Grieving Loss When There's No Clean Goodbye

"When someone we love dies, we have a funeral. The loss is clear and clean-while the relationship might have been complex, the loss of the person is not. We will never see, hear, or speak with them again. But when someone we love has dementia, succumbs to addiction or mental illness, ghosts us, disappears, or cuts off contact with us, we lose the person and relationship in a way that doesn't allow for the same kind of closure. This kind of loss is called "ambiguous loss.""

"In her work, Boss defines two types of ambiguous loss: Type One: Physical absence with psychological presence. Examples of this can range from soldiers who are missing in action to divorce, immigration, ghosting, or estrangement. Type Two: Psychological absence with physical presence. Examples of this can range from dementia, traumatic brain injury, mental illness, or addiction. It can also result from losses that don't make sense to us, such as suicide, even though the person has died."

"Ambiguous loss destabilizes the nervous system because there's no clear boundary between hope and mourning, no socially recognized ritual, and no permission to grieve. The loss is never-ending. The grief freezes because the story never finishes."

Ambiguous loss occurs when a person or relationship is unresolved because of physical absence with psychological presence or psychological absence with physical presence. Examples include missing soldiers, divorce, immigration, ghosting, estrangement, dementia, traumatic brain injury, mental illness, addiction, and suicide where the loss defies simple closure. Ambiguous loss destabilizes the nervous system by eliminating clear boundaries between hope and mourning, removing socially recognized rituals, and denying permission to grieve. The resulting chronic uncertainty freezes grief and blocks meaning-making. Healing requires creating meaning, granting permission to grieve, and finding adaptive rituals despite unresolved circumstances.

Read at Psychology Today