Pain and grief are never seen as healthy responses to loss. They’re far too threatening for that. We resist them in equal measure to our fear of being consumed by them. The problem with this—among many problems—is that it creates a societally acceptable blame structure in which any kind of hardship or pain is met with shame, judgment, and an admonishment to get back to “normal” quickly. If you can’t rise above it, you are, once again, doing something wrong.
