Navigating Grief with Young Adults
Grief is a complex and multifaceted experience, often felt as an overwhelming breadth of emotions that can be difficult to articulate even to yourself, let alone to others.
This tumultuous state can make the grieving process isolating and confusing. However, when someone—be it a friend, family member, therapist or even a meme—helps articulate these emotions through words or images, it can feel like being thrown a life raft in a stormy sea. In those moments, the grieving person feels understood and less alone, and these moments of connection can be profoundly significant.
Traditionally, grief was perceived as a linear process, progressing through a series of distinct stages from denial to acceptance. However, contemporary understanding has evolved to recognize that grief is not linear but rather an ever-changing experience. For young adults, grief can present unique challenges. Unlike adults, young people often re-experience their loss at different developmental stages. For instance, the way a child processes the loss of a close loved one differs significantly from how they will process that same loss as a teenager or as an adult. A child misses a parent to pick them up from football practice, making pancakes on shrove Tuesday, but a teenager might wish they had someone to explain puberty, to take them to prom, teach them to drive, to shave. A young adult may miss someone teaching them how to spot a bad rental property, how to buy the right car, to cheer their successes. Each developmental stage brings new cognitive and emotional capacities, which can alter the grieving process. This is important to explore as grief is often seen as that linear process that improves with time and this alters that narrative.
Image: quote “Grief is odd, like yesterday, I looked at your picture & smiled. Today I cried.” Taken from A Pocket Full of Grief by Jesseca Tyrrell.
Young people often navigate grief within the frameworks of religion and culture that are modelled by their families. These frameworks can dictate or lead to expectations of certain thoughts, emotions, and behaviours during the grieving process. While these cultural and religious models can provide valuable structure and support, in a world when we live as part of many communities, they may also impose limitations or create conflicts with the young person's individual experience of grief.
The therapeutic space offers safety where young adults can explore their grief in a way that is true to their personal experiences, finding their own words, figuring out what is helpful to them from those external frameworks, choosing aspects which resonate and support. Within this therapeutic environment, they can express their emotions without judgment, understand that their reactions are normal, and gain insights into how they wish to integrate their loss into their lives moving forward.
Grief is a journey, not a destination, and for young adults, this journey is marked by growth and change. It is not something that can be ‘fixed’ or ‘cured’ but the therapeutic relationship can provide a steady and compassionate presence, helping young adults navigate the shifting landscapes of their grief. Supportive tools like mindfulness, journalling, creative expression, and investing is self care can all help processing. By equipping young adults with tools to manage their grief, therapists can help them build resilience and find a new sense of normalcy in their lives.Through this process, they can discover that while grief may always be a part of their lives, it does not have to define them. Instead, it can become a source of strength and insight, guiding them toward a future where they can honour their loss while embracing life.