đź’” What it means to have experienced unresolved grief
Experiencing unresolved grief meant death touched your life in profound ways, creating a sharp before-and-after line in your story where you became two versions of yourself: the one before the loss, and the one who had to grow up overnight.
You may have learned that people you depend on can vanish suddenly and permanently, leaving you with a terror of abandonment that lives in your bones. The way your family did or didn't talk about the loss shaped how you learned to handle grief—perhaps in silence or with overwhelming emotion. You might find yourself either holding onto relationships tightly or keeping emotional distance as protection against the pain of further loss.
You're constantly aware of how fragile life is, making it hard to make long-term plans or fully invest in the future. Every goodbye feels potentially permanent, every argument might be the last conversation before someone is gone. You catch yourself mentally preparing for loss, rehearsing how you would handle it if someone close to you died—a protective mechanism that keeps you always slightly detached from fully enjoying present moments.