"The second year is harder" and other difficult truths about grief

I’ve written before about grief not having an end date. It’s a nebulous, unpredictable process. That’s because each of us experiences grief in different ways and on different timelines. That being said, we can expect certain periods to be universally hard during the bereavement process: the first birthday of your lost loved one, for instance, or the first holiday season. After a death (or a divorce or another kind of ending), there is a whole year of firsts to wade through. That first year can feel full of landmines—but also full of the comforts of reminiscing and tradition-keeping. There can be some sweetness in our loss, some celebrating of the birthday or the holiday, a heavy reliance on really marking the tough days. And there is a kind of relief in getting through that first long year.

Then the second year hits.

You would think the second year would be easier. And in some ways it is; time does heal, after all. But in other ways, the second year is a reminder of the finality of your loss. People prepare for that first year to be difficult but they aren’t necessarily prepared for the second year to hit so hard.

This sounds like bad news. But remember, your grieving process is not something to get over. Grief is a reminder of how deeply we loved someone; that love doesn’t just disappear. This holiday season, whether it’s your first or second or tenth with someone missing, don’t hide from your grief. Take some time to honor your losses—in big ways or small, whatever feels natural to you. And remember, you don’t have to do it alone.

Happiest holidays to you, even if they are a little tougher this year.

What if I want to know about my therapist?

Once, during a job interview, the interviewer asked to describe my boundaries with clients. A pretty vague question, right? Like, it depends! But seeing as how I was in an interview for a job I wanted (and eventually got, thank you very much), I played along and responded: I answer the questions my clients ask me (within reason).

Because here is the thing: when you are sitting across from me in that first session, I want to know some pretty deep stuff right off the bat. For instance, do you drink alcohol? Use drugs? Are you religious? Have you ever tried to hurt yourself or someone else? Not exactly cocktail party conversation. So if a client has a question for me (like how old am I or how many kids do I have, etc.), I’m more than willing to answer.

Some things about me are already clear: I wear a wedding ring, for instance. I’m fairly young. I’m a woman. I’m white. For some therapists, this is about as much information as clients are allowed to know. There are different schools of thought and none of them are wrong; in some ways, it’s a personal preference. There are good reasons for a therapist to not spend a lot of time talking about herself. For one thing, that’s not why you’re paying me; we’re here to talk about you, my friend. For another, some clients use this tactic to deflect and avoid the stuff they need to talk about. But I think, especially in the rapport building phase of therapy, it’s normal for a client to wonder, who is this person I’m telling all my secrets to?

So ask away! If I don’t want to answer, I won’t. Part of this process is developing a relationship and setting boundaries within it. I’m happy to tell you that I have two kids and a little dog and a husband. I’m happy to tell you that I’m in therapy myself, and that it helps me be a better therapist for you. I’m happy too, to talk about why you want to know about me instead of telling me about you. Like I said last time, almost nothing is off limits. This is a road we walk together. So tell me, what do you want to know?

You can say (almost) anything to your therapist

This week, in my series about what to expect from therapy, I want to dive into what may be off limits to talk about with your therapist. The short answer is, pretty much nothing!

There are exceptions to this of course: if your therapist thinks you’re going to hurt yourself or someone else, or that you already have harmed someone, they’re obligated to do something with that information. But otherwise, you get to say whatever you want. You don’t have to be on your best behavior when you’re talking to your therapist. Therapy is a relationship but it’s not a friendship or a conversation at a cocktail party; you don’t have to come armed with your best stories or convince anyone of how delightful you are. In fact, once some trust is established, you can be on your worst behavior if you so choose. In therapy, you get to explore the darkest and meanest parts of yourself. It’s safe there.

Still, it feels risky to open up to someone, even a professional. On the one hand, you’re seeking out therapy because you need to talk to someone and presumably, you’re ready to do just that: talk. On the other hand, there may be a fear that you’ll say something so dark, your therapist just won’t like you anymore. Generally, we want people to like us; we’re only human. So it can be difficult to drop the social niceties we’re practiced at performing. For instance, hearing “how are you?” from your therapist is different than hearing the same question from a co-worker. And yet, for many of us, the automatic answer is the one that comes out: “Fine, thanks, how are you?”

This isn’t to say you can’t be nice to your therapist. Believe me, we’re happy to be asked how we are, even if we won’t tell you the actual answer. I’m only saying that in that therapy session, you are released from surface-level social stuff. You can talk about whatever you want.

Which brings me to another caveat: you can also NOT talk about whatever you want. You don’t have to recount every dark thought that has ever entered your mind. You don’t have to review every embarrassing moment or delve into something that feels too tricky to explore. In that session, you get to decide where to begin and where to stop. When your therapist asks how you’re doing, you can tell the truth. And if the conversation starts to go somewhere you aren’t ready to go, you can say no. You don’t have to worry; you can say (almost) anything to your therapist.

When your body betrays you

Last week, I wrote about grief. I was mostly referring to the grief we experience when someone we love dies. But there are losses throughout our life cycle that don’t necessarily have to do with death.

For the majority of my career, I’ve worked with people experiencing life-changing and often chronic illness. The prognosis doesn’t have to be terminal for the symptoms of being ill—of having a body that doesn’t do what it used to do—to be devastating and isolating. Your friends and family can’t understand what you are experiencing. It’s difficult to explain pain or fatigue or some other unquantifiable symptom to someone whose body is not sick. In a misguided attempt to help, these family members and friends may tell you that your situation isn’t as bad as it could be; that you just have to push yourself harder; that you need a second, third, fourth opinion.

Their hearts are in the right place. They’re hoping that the power of positive thinking will do the trick and cure you. But not everyone is helped by the relentless positive thinking memes that social media throws at us: believe you’ll get better and you will! Trust your body! Mind over matter! Et ceterra, et ceterra, until you start to doubt your own feelings. Among these feelings, of course, is the grief of what you have lost.

Because although you are still here, your body has betrayed you. Illness takes from us. Maybe you aren’t able to exercise anymore, or even get on the floor with your kids or grandkids. Maybe you can’t drive anymore. Or your brain fog is making it hard to concentrate at work or school or in social situations. Those are big losses to bear by yourself.

Therapy is not going to cure your illness. Further, your therapist will not be able to tell you how long you’ll be sick or if any of what you’ve lost will be returned to you. Your therapist can’t tell you that everything is going to be ok. What therapy can do is meet you where you are. You can grieve. Then you can start to rethink and rebuild your life. Then grieve some more and then rebuild some more… You can be hopeless and hopeful both at once. And you do not have to walk this path alone.

Where do we start?

How does therapy… start?

Some people come to therapy fully ready to spill: they’re like a pot of water ready to boil over. Those first two or three sessions are just full of words and feelings and sometimes tears. That’s been my personal therapy experience and it’s one I really understand: talk until you can’t talk anymore and then we can figure out where to go next.

But not everyone is like me (thank God). Some people enter therapy reluctantly or cautiously; they are not in fact ready to spill their guts to a stranger. It’s not that they don’t know why they came, it’s more that they don’t know how or where to begin. Or they start and then get stuck. Or—and this one is the toughest for me as a clinician—they want an immediate answer.

There’s good news and there’s bad news, here. The bad news is, I do not possess a magic wand. I can’t make sisters or lovers or children behave better; I can’t bring back a loved one from the dead; I can’t give you a secret code that will make your anxiety disappear into thin air. But—and here’s the good news I promised!—there are going to be answers. We can find them together, by sifting through the past and the present. We can find a way to set boundaries with the misbehaving family members; memorialize the dead loved one; understand and quell the anxious thoughts that plague you. In short, we can start wherever you are that particular day, that particular moment, and see where we end up. We just have to start.