Getting Off Social Media to Grieve
Grief looks like discovering new music and thinking, “Oh, she’s going to love this!” and remembering half a beat later that SHE is no longer here.
My heart breaks afresh — balanced on that fulcrum of pain, forever tipping over.
I thought I understood heartbreak after the romantic carnage of my 20s. It must have been my ego getting bruised or whatever organ I used to generate polite affection. Losing my sister has been the greatest heartbreak of my life.
It’s that stockpile of funny and snarky things you can’t ever say again.
It’s rehashing ad nauseam all your last interactions with her to see if you could’ve eked out more joy.
Did she know I loved her? Is she at peace, happy?
I question the meaning of life. All the fuss gets stripped away and suddenly I have no energy for anything beyond life’s essentials. Barely.
Social media is one thing that doesn’t make the cut into the essentials list.
Why Social Media Can Make Grief Worse
Today, the way we love and grieve is extremely performative. Am I really grieving if I don’t share a “long post alert” caption about said grief accompanied by a poignant image?
Meanwhile, the heart is a tundra and there’s no thaw in sight.
We’ve forgotten that media is for mass communication.
Most of the time, nascent thoughts and feelings don’t benefit from broadcasting. They’re like seedlings. They need the soft, dark, moist and gentle nurturing that happens in the quiet places, not a harsh midday glare to fry them beyond recognition.
Chatting for its own sake, endless scrolling and the peephole into lives far removed from mine are much like that harsh sun on my tender feelings of grief.
The social media landscape leaves me feel both exhausted and hollow.
This is permission to myself and anyone grieving to not be on all the time. In fact, it’s okay to stay off and give yourself grace. There are no deadlines in healing.
Social media is no place to grieve, at least not for me.
Chimamanda, the author, found that sharing on social media about the loss of her late parents helped to ease the knot in a way that talking to her siblings couldn’t. She didn’t have to carry the weight of her followers' feelings like she did her siblings.
Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
What Science Says About Grief
I find that breaking down the constituent parts of a problem makes it more manageable. So, let’s see what the research says.
Some doctors’ hypothesis on complicated grief or Prolonged Grief Disorder is that some grieving people get a dopamine high (feeling of reward) from thinking about their lost loved one. Hence the feeling of being stuck in perpetual grief.
I find it a strange theory, considering the most prevalent feeling I can associate with grieving is guilt.
Guilt about:
- Moving on when she’s not here
- Not loving her enough when she was here
- Squandering this lucky opportunity to live on
- Forgetting her because the sadness has acquired a patina
- Not reaching out to friends and family in this period (because I can’t)
So, the mantra, “Tomorrow is promised to no-one” plays on a loop in my mind. I’ve not yet arrived at the point of healing where I can carpe-diem the shit out of everything but that’s my end goal. To live without regrets.
Shifting gears, Dr Mary-Frances O’Connor puts forward the idea that the five stages of grief are more of a description of grief rather than a grieving itinerary to follow on our way to healing. This makes a truckload of sense.
Grief is not linear. I’ve blasted through denial and anger, all the way to acceptance and right back to denial in the last few months. Maybe the difference now is a softening — less wracking sobs, more silent tears.
I know I’m better because I can listen to music now whereas I couldn’t in those first weeks of being in emotional ground zero.
I also know that the dark will go on for much longer.
In the words of Maya Angelou:
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.
Side note: My sister’s friend read this poem at her funeral. It’s befitting.
The Lessons I’m Learning From Grief
I really have no eureka lessons to share, which you were probably hoping for when you clicked on this article.
What I can share however is that, however you feel, it’s okay.
Living on after losing her is like phantom limb syndrome. I can and will continue to build my life around the gap, but sometimes, that place she filled in my life will hurt and itch and burn. There is no succour.
Lastly, I’m fresh out of fucks forever. Call the brigade! The bullshit metre is on fire and I can’t find it in me to pretend to care much anymore.
I’m allowing myself to sink into this feeling and go back to the essentials, guilt free.
Audio Vibe: Labrinthe and Zendaya — I’m Tired
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