The following is adapted from the 2018 Book Excellence Award Winner, Teen Grief: Caring for the Grieving Teenage Heart. Even if you don’t have teens, please read on. Chances are you’ll be able to personally relate to the sadness described here. How we manage this emotion well can be a key to our grief process and recovery.

 

When our hearts begin to feel the loss, sadness will most likely be one of the first emotions we experience.

 

From the Grieving Teen’s Heart

KATIE

This is all so sad.

How can you be gone? You were just here.

Dead. What does that really mean? What’s that like? Did it hurt? Does it still hurt? Where are you? How am I supposed to handle this?

I don’t know. The only thing I know is that I’m sad. Very sad.

My eyes are puffy. I don’t sleep well. I have nightmares. I’m hardly eating at all. 

Missing you is painful. I want to see you, but that’s impossible. 

And that’s sad. The whole thing is sad.

 

JOSH

You’re dead, and I don’t understand it. 

I look at the ground a lot. I stare at walls and people. I’m in a trance. Maybe my brain is busted. I must be on overload.

I feel sad.

I try to be nice and put on a good show, but faking it is getting harder. People want me to be better already. Right.

Why can’t a guy be sad? Is that too much to ask? 

Let me be. I’ll be sad if I want to be, whenever I want to be. 

 

Loss is sad

Someone we love and care about is gone. How could we not be sad?

A teen’s life is already in flux. They’re in constant transition. Change is part of the atmosphere they breathe. They seem to grow into new thoughts, feelings, hormones, and bodies every day.

When someone close to them departs, a new form of change gets introduced into their lives. This change is painful, confusing, and even threatening. What sense of security the teen has is shaken. In an instant, their world is upended.

When they begin to feel the loss, sadness will most likely be a predominant emotion they experience. The same, of course, is true for us.

 

Our world doesn’t like sadness

Unfortunately, our world doesn’t tolerate sadness well. We want happy, smiling faces, so grieving hearts will always be swimming upstream. People notice sadness and flee, as if grief is a deadly, infectious disease.

Teens are already hyper-alert for rejection. Now they’re in an impossible situation. They’re sad in a world that demands smiles. Most teens fake it and go underground emotionally. Now they feel more alone than ever before.

 

You can make a difference

What can you do to help?

First, accept the fact that sadness is a natural, healthy emotion for someone who’s grieving.

In grief, sadness needs and deserves to be felt and expressed. Accepting our own sadness as natural and healthy is huge. Rather than trying to chase it away, we can feel and learn to manage this emotion. Then we can meet the teen where they are and find ways to enter their sadness with them.

Second, sadness needs to be expressed. We need good listeners.

Continue to coach yourself to be quiet and listen. Exist with them in their world for a while. Be quiet. Listen. Try to hear their hearts.

If you’re grieving, your heart needs to be heard. Do you have good listeners in your life? We all need safe people in whose presence our hearts can relax. Find healthy ways to express your sadness. Talk. Write. Draw. Exercise. Cry. Scream.

Sadness will be expressed – one way or another.

Third, remember that the number one thing sad hearts need is love.

The basic foundation of love is the willingness to meet another person where they are, as they are. Enter their world rather than trying to pull them into yours. If you can, feel a little of their sadness with them. Instead of asking, “What’s the right thing to do?” try asking yourself, “What’s the most loving thing I can right now?”

If you’re sad, you need love too. Actually, we always need it. Who accepts you for who you are, as you are? Who can meet you in your grief and spend time with you there? Who listens to you without judgment? You need people like this.

Fourth, resist making it about you.

Resist sharing about your own losses. Teens will see this as another indication that you don’t “get it.” Try not to poke or pry. Try not to fix. Accept them where they are. They’re sad. They should be.

If you’re grieving, it’s not about you either. You’re involved, yes, but fundamentally grief is about relationships. It’s about the bigger picture of doing life together and loving each other in the midst of loss. It’s about all of us.

Affirmation:

Accepting my own sadness is important. Finding others who will accept my sadness helps me find the sense of safety I need to heal. 

 

Question: Have you encountered deep sadness in your grief process? What seems to help you process this emotion? 

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