still feeling the same pain, grief and terror of the initial days of loss, then maybe some professional help to process and work with that grief to help you might be a good idea, because that’s no way to live for anyone. And that’s what I mean about choices in the short term being hard, but they help create, protect, and strengthen the long-term you.
So, in a nutshell, is grief selfish? Yes and no.
Ultimately, I think a lot of this comes down to how we define selfish really, and I think most of us only think of it as a bad negative thing, but what if grief is selfish at times, but that’s not a bad thing?
But I think the key question here is, how do I know if I’m being selfish in grief?
There’s a very healthy side to grieving, a very beautiful side to it even, but we can’t deny there is a selfish side there too, and I think this is what we need to be careful of.
Let’s face it, it’s not just grief, there’s a bad aspect to everything in life, which can be avoided or indulged:
Food - I love it, but too much, or too little, and I put my body in danger health wise.
Exercise - I don’t love it, but too much or too little and I put my body in danger health wise.
Love - we all want it in some capacity, but too much or none at all, and we get into dangerous ways of living.
Money - we all want it in some capacity, but too much or none at all, and we get into dangerous ways of living.
Emotions - good, natural, healthy, but allow them to rule your life, or ignore them completely - dangerous ground.
Grief - good, natural, healthy, but allow it to rule your life or ignore it completely - dangerous ground.
And (to a degree) these aren’t just things that happen to us - they’re choices we make along the way. Even if the circumstances aren’t.
I want to caveat here that most of what I’m referring to is grief in the later stages, not the initial onslaught of it.
But I honestly think (and because every human is so different, this will vary according to self-awareness, mental capacity, health levels etc), overall there should be something in you that knows if you’re being overly selfish in your grief. There will be signs. You don’t get away with this, without a few things happening as consequences.
For instance, you might find that trusted friends and family that know you well (because you can’t really listen to those that don’t on grief stuff) might be suggesting you get some help or see a therapist, or you might find that people who had a lot of patience with you and have been a huge help in your grief are starting to drift away or get a bit exasperated by your behaviour or lack of interaction/commitment/investment in them etc. Maybe you look around and realise you know nothing about what’s happening in the lives of others around you. Maybe your sole focus is what you’ve lost and you’re finding you have less and less relationships to share that with, because you’re too focused on the wrong thing.
Now you might start yelling, ‘But I lost so-and-so and I don’t want to forget about them, stop talking about them, clear out their room etc’. And I get that, I really do, but what you might be missing, is that when you allow others in, and turn outwards a bit, you’ll find you do have people around you to do all that with. They’ll want to talk about who you lost, want to come and see you, want to reminisce with you, because you’re not solely focused on your loss. And that can be a huge blessing to you, your grief, and them. Whereas turning inwards only isolates you in your grief - a place no human should be.
If you’re fortunate to have people around you that know and love you, then listen to what they’re saying or look at how they’re behaving. If they’re telling you to stop, take a break, rest, grieve - then do it. If they’re distancing themselves from you, and suggesting you get help before they return - then do it.
Of course, there will always be those around that don’t understand, and maybe even offer advice that you need to ignore, that’s why I’m stressing I’m talking about people around you that know and love you. And just because people are family, sadly that doesn’t mean they always know what’s best for you. And you know what? Sometimes the people you need, are just waiting for you in a local support group.
As I often say with these kinds of topics - it’s not easy and it is a choice. Damn those choices you’re probably thinking, why does it always have to be a choice?! Well, we live with freewill, we can choose - alienate ourselves in grief, or open ourselves up to help and support to find a way through it.
In A Grief Observed, a small book by C.S. Lewis on his honest thoughts after the death of his wife (who he refers to as H in the book) he wrote this:
On the rebound one passes into tears and pathos. Maudlin tears. I almost prefer the moments of agony. These are at least clean and honest. But the bath of self-pity, the wallow, the loathsome stickysweet pleasure of indulging it — that disgusts me. And even while I’m doing it I know it leads me to misrepresent H. herself. Give that mood its head and in a few minutes I shall have substituted for the real woman a mere doll to be blubbered over. Thank God the memory of her is still too strong (will it always be too strong?) to let me get away with it. C. S Lewis, A Grief Observed
He recognises where grief would go if he let it ‘have its head’ as he puts it. He would be misrepresenting the person he lost for some figure he was just sobbing over and the thought disgusts him, because ultimately he knows what his wife would think of that. Not impressed. He talks about the ‘clean and honest’ moments of raw agony, real moments of pain, that are authentic and true, but warns against sinking into a bath of self-pity off the back of it. And I think, if you’re really honest, when this thought is put in front of you, you know if you’ve slipped into that place. Stroppy thoughts like ‘well, I have every right to feel like this if I want to’, ‘they don’t understand what I’m going through’, ‘I couldn’t possibly help so-and-so with such-and-such I’m still grieving’, start to appear, we begin to negotiate with the grief and our feelings, and reason why we shouldn’t start to do more normal things again. These are signs that something in us is ready to take a step forward perhaps, but another side of us is resisting, and we need to question why we’re resisting, and make some of those tough choices I mentioned. There might be good reasons, but there might also be selfish reasons. Some of us feel comfier in a sad disposition, we like the melancholy of life, we play the sad songs, watch the sad films, and feel a kind of safety net below us when life isn’t going well, because when it is going well there’s too much that could go wrong. So we have to watch that this doesn’t keep us in a selfish grief for longer than it should.
CS Lewis also said in the same book:
It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy; finally, dirty and disgusting. C S Lewis, A Grief Observed
Grief is selfish: we cry for ourselves without the person we have lost far more than we cry for the person—but more than that, we cry because it helps. The grief process is also the coping process and if the grief is frozen by ambiguity, by the constant possibility of reversal, then so is the ability to cope. Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea
And this raises another good point. Grief is a coping process. The emphasis is on the word ‘process’, it’s something that moves forwards, it’s not a stagnant thing. But we can easily halt that process by deciding to dig our heels in and resist, or by being frozen by something like, what Julia called, ‘the constant possibility of reversal’. If we allow ourselves to live in a place of hoping for things to reverse, living in the past, wishing it hadn’t happened, reliving regrets, being paralysed by fear, not facing our emotions, not getting help we know we need, etc, then we stop the healing process, and the ability to cope in grief.
So, is grief selfish?
Yes and no.
Yes, because it makes you that way by default.
No, because it’s natural, healthy and needs to be done.
Yes, because if not dealt with properly, over time it will probably make you selfish.
No, because without it we can’t be who we were designed to be, in the situations we’ve been given.
In my experience, with the right choices, grief often moulds people into even better versions of themselves. Painful as it is.
And if you’re grieving alone, which is really hard, and heart-breaking to me, but it’s always where my mind goes when I think about things like this. Then I want you to know that you’re not alone. It might feel like you are, and there might not be physical people around you, but there is a community of new people grieving every day (around 150,000 people die every day in the world). It will happen to every single human alive now. So there are always people out there that know how you feel. You might just need to find them.
You might also want to listen to my blog: You’re not the only one.
And if you need to reach out to someone, to me, to another person that’s grieving, to a support group, whatever you might need (and it’s sad and annoying that the emphasis is on the griever to do this, but if you don’t, nothing will get better), then be brave and take those steps to find someone who understands or something that can help you. I also recommend you buy yourself a Herman - because it would be an honour for me to make a little buddy for you in your grief.
And if you’re grieving, and you’re not alone, then take a moment to treasure that, and when the time is right for you, don’t forget to look up and look out at those around you. There’s a very good chance they’ll be the exact thing you need to get through this, and what a tragedy it would be to push them away in your grief, when some people would give anything to have that around them.
Do you know someone that’s grieving? Someone that’s ignoring their grief, to the point they might need to stop and recognise it? Or maybe someone that can’t get out of their grief? And everyone in between. Whatever the situation, don’t forget you can send them a Herman, wherever they are in the world, so they know they’re not alone.
For those who have no idea what I’m going on about, check out The Herman Company, where you can see the crocheted grief companions I make for people to send to someone else who needs a bit of a smile. And Hermans come with a card that help you with those words that can be so tricky to write, it says this:
“Finding the right words, at the right time, is hard. Especially if someone is hurting.
But what if there's another option?
Enter Herman.
A silent, squishy companion whose only purpose is to help you feel less alone.
Handmade by me, this Herman is now yours. A small friend who wants you to know that whatever you're feeling right now - you're not alone.” Claire x
I’m passionate about trying to help other people know they are not alone in their grief, and there is ALWAYS a way forward. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just realised you’re a selfish griever and you’re probably hurting others, it doesn’t matter if you’ve just realised you’re ignoring your grief because you’re scared of what it looks like if you don’t - there is always a way to set things right. You are not alone. And I made Herman so that other people could also express that sentiment to people they knew that were struggling.
Plus, every Herman sale helps support the podcast and my work, and keep all this running. Win win if you ask me.
I read an article by Hannah Wright that was called ‘Grief made me selfish’ (which it totally does for a while), but at the end she said this:
Grief is messy and tough, and so am I. Hannah Wright
And I want to remind you of the same thing.
Grief is messy and tough. But so are you.