• About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
Severance Magazine
Monthly Archives

August 2019

    ArticlesDNA SurprisesFamily SecretsPsychology & Therapy

    Disenfranchised Grief: Mourning in the Shadows

    by bkjax August 23, 2019

    How do you mourn when no one acknowledges your grief?

    By B.K. Jackson

    In our society, we engage in age-old rituals that help share the burden of grief after a loss. We hold the hands of the bereaved through services and at gravesites. We send cards and flowers, make donations, and create meal chains. We stand in solidarity and share stories about the lost loved ones to buoy the spirits of those who mourn them. We offer practical and spiritual succor, shoulders to cry on, and a promise of being there for the bereaved when they need us.

    Only sometimes we don’t. For losses that fall outside of society’s norms—particularly those linked with something perceived as shameful or socially embarrassing—the rituals are often absent or ignored, the grievers left alone to tend to their wounds, without empathy and support.

    Kenneth Doka, PhD, formerly a professor of gerontology and now senior consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America and author of numerous books about grief, coined the term disenfranchised grief in 1987 to describe the sorrow associated with these situations that stand outside society’s norms of “legitimate” loss. It refers to the emotional aftermath of losses that are not acknowledged or validated by others—a solitary state in which individuals are unable to mourn openly and may suffer in silence. They believe—or are made to feel—that they’re not entitled to the ministrations typically provided when bereavement is socially sanctioned, that their losses aren’t worthy of grief, or that their feelings are inappropriate.

    Although there are many contexts in which disenfranchised grief may arise, among the most common, as conceptualized by Doka, are when others:

    • don’t recognize relationships (such as those involving ex-spouses, same sex partners, or individuals who’d had an extramarital affair);
    • don’t acknowledge the loss as being significant (a divorce; the death of an adult sibling; the loss of a child in a stillbirth or a fetus in an abortion or a miscarriage; or the loss of a pet, a job, or one’s health); and
    • view the loss as being socially stigmatized (such as suicide, AIDs, substance abuse).

    In each case, the grievers have lost a significant relationship as well as the comfort of shared or public mourning and the social embrace that facilitates grieving and helps shoulder the pain.

    Grief may be disenfranchised, Doka explains, not only by society but by oneself. People who are suffering may keep their feelings inside, self-disenfranchising themselves. “Sometimes people don’t feel they have a right to grieve. There may be shame or they don’t understand the legitimacy of their own losses,” he says.

    Disenfranchised Grief and Genetic Identity Issues

    We recently spoke to Doka about how disenfranchised grief may be experienced by individuals with losses related to genetic identity, family separation, and family secrets. You may be vulnerable to it, he says, if, for example, you:

    • find out that a family member is not genetically connected to you;
    • discover the identity of your biological father only to find that he’s deceased;
    • search for and find biological family members but are rejected by them; or
    • you learn of the death of a biological family member who refused contact with you

    In each of these cases, Doka observes, you’ve lost a relationship. “It may not be a relationship that you ever had, but you may have lost a fantasy of a relationship you wanted to have.” And when kinship roles are not recognized, he adds, the right to grieve is also not recognized.

    Disenfranchised grief also comes into play when secrets prevent open communication, observes Kathleen R. Gilbert, PhD, professor emerita in the department of applied health science, Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington and an Association for Death Education and Counseling Fellow in Thanatology (FT). Furthermore, adoptees, donor conceived people, and NPEs (not parent expected or nonparental event) individuals often have fantasies of reconciliation and a desire to understand their origin stories. When they search and find that their biological parents have died or they contact living relatives who are nonresponsive, there’s a lot of grief involved. “A piece of what they need to know is not available,” says Doka. “We like to create stories about ourselves. We want to know where we were born and who raised us, but in some situations the narrative is incomplete.” When you don’t know how you began, he adds, it influences your sense of self, and there’s grief over the loss of identity.

    For all these types of losses, it’s a good bet that few will stand with you in any rituals of mourning, because in many cases there are no such rituals. And when there are, such as the funeral of a birthparent with whom you had not reunited—the man who, while married, had an affair with your mother and later ignored your attempt to connect—you may be excluded or made to feel unwelcome. And if the birthfather you never had the opportunity to meet died, it’s not likely friends will acknowledge that you have cause to mourn, let alone send Hallmark cards or drop by with casseroles. It’s even less likely if you’ve only just discovered—at the same time you learned who your birthfather was—that he died some time ago. And there are no rituals for adoptees who mourn the parents they’ve never known and may never know or for donor conceived individuals who can’t locate their donors. In all of these situations, others may never understand your sadness and your sense of loss over someone you didn’t know and something that happened long ago.

    You—and those around you—may not believe you have the need or right to grieve for a relationship that never existed, but the loss of the idea, the wish, the hope for a relationship is as painful as the actual loss of a loved one.

    “There are losses here,” Gilbert agrees. If you were adopted, for example, she says, “You didn’t have just one loss, you had layer upon layer of losses.” About this grief you experience over not having known your biological family, she says, “You own it, you know it, you feel it. And then you have this social surround—all the people around you looking at you and saying, ‘I know it’s hard, but you should be grateful for everything you have, for having the knowledge you have.” While there’s no reason for adopted individuals to feel gratitude, it’s not only expected but is also believed to erase any pain associated with the adoption experience. “And the thing is,” says Gilbert, “you may be very grateful, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t have a loss.”

    Adoptees, furthermore, “are often told how lucky they were to get adopted, so they may feel disenfranchised from being able to mourn the loss of their birth/first parents,” adds JaeRan Kim, PhD, MSW, assistant professor of  social work at the University of Washington Tacoma. And the feelings of donor conceived individuals may similarly be disrespected by those who suggest they not only should not feel loss but should consider themselves fortunate merely to exist.

    What does it matter if others don’t understand? Social acknowledgement of losses is important, Gilbert says, because as social animals we require it. “It may be hard-wired into us to have those who support and care for us confirm the reality we’re trying to construct.” We don’t make sense of things ourselves, she explains. “We make sense in a social context. We play off of other people. We think about things and look at other people and see how they react to us.”

    Stepping Out of the Shadows

    People experiencing disenfranchised grief, says Doka, “often have manifestations of grief, anger, and guilt and they don’t identify it as such.” To cope with disenfranchised grief, it’s necessary to recognize it. Acknowledge your feelings and understand that they are legitimate—you own them and are entitled to them—and identify them as grief. After this first step, there are no silver bullets, Doka observes, but there are a few self-help strategies that can be useful.

    Gather Your Resilience

    When helping clients with disenfranchised grief or other issues, Doka often asks them to examine their own coping abilities. He asks, “’How have you coped with losses in the past? What’s been helpful and what has not?’ My message would be to analyze your historic strength and utilize it, and that’s going to be different for everyone.”

    Create Healing Rituals

    Rituals of mourning play a role in helping individuals mourn and integrate the experience of loss into their lives. If you’ve been excluded or prohibited from participating in these rituals and have not been supported in your sorrow, it might be helpful to create what Doka calls a therapeutic ritual. Even If the loss occurred in the past but there wasn’t an opportunity to mourn, it’s not too late to create these healing rituals.

    There are several questions you’ll need to ask yourself when devising a ritual, Doka says. First, what is the message associated with the ritual you want to create? For someone who was rejected by a birth parent, “It may be a message of affirmation, just saying, ‘I don’t know why you didn’t have contact with me but thank you for giving me a piece of life, being part of my life.’ Or it may be a ritual of continuity, in which you say, ‘I acknowledge that I’m part of you even if you didn’t acknowledge me.’ It might be a ritual of transition in which you say, “I don’t need your approval or recognition any more. I am who I am and that’s fine.’”

    The second question is, what are the elements of your healing ritual—what form will it take? And last, ask yourself whether anyone needs to witness the ritual, and if so, who? In some cases, Doka says, you may want to involve your siblings or your significant other, and in others you might want a broader audience of friends and family.

    According to Gilbert, these don’t have to be “rituals with a capital R, but just acts that take you outside of the mundane, give greater meaning, and help you deal with something.” It might be as simple as lighting a candle and saying the name of the person you lost,” she says. It can be done privately or in a group, but it has to be something that’s meaningful to you. “It acknowledges that it was a loss, it was real, there’s emotion associated with it, and that that’s okay.” Gilbert remembers when she assigned a class of students to create loss rituals. One student, she recalls, wrote a letter to her father, who had died when she was very young. She went with a friend to a fire pit and burned the sealed letter. As the smoke was rising into the sky she said, “Dad I’m sending this letter to you and it’s coming to you on this smoke.” Another student cooked and enjoyed the favorite meal of someone associated with a loss. It doesn’t necessarily require an audience, says Gilbert, just a sincere intention to create a meaningful acknowledgement.

    After you develop and carry out your ritual, it’s helpful, Doka says, to find someone, perhaps a therapist, “who can help you unpack the experience.” Together, he suggests, you can explore how the ritual worked for you and whether it met your needs or whether you need to do something else.

    Take Your Time

    Experiencing grief isn’t reason alone to need help. You needn’t seek help because others think you need to “get over it.” People can be uncomfortable with others’ grief, even more so when it’s disenfranchised. When they want you to get over it, what they’re really saying, Gilbert observes, is “‘Stop behaving in a way that makes me uncomfortable. I want you to go back to what I see as normal.’ But your normal is never going to be that normal anymore because you’ve had this loss and its changed reality.”

    While others may want to rush you through your grief, you don’t have to operate on any timeline but your own. “Grieving is normal and can take a long time,” says Gilbert. “It can be like a river you fall into. Sometimes you’re drowning and sometimes you’re paddling along with it. It’s not that bad, the water is warm, and you can almost touch the bottom. And that’s okay.”

    “Grief is its own being,” agrees Beth Kane, LCSW, a private practitioner in New Jersey. “It’s not something you get over. It’s something you learn to live with, a companion you learn to integrate into your life.” It changes you, she says, “but you learn not to let it define you. That takes whatever time it takes as long as you don’t get swallowed by it.” Healing, she says, no matter what kind, is never a linear process. “It’s a slip and slide, up and down, back and forth, two steps up and one back. We get there eventually, but processing and integration don’t work like a stepladder.” And with grief, “the only two fixed points are the shock and the resolution.” Resolution, she adds, doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It just means we have integrated it and it isn’t as acute as often.”

    We’re complex creatures, Gilbert says. “We can’t be happy all the time. That’s okay. That’s where empathy and caring about other people comes from.” According to Kim, “Individuals who experience disenfranchised grief need to be supported by those who acknowledge the great emotional and psychological costs of trying to be ‘strong,’ rather than allowing themselves to mourn.”

    Complicated Grief

    Disenfranchised grief, because its burden isn’t relieved through the support of others, may be internalized, resulting in what psychologists call complicated grief, or grief that has no resolution. “When we are invalidated, we often suppress our real feelings for fear of being judged, says Kane. This interference with the bereavement process, and disenfranchised grief, she says, can lead to complicated grief, which can cause symptoms such as difficulty with normal daily activities, a sense of purposelessness, longing for the object of the loss, and intense focus on the loss. It also can instigate or exacerbate mental health issues including anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and even PTSD. Worse, those who experience disenfranchised grief may be less likely than others to seek help for fear of being further stigmatized. But a therapist can help individuals get past these fears and dispel the attitudes that prevent them from working through their grief. Kane works with her clients to avoid labeling feelings and emotions as “good, bad, positive, or negative.” “It’s through awareness, acceptance, and support that we can work through them.”

    What makes grief complicated and problematic, Gilbert says, is if you can’t function. “If you can’t carry out your day to day functions, if you socially isolate yourself, if you’re using drugs or alcohol to deaden your interaction with the world, if you feel ending your own life would be the best way to deal with what’s ongoing in your life at this time, that’s significant and a point at which you need to be working with someone who’s professional to help you find your way back.”

    When You Need Help

    You may find all the care and empathy you need by participating in a support group run by a trained professional. But when grieving is more complicated, professional help may be necessary. It’s important, Gilbert says, to seek help from an expert. Many people who consider themselves grief therapists may not be adequately trained, she says, and may believe helping individuals cope with grief is a matter of educating them about the five stages of grief—a largely discredited concept that’s not research-based and was never intended to apply to loss of loved ones. Look for a therapist, she advises, who’s certified in thanatology (the scientific study of death and practices associated with it) and credentialed by the Association for Death Education and Counseling.

    “When people are grieving, they often feel that they’re crazy,” says Gilbert. “It’s helpful to have someone who can tell you that your crazy is normal.” When you think about it, she adds, “If something horrific happens and it knocks you off kilter, if you feel normal you’re kind of crazy.”

    August 23, 2019 1 comment
    6 FacebookTwitter
  • ArticlesDNA SurprisesFamily SecretsNPEs

    Telling Family Secrets: Proceed with Caution

    by bkjax August 23, 2019
    August 23, 2019
    Read more
    1 FacebookTwitter
  • ArticlesDNA SurprisesFamily Secrets

    The 5 Stages of Grief: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?

    by bkjax August 23, 2019
    August 23, 2019
    Read more
    2 FacebookTwitter
  • Essays, Fiction, PoetryNPEs

    Be Kind to Yourself. It’s a Journey.

    by bkjax August 19, 2019
    August 19, 2019

    It’s been about 18 months since I discovered the man on my birth certificate was not my biological father and I joined the growing tribe of people who are lucky enough to call themselves NPEs, or Not Parent Expected. I thought once I discovered who my biological father was and had time to process my feelings, I’d be able to put this NPE nonsense behind me. It took me about six months to be sure I’d found the man behind half of my genes. I gave myself another six months to let it all sink in and then, I hoped, everything would return to how it was before my DNA surprise. Great, I thought, let’s wrap that rollercoaster ride up, stuff it in a box, put it in the deep recesses of my mind, and slam the door shut. I processed. It was time to move on. But I couldn’t. When my best friend died of cancer 15 years ago, I was eventually able to work through my grief. She’s still in my heart, and sometimes something reminds me of her and I smile. Smile! With my NPE status, I compressed all of those emotions and tried to consider myself “over it.” But it wasn’t working, I still couldn’t smile about it. In DNA NPE Friends, an NPE Facebook support group, a fellow NPE asked everyone to list just one word to describe how they feel about their NPE experience at that moment. The emotions you feel when you discover you’re an NPE are intense and change over time. I tallied the more than 600 responses and generated a word cloud. What struck me most was the number one feeling—lost. As soon as you realize you’re an NPE, you lose your tether to the world. To the family you grew up with. To the person you were just moments before. You are adrift. You are confused and overwhelmed. I remember reading a description of an experience in the “Twilight Series” that reminds me of what it’s like to discover you’re an NPE. In “Breaking Dawn,” Jacob describes what it feels like to “imprint” on Bella and Edward’s baby daughter Renesmee the first time he sees her. “Everything that made me who I was—my love for [Bella], my love for my father, my loyalty to my pack, the love for my other brothers, my hatred for my enemies, my home, my name, my self—disconnected from me in that second—snip, snip, snip—and floated up into space.”

    Read more
    2 FacebookTwitter
  • Donor ConceptionEssays, Fiction, Poetry

    Burden

    by bkjax August 19, 2019
    August 19, 2019
    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitter
  • Donor ConceptionEssays, Fiction, Poetry

    When Your Blood Type Changes, Nothing is Certain

    by bkjax August 19, 2019
    August 19, 2019
    Read more
    2 FacebookTwitter
  • Micro-MemoirsSpeak Out

    Persistence

    by bkjax August 19, 2019
    August 19, 2019
    Read more
    0 FacebookTwitter

http://www.reckoningwiththeprimalwound.com

What’s New on Severance

  • There Was a Secret
  • Should Health Care Professionals Tell the Truth About Paternity?
  • 20 Questions and a World of Stories
  • The Wizard and I
  • Rabbit Holes and Hobbits
  • We Three

After a DNA Surprise: 10 Things No One Wants to Hear

https://www.righttoknow.us

Call Right To Know’s resource hotline to talk with another MPE be paired with a mentor, get resources, or just talk.

Original Birth Certificates to California Born Adoptees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erHylYLHqXg&t=4s

Search

Tags

abandonment adoptee adoptees adoptee stories adoption advocacy biological family birthmother books DNA DNA surprise DNA surprises DNA test DNA tests donor conceived donor conception essay Essays family secrets genetic genealogy genetic identity genetics grief heredity Late Discovery Adoptee late discovery adoptees Late Discovery Adoption meditation memoir MPE MPEs NPE NPEs podcasts psychology Q&A rejection research reunion search and reunion secrets and lies self care therapy transracial adoption trauma

Recommended Reading

The Lost Family: How DNA is Upending Who We Are, by Libby Copeland. Check our News & Reviews section for a review of this excellent book about the impact on the culture of direct-to-consumer DNA testing.

What Happens When Parents Wait to Tell a Child He’s Adopted

“A new study suggests that learning about one’s adoption after a certain age could lead to lower life satisfaction in the future.”

Janine Vance Searches for the Truth About Korean Adoptees

“Imagine for a minute that you don’t know who your mother is. Now imagine that you are that mother, and you don’t know what became of your daughter.”

Who’s Your Daddy? The Twisty History of Paternity Testing

“Salon talks to author Nara B. Milanich about why in the politics of paternity and science, context is everything.”

What Separation from Parents Does to Children: ‘The Effect is Catastrophic”

“This is what happens inside children when they are forcibly separated from their parents.”

Truth: A Love Story

“A scientist discovers his own family’s secret.”

Dear Therapist: The Child My Daughter Put Up for Adoption is Now Rejecting Her

“She thought that her daughter would want to meet her one day. Twenty-five years later, that’s not true.”

I’m Adopted and Pro-Choice. Stop Using My Story for the Anti-Abortion Agenda. Stephanie Drenka’s essay for the Huffington Post looks at the way adoptees have made unwilling participants in conversations about abortion.

Archives

  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019

@2019 - Severance Magazine

Severance Magazine
  • About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
Severance Magazine
  • About
    • About Severance
    • From the Editor
    • Submission Guidelines: How to Contribute
    • Contact Us
  • Articles
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • Advocacy
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • DNA Surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • Family Secrets
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Interviews & Profiles
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Psychology & Therapy
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Search & Reunion
  • Essays & Fiction
    • abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA surprises
    • Donor Conception
    • NPEs/MPEs
    • Late Discovery Adoptees
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
  • Short Takes
    • Short Takes: Books
    • Short Takes: Film & Video
    • Short Takes: People, News & Research
    • Short Takes: Podcasts & Radio
  • Self Care & Coping
    • Coping Strategies
    • Self-Care
  • Speak Out
    • Micro-Memoirs
    • Your Video Stories
  • Resources
    • Start Here
    • Abandonment
    • Adoption
    • DNA & Genetic Genealogy
    • Donor Conception
    • Genetics & Heredity
    • Late-Discovery Adoptees
    • NPEs (Not parent expected) & MPEs (Misattributed parentage experience)
    • Psychology & Therapy & Coaching
    • Search & Reunion
    • Secrets & Lies
    • Self-Care
@2019 - Severance Magazine