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Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

bessstillman.substack.com

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Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#171

Post by ericyd »

aeturnum wrote: post #159
ericyd wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would posit that you are reading this too literally. I didn't get the impression that the author was trying to rail against the medical establishment but rather to process her own experience in relation to professional guidance on the topic. I took it much more as a personal reflective essay than a professional medical critique.

Sure - it's an expansive essay on the authors' experience around their grief. I never said that this was their thesis, but I do think the way they talk about medicalization is worth critiquing. They put their experience in tension with medicalization in a way that I don't quite see. Edit: I specifically think it's wrong to say we medicalize grief because we fear it. We medicalize it because some people would like a m…

Ok fair enough. I read her sentence as more of a figurative reflection on social attitudes towards grief, but if it's taken at face value then I see your point.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#172

Post by SoftTalker »

samarthr1 wrote: post #105
SoftTalker wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for people over 50, I guess "Gen X" and older, this is still often true. I've never considered therapy or medical help for any way that I was "feeling" and certainly have had times of grief and loss and sadness in my life. In some of those moments, when peers or friends noticed it, the gist of their advice was to “suck it up” or “get over it”. I am also introverted, procrastinate, am not very organized, and a…

I tol am unfortunately also introverted, prone to procrastination and seem quite unable to keep my house as spotless as I would like Do you have any advice for overcoming my problem with atleast procrastination (i suspect that it is probably causing the other two issues).

Suck it up and just do it.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#173

Post by randycupertino »

chucksmash wrote: post #127
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I have no data for this, but I think it's a combination of two factors: - Access to mental healthcare here is HEAVILY gate-kept by a combination of it often costing quite a lot of money, generally having longer waits than most healthcare services, heavy variability in availability by location, and insurance coverage runs the gamut between great or utterly absent, sometimes even in the same policy depending on…

Everybody wants to be the one who overcame the odds or struggled bravely on. Everybody wants their story to be special because of how hard it was for them compared to everyone else. I think some of it comes from the value the culture places on underdog stories and some of it comes from the oversaturation of everything in modern life.

I think some of it also is an overcorrection from how taboo it used to be to discuss mental health previously... so now oversharing is encouraged vs suffering in silence.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#174

Post by randycupertino »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #81
donatj wrote: post #47

One of my best friends died 12 years ago in our late 20s. I know he is dead, and yet a couple times a month I think, "Oh, I haven't talked to him in a while, I should text him!" before my logical brain kicks in and lets me know the deal. There is a dumb part of me that wants to believe, "Oh, he probably faked his death to get out of debt." He was such a schemer, if anyone would, he would. It was an open casket funera…

My best friend of 25 years died 4 years ago and I still think of him at least once a week, wishing I could talk to him. It was almost a year before I could even talk about him without completely breaking down. I never once thought: "oh, this is a medical issue". It was just me having the same problems processing my grief that American men have because we're not raised to talk stuff out. Once I did start talking about…

I still randomly gmail my dear beloved best friend who died of melanoma 18 years ago. It goes into the ether. I hope gmail doesn't reassign his account to someone else for inactivity, they will get my "thinking of you, miss you, this thing happened that you would have found hilarious" emails.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#175

Post by mlsu »

Aurornis wrote: post #28
aeturnum wrote: post #17

> We medicalize grief because we fear it. I think this is just incorrect. You are not obligated to seek treatment for most medical problems[1]. The point of medicalizing something is to draw a line between situations where it would be too soon for medical professionals to step in and when people enter a situation where they may need external help. One of the diagnostic criteria, which this article mentions, is that y…

> The point of medicalizing something is to draw a line between situations where it would be too soon for medical professionals to step in The problem is that medical diagnoses and therapy speak have spilled over into common language where they’re so diluted that they’re not accurate any more. For many there is no line drawn anywhere because they are self-diagnosing based on flawed understandings as soon as any feeli…

You’re right and it’s actually wild how many people lack the ability to just deal with it. I think they do it because having a medicalized identity gives you a kind of framework or structure to lean on in social situations. You don’t need to learn the complex social rules to get grace from other people, instead you can do this easy thing and demand it. I think it is downstream of social media displacing face-to-face social interactions.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#176

Post by pseudalopex »

aeturnum wrote: post #150
entropicdrifter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus. I was with you up until this point. My wife has C-PTSD, Bipolar type 2 and ADHD, along with what her psychologist describes as "Social OCD". I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to other pe…

I am so sorry to hear about what you and your wife have gone through. It sounds extremely frustrating and aggravating. I also suspect that when it comes up the people who downplay your wifes' conditions often act as if they are the insulted party. We have an epidemic of not taking psychological conditions seriously. As my depression has worsened I've understood better the depth to which someone can fall and re-though…

Someone can see their cyclic moods resemble bipolar disorder, use coping mechanisms developed for bipolar disorder, and gain empathy for people with bipolar disorder. Or someone can see their normal post traumatic stress resembles PTSD, use coping mechanisms developed for normal post traumatic stress, and lose empathy for people with PTSD.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#178

Post by [deleted] »

retrac wrote: post #64
Aurornis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of medicalizing something is to draw a line between situations where it would be too soon for medical professionals to step in The problem is that medical diagnoses and therapy speak have spilled over into common language where they’re so diluted that they’re not accurate any more. For many there is no line drawn anywhere because they are self-diagnosing based on flawed understandings as soon as any feeli…

I'm not sure if this is "human nature" or if it's a specific cultural problem in the modern west. It's certainly true here in Canada too -- everyone uses terms that are really quite heavy duty to describe quite minor things. I'm deaf. When I tell people this, one of the most common response is "Oh, don't worry. I'm a little bit deaf too." Now not to go policing people on their identities but -- no you're not. Like wh…

[deleted]

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#180

Post by khazhoux »

sctb wrote: post #129
KurSix wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s love with nowhere to go

I love to miss people. I think missing is a complete and beautiful expression of love, just as much as having.

That's nice, but I'm curious if this feeling that you love is from the loss of a spouse or (even more so) a child? The "unthinkable" losses.
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