When we think about grief, most of us immediately think about tragic losses like death, divorce, or illness—these are traditional losses. Traditional grief is described by the Psychological Association in their Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice as “the primarily emotional or affective process of reacting to the loss of a loved one through death.”

In recent years, the DSM-5 has labeled prolonged grief as a disorder if it takes place longer than what is traditionally expected. Sources indicate that a characteristic feature of prolonged grief disorder is:

“Distressing, disabling yearning that persists a year or more after the loss. Other characteristic symptoms include disbelief and lack of acceptance of the loss, emotional detachment from others since the loss, loneliness, identity disturbance, and sense of meaninglessness.”

Since expressing suffering even within the traditional parameters of grief can be perceived as a disorder and not a common human experience, it is especially difficult to express grief over less tragic—but still valid—forms of loss. One can imagine the obstacles we have to overcome as a society to even consider grief outside of traditionally accepted life tragedies.

Understandably so, this recent focus on........

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