Being dismissed, cheered up, or encouraged to “get over it” is one of the biggest causes of suffering inside grief. There’s a catch-22 in grief support: because we don’t talk about the realities of grief in our culture, no one really knows how to help. The people who can best tell us how to help—grieving people themselves—don’t have the energy, interest, or capacity to teach anyone how to be supportive. So we’re stuck: friends and family want to help, grieving people want to feel supported, but no one gets what they want.
