What Is Loss? Disenfranchised Grief & the Invisible Losses That Still Hurt

Have you ever felt the weight of grief… even though no one died?

Maybe it was after a divorce… the end of a friendship… a chronic diagnosis… or even after you left a job that once felt like your identity. You were feeling the emotional weight of something big - but because no one brought you a casserole or sent a sympathy card, you wondered: Am I overreacting?

You’re not. And you’re not alone.

This kind of experience is what psychologists call disenfranchised grief - the grief that doesn’t get acknowledged, validated, or supported because it doesn’t fit into society’s “acceptable” boxes for mourning. And today, I want to talk about the kinds of losses that are too often minimized, misunderstood, or ignored.

Grief Isn’t Just About Death

Grief is so much more than mourning someone who has passed. It’s the body and brain’s response to any significant loss - especially when that loss changes our identity, our relationships, or the future we thought we were going to have.

A few examples of commonly overlooked losses that can trigger a grief response include:

• A life-altering injury or chronic illness
• Loss of mobility or bodily autonomy
• Fertility struggles
• Divorce, separation, or estrangement
• Job loss or leaving a profession
• Coming out as LGBTQ+
• Leaving a spiritual or faith community
• Losing a pet (yes, that’s real grief too)
• Watching a loved one change through dementia, addiction, or injury
• The end of a dream you hoped would come true

When these kinds of losses aren’t seen or supported, it doesn’t mean they don’t hurt. Sometimes they can hurt more.

Why These Losses Hurt So Deeply

Research shows that the brain processes emotional and physical pain in overlapping ways. One study by Eisenberger, Lieberman, and Williams (2003) found that social or emotional rejection activates the same regions of the brain that are activated when we’re in physical pain. When we feel dismissed, ignored, or ashamed of our grief, the pain isn’t just “in our heads” - it’s real. It’s neurological.

And the grief we feel when we lose something abstract, such as what we felt was part of our identity… our feeling of safety or belonging… or even more intangible things like something we fully envisioned as part of our future, can cause sharp and deeply felt pain. That’s why acknowledging these losses matters so deeply.

I’ve been through this kind of grief myself.

When my grandmother, who I was extremely close to, reached a stage of Alzheimer’s where she no longer recognized me, it was incredibly painful for me. It wasn’t a death - but it was a deep loss. A slow, aching kind of loss that in some ways, I found more difficult than her actual death a number of years later – perhaps partly because I didn’t understand back then that what I was feeling was grief.

I’ve also supported my husband through a similar experience after his father’s traumatic brain injury - which eerily mirrored the one that killed my son years earlier. His father survived for many years, but was left severely physically and mentally incapacitated, so my husband grieved the loss of the father he knew – and the father who he had expected to experience much more of life with.

Going through this experience with him also brought me face-to-face with my own pain again. That’s the thing about grief: it often doesn’t stay neatly in its little box once we feel we have moved along with life. It overlaps, resurfaces, and can rear its ugly head back out of the box again – sometimes when we’re not expecting it.

And through my volunteer peer support role with Threads of Life: Workplace Tragedy Family Support, I’ve had conversations with countless people carrying invisible grief:

• Partners of people who’ve changed after injury or illness – or whose lives have been changed as a result of those events
• Workers who lost their careers and identities after an injury or a diagnosis
• Friends who supported grieving loved ones and grieved for their grief

My lesbian daughter has shared with me some of the ways that disenfranchised grief can be experienced in the LGBTQ+ community, including grieving the loss of family or community when they come out, or mourning the years they hadn’t been able to live fully as themselves because they came out later in life. And I’ve heard of the stories where a partner in a gay relationship was unable to publicly grieve for their lover because they felt that their relationship needed to be kept private.

Every story is different. But every grief is real.

When society doesn’t make space for our grief, it compounds the pain. We start questioning our emotions. We wonder if we’re “being dramatic.” We feel isolated, unsupported, or even embarrassed.

And the cost is high.

Not only does grief affect our emotions, but studies show that it impacts our very brains by affecting the hippocampus (linked to memory and emotional regulation) and the prefrontal cortex (which helps with decision-making and rational thinking) (O’Connor et al., 2008). In other words: unacknowledged grief messes with our ability to think clearly, stay grounded, and move forward.

So if you’re grieving something and struggling to function… that’s not weakness. That’s neurology.

So What Can We Do About It?

If you’re navigating invisible loss - or supporting someone who is - here are a few steps to help begin the healing process.

1. Validate Your Feelings

Your grief is real. You don’t need anyone’s permission to feel it.

Start by naming what you’re feeling. Try writing it down, saying it out loud, or even journaling something as simple as: “I’m grieving the life I thought I was going to have.”

If that’s all you feel able to do right now - let that be enough.

2. Seek Meaningful Connection

Grief shouldn’t be carried alone.

Whether it’s talking to a friend, joining a support group, or working with a trauma-informed coach or counsellor, having someone witness your pain can offer a turning point toward real healing.

I get it. Not everyone can afford therapy or counselling. Your support system doesn’t need to be “professional” or perfect. Sometimes the most comforting support is someone who says, “You don’t have to go through this by yourself. I’ve got you.”

3. Create a Mourning Ritual

I believe strongly in the importance of tangibly recognizing your loss. If you’re struggling to process a loss that doesn’t come with a funeral or ceremony, try creating your own mourning ritual. That might include:

• Writing a goodbye letter
• Lighting a candle for what was lost
• Donating to a cause connected to your grief
• Packing away symbolic items that are hard to look at (even if that’s just for awhile)
• Hosting your own “letting go” ritual or memorial

Ritual doesn’t have to be religious or elaborate. It just needs to be meaningful to you.

4. Practice Mindfulness

Grief has a way of dragging us into the past or launching us into the “what ifs” of the future.

That’s why mindfulness can be a powerful tool. When we anchor into the present - our breath… our body… learning to ground ourselves in this exact moment - we create space for safety, and promote nervous system regulation.

Research supports this too: mindfulness has been shown to reduce the symptoms of complicated grief and support emotional resilience (Feldman et al., 2007; Garland et al., 2015).

5. Let Yourself Heal in Your Own Way

There’s no one-size-fits-all timeline for grief. There is no “right” way to grieve. And nobody has the right to tell you when or how to do it.

What matters is that you give yourself grace. Avoid trying to cope by numbing your feelings, or stuffing your feelings into a box, nailing the lid shut, and hiding it in the attic. Try not to isolate yourself.

If we allow it to, our grief can teach us something about ourselves. Not about weakness - but about our strength and capacity to feel… to grow… and to love deeply.

More than anything, I want you to remember:

You Don’t Need Permission to Grieve

You don’t have to explain why you’re sad.
You don’t need to prove your pain.
And you don’t need permission to grieve the things no one else sees.

Whether it’s a diagnosis, a divorce, or a dream you had to lay to rest - your loss is real.
You deserve to honour it.
You deserve space to feel it.
And you deserve support to move through it.

Because grief isn’t just about what’s gone.
It’s about who you were…
Who you hoped to be…
And the future that just shifted under your feet.

You are not broken.
You are grieving.
And you are still here.

Looking for more on this topic? Listen to this week’s podcast: [link]

Want support navigating loss in all its forms?

Head to transformativejourneys.ca to grab free resources like:

• The Essential Grief Toolkit
• Insights for Navigating Grief
• The Bounce Back Blueprint (your all-around emotional wellness starter guide)

And if this blog resonated with you, I’d love it if you shared it, or joined me on the Transformative Journeys podcast, where we explore the messy, beautiful process of growing through what we go through.

With heart,
Johanna 💜

**If you or a family member have experienced a workplace tragedy, or if you know someone who is, Threads of Life is there for support. Please visit www.threadsoflife.ca for more information.