Our intense Emotional Illiteracy
Or, how we suck at Grief in this Culture
I just finished reading, It’s Ok Not to Be Ok, by Megan Devine. I desperately appreciate her brutal honesty and how rigorous her analysis of how we fall short in our faulty and all-common individualized responses to grief journeys.
Other than Kate Bowler’s book, Everything Happens for a Reason (and all that that too common bullshit trite platitude represents, as well), Devine’s book is probably the most compelling critique on the fucked up approaches responses to grief too many of us all too frequently hear. She does a great rhetorical analysis and deconstruction of the common responses, which have way more to do with the listener than it is about grief, but nevertheless, the pain and dismissal that results from them, remains very, very real.
We do look at grief, any grief, as a problem to be solved, without holding enough space for how we will never be the same as the result of this loss, whoever it is or whatever our relationship is. We will not ever be okay or “get over it.” And that’s normal, to be expected. If we were, we’d be probably emotionally stunted, sociopathic, etc.
Still, in America, we don’t do well at holding space and listening and not trying to “solve” others grief and in reserving judgment, for seeing another’s pain.
We all too often want to overly identify with their story, co-opting it and making it about ourselves, minimizing differences and treating all grief as the same, etc.
The end result—others feel very dismissed and unseen.
I highly recommend this book.
Honestly, I think everyone should read it. But, as Devine points out, it’s not only for those who have lost someone. Although I do think that that will those who are heavy with grief feel seen and validated.
But, more importantly, if you are someone who truly wants to know how to support another who has lost someone recently, but are failing or falling shot on that, this book is an extremely valuable read. Or, if you have a position where your relationships and communication with others are important, counselors, educators, etc, this is an important read.
If I could give “assigned reading” for the majority of the general public, because we so suck at this area, I would prescribe this one, for sure.
I don’t say that about many books. Though there are many that I could recommend.
But this one is so important because death is indeed such a part of life and it will impact each and every one of us at some point. (At least, it should, if we have the capacity to feel loss.)
Ultimately, though—that is how powerful her claims are and how fucked up at grief we are.
She calls us out. And change is needed.
