Ambiguous Loss: a deep loss without closure. Glenn is here, but not completely. He is no longer the man he used to be. He looks like Glenn, but that is all. There will be no closure for my grief, just the daily reminder of all that we have lost. The term was coined by Dr. Pauline Boss, a professor emeritus in the University of Minnesota Department of Family Social Science back in the 70’s as a way to describe loss in the face of the absence of closure. Feelings of loss and grief could potentially last a lifetime. In the face of such loss all I can do is take everyday as it comes and work to create whatever life I can for us.
Boss has worked for decades to help people find a way forward vis a vis ambiguous loss and has suggested the following six guidelines to help the survivor build resilience and cope with the loss:
Finding Meaning: In the event of some type of ambiguous loss one needs to make sense of the loss and also work to find a new purpose. For example my husband’s stroke left him looking like the person I married. In reality though, nothing else is the same. What made Glenn who he was is no longer there. What is there now is a man I would not choose to marry. There is no talking to him. There is no reasoning with him. In the face of this loss of the man I married I have spent years coming to terms with this. I have been working feverishly to rebuild my life. I decided to make this website to help other people who face similar situations.
Adjusting Mastery is about recognizing your degree of control in the situation. I cannot control our life and make it work the way we had hoped. I had to give that hope up. However I can control what we eat to be healthier. I can control my thoughts when they start careening out of control. I can control how I treat my body every day. There are a lot of things I can control and this is where my focus must go.
Reconstructing Identity This is the big one for me. How I, as an individual, come to understand my new identity as the caregiver for my spouse. “Who am I after my husband’s stroke? Am I still married? What is my new role? Can I create a new life for myself while caring for my husband who really isnt a husband?
Normalizing Ambivalence refers to coming to terms with conflicting feelings. I have to deal with the fact that I chose to move forward with the surgery to save Glenn’s life. In retrospect I wish I hadn’t. Neither of us is living. Glenn suffers daily. This leads to ambivalence and guilt for having that thought in the first place. I need to come to terms with these conflicting feelings and it is part of my daily practice.
Revising Attachment is recognizing that a loved one is both here and gone. Glenn is physically here (though not fully since he is paralyzed on one side) but mentally is not here. I must work to move foward in my life while carrying the weight of this contradiction Discovering New Hope: I can’t just wait: life will pass me by. I can’t wait for the old Glenn to return. That’s just not an option. I have to move forward,and create new hopes for my life.
