Tell Your Grief Story

Telling your grief story is an insanely powerful way to process your emotions. At first, friends and family want to hear the story, and we tell it in a haze, barely registering what we’re saying. Then, we might find ourselves telling the same story for the tenth time. But somehow something clicks and sinks in, and we break down into a sobbing hysterical mess.

Eventually, you will most likely feel like you’re being a pain in the ass telling the same people the same story over and over again. At that point, grief groups can be amazing. In a group, everyone understands what you’re going through, and they won’t want to punch you in the face for reliving your painful tale like you’re in the movie “Groundhog Day”.

Telling Grief Story is Cathartic

Why should we tell our stories? First, doing so helps us release our emotions. It’s cathartic to acknowledge and reflect on our loss.

Second, telling our story helps reality sink in that our loved one isn’t coming back. It’s a story . . . it’s a story . . . it’s a story . . . and then—BOOM—Holy shit, my person is actually GONE.

Third, telling your grief story helps keep you connected to your loved one. It might take a while, but the goal is to eventually tell that story with a gentle smile rather than a grimace of searing agony.

Once you’ve gotten used to telling your story, I want you to try something different. This chapter is about telling your truths, from your subjective point of view, and telling your grief story is an important part of that.

Telling Story is Instructive

However, in my studies with grief expert David Kessler, he pointed out that when we tell our stories, in most cases, we create a version based on how we felt and what we experienced, rather than on the facts of what happened. In some cases, we even make shit up to fill in our own blanks of missing information. (Kessler calls this phenomenon confabulation.)

We do these things because we want to make sense of what happened, but it can be harmful if we hold on to stories that don’t serve us. To help yourself arrive at the essence of events, try this next exercise.

On a piece of paper, make a list of the FACTS of what happened to your loved one. Make sure to list ONLY the facts, in a clinical way, without any emotion, guesswork, or judgments about the events.

Reread this list several times. It’s important to distinguish your facts from your mental fiction so that you don’t get stuck in an unhealthy narrative, telling a story that is distorted and keeps you from moving forward.

Read more by Brooke Carlock at Grieving Mommy: One Mama’s Journey Through Child Loss/Grieving Mommy: a grieving mom’s journey through child loss

Check out Brooke’s other writing on Open to Hope: ‘You’re SO Strong’: A Misunderstanding of Grief – Open to Hope