When Loss Is Hard to Name: How Grief Can Show Up in Your Life
7 minutes readSometimes you know something has affected you deeply, but you do not quite know what to call it.
You may wonder why seeing a particular family member leaves you unsettled for the rest of the day. Or you may question why someone else's pregnancy brings up feelings you did not expect. You might find yourself missing a person you know you do not want to be a part of your life anymore, or wondering why a change you chose for yourself has left you feeling more lost than relieved.
It can be confusing when your feelings seem bigger, more persistent, or different from what you think they should be. And sometimes, underneath what first looks like anger, longing, disappointment or difficulty letting go, there is also a sense of loss that has never really been recognised.
That is the kind of grief I hope to explore here, because recognising these feelings can help you understand difficult emotions that can be hard to name. This is not to suggest that every difficult feeling is grief.
I want to make room for the losses that are easier to overlook: the relationship that never became what you needed, the future you had quietly imagined, the belonging you lost, or something important you kept hoping would eventually be different.
A few real-life situations may make this clearer.
You may still speak to your parent, but somewhere along the way you stopped expecting them to understand what you need.
You may have chosen to end a relationship knowing it could not continue, yet still find yourself thinking about the future you once imagined together.
You may have built a good life after moving countries and still miss the ease of belonging somewhere without having to explain yourself.
Or perhaps the realisation came gradually that something significant was not going to unfold in the way you had once hoped.
Sometimes the missing piece is recognising the loss
Some losses are easy to identify because something tangible has changed. Others become visible only when we look more closely at what the experience meant.
Sometimes grief is connected to what was lost: a relationship, trust, health, a role, belonging, or a version of life you once knew.
Sometimes it is connected to what was missing: emotional safety, care, protection, acceptance, recognition or being understood when you needed it.
And, sometimes it is connected to what you kept hoping for: an apology, repair, becoming a parent, a relationship changing, feeling at home, or a future that no longer feels possible in quite the same way.
There may be no single event that tells you a loss has occurred.
However, you might recognise it much later, when you can identify how much energy has gone into waiting, adapting, making allowances or possibly, continuing to keep the hope alive.
When other people do not see what has been lost
Some grief is hard to recognise because the world around us does not necessarily treat the experience as a loss.
A friendship can quietly disappear, and nobody asks how you are.
Fertility treatment can take up an enormous amount of emotional space while very few people know what you are going through.
You can leave a country you love and feel pressure to talk only about the opportunities your new life has given you.
A parent can still be part of your life while you are coming to terms with what has never been possible between you.
Kenneth Doka uses the term disenfranchised grief to describe grief following a loss that is not openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported. The significance of a loss is not determined by whether other people recognise it; what may be missing is acknowledgement that there is something here to grieve.
When that acknowledgement is missing, we can begin questioning our own experiences too: Nothing really happened. Other people have been through worse. Why am I still affected by this?
At times like this, having language for an experience can be helpful. It may help us recognise what has been difficult to name and make better sense of the weight we have been carrying.
When there is no clear ending
Some losses are difficult for another reason: something has changed, but it has not completely gone.
Pauline Boss developed the concept of ambiguous loss to describe losses that do not give us a clear sense of what is fully present and what is gone. Someone may still be part of your life but no longer emotionally available in the way you once knew or needed. Or someone may be physically absent while the relationship, memories or hope connected with them continue to have a strong presence in your life.
This can be a particularly difficult kind of loss to make sense of because there may be no clear moment when you can say, This ended here. Something has changed, sometimes profoundly, while another part of the connection remains.
You may still love someone while recognising the limits of the relationship. You may miss someone and know you do not want them back. Relief after leaving something difficult can sit alongside sadness for what you had hoped it would become. As, needing to employ a boundary does not mean you stop caring.
Recognising grief does not require forgiveness, reconciliation or continued closeness. Nor does it mean that cutting someone off is always the answer.
Sometimes two things are true at the same time: this relationship matters to me, and I also need to attend to my needs without abandoning myself.
How does body awareness support therapeutic work around grief?
When an experience has been difficult to name emotionally, it may also be difficult to know what is happening in your body.
Some people readily notice their chest tightening, their breathing changing, or their shoulders becoming tense when something important comes up. Others say, “I don't know,” or “I don't really feel anything.”
Not knowing is useful information about where we are beginning.
In my work, somatic therapy includes talking. We may start with your story: what happened, what changed, what you needed, how you understood the experience and what you learnt to do in response.
Awareness can develop through those conversations. You might notice that you speak more quickly around one part of the story, become quieter around another, hold your breath or want to move away from a feeling before you have had much time with it.
These observations do not mean grief is “stored” in a particular part of the body. They offer another way of understanding how an experience may be affecting you in the present.
There is no need to rush towards body-based work because therapy is described as somatic. Conversation, narration, relationship and noticing can all help develop body awareness. When enough safety, trust and readiness are present, there may be more room to gently explore further.
Making room for what still matters
Therapy cannot create a different past or make somebody give what they were unable to give. But, what it can offer is space to understand why something continues to matter.
There may be grief there, and there may also be anger, relief, love or disappointment.
A relationship may have contained care and hurt. A life change may bring possibility alongside loss. A decision can be necessary and still carry sadness.
Understanding the loss does not mean deciding how you should feel about it. It means having enough room to notice what is actually there, what you need now, and how you want to relate to what you have carried.
References
Boss, P. (2007). Ambiguous loss theory: Challenges for scholars and practitioners. Family Relations, 56(2), 105–111.
Doka, K. J. (1989). Disenfranchised Grief: Recognising Hidden Sorrow. Lexington Books.
Harris, D. L. (Ed.). (2020). Non-Death Loss and Grief: Context and Clinical Implications. Routledge.
Further Reading
Boss, P. (1999). Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief. Harvard University Press.
Doka, K. J. (Ed.). (2002). Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice. Research Press.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Yes. Grief can follow many kinds of loss, including changes in relationships, identity, belonging, health, roles and hoped-for futures. Some of these experiences are described in grief literature as non-death loss or disenfranchised grief.
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Missing someone does not mean you want the relationship back. A relationship can have mattered deeply and still have needed to end or change. Attachment, shared history, hope and grief do not necessarily disappear at the same time as the relationship does.
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Yes. Grief can affect both emotional and physical wellbeing. Some people notice changes in sleep, energy, appetite, muscle tension or breathing. These experiences can also have other causes, so persistent, severe or concerning physical symptoms are worth discussing with a health professional.
