Are you ready to socialize yet?

What is it about grief that makes pariahs of mourners? Well, technically, it doesn't. So why do we lose people in the face of our trauma? Presenting my little investigation into the matter...

A few months ago, my friend K asked me if I was ready to socialise after my mother's death last year.

"I'd like to meet you whenever you're in the city next (and if at all in the headspace to socialize)."

Every so often, whenever she can, K checks up on me and my sister, dropping in a 'hi', kindly offering her audience to our grief. We haven't taken her up to that offer yet. Truth be told, there are times when I have a limited vocabulary to understand my feelings let alone convey them. On those days, I am floating in nothingness, avoiding my surroundings, and keeping to myself, sticking to the familiar.

The question put me in quite a conundrum. 'Am I ready to socialize?'

[Illustration by Laura Giglio @grinfol on Instagram]

What does it mean? Can I have a cup of tea without wishing I were sharing a cup with my mother making usual conversations? Or does it mean to inquire if I can go to the pubs without feeling like my mother will be calling me any minute now - "How much longer till you get home?" panic settling in even before I try answering her call casually, her words ringing in my ear. Maybe K means to check if I can have conversations without breaking down at the stray mention of my mother. Or simply if I am ok with being around people?

Thing is, I get a little anxious to socialise. I worry that the meeting becomes about my grief and eventually my friends will get tired of me. But another truth is that grief changes people. So much of one’s self is left behind at the traumatic event. Grief becomes our sun - only we don’t shy away from the glare, we stare right into it.

In the Facebook support group that I am a part of - ‘Grief Support - For people in their 20s & 30s who have Lost a Parent’ - I find many struggling with the same question K asked me. “Are you ready to socialize?” My fellow mourners write in detail about losing friends, even long-time partners, and spouses - over their grief. The calls stop coming after a few weeks. They don’t ask you how you’re doing. And just out of the blue, you and your grief are uninvited. We mourn the dead and the living.

Just as we are getting ready to socialize/ want people around, the world has decided it has moved on. In their book What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing, Dr Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey explain what happens immediately after someone has witnessed a traumatic event. Just after an event has happened, there is an '“epicentre” i.e., the people most impacted by the loss.

Those around us rush to our aid and our mind also does help (mostly by disassociating itself). But Dr Perry adds that after some time, this urge to help and the intensity of the loss begins to lose weight and people move on. “People grow tired of hearing about trauma; they want to talk about healing and hope.” So, then those around us invest their faith in our resilience, confident that we - the grieving, the mourners - will move on and that we will be okay.

This resilience is an emotional shield. Because those around want to protect their worldview, according to Dr Perry. “We often use our belief in another person’s ‘resilience’ as an emotional shield. We protect ourselves from the discomfort, confusion, and helplessness we feel in the face of their trauma. It’s a kind of looking away; it lets our worldview go unchallenged and lets our life continue with minimal disruption.”

What is it about grief that makes pariahs of mourners?

It technically doesn’t. But from what it looks like to me - everyone is trying to protect themselves. Truth is, we must heal by ourselves. We must learn to pick up the pieces and keep going. Slow and steady. Grief activates dormant anger and regret, and it is fucking tricky - I am with you! But we must fight our demons ourselves. For our own sake. No one can help ease the pain. It is a hard road that we have to tread carefully. Protect your heart and inner child, you will eventually find your tribe.

Someone named Kris had quite impressively declared in a comment section, “Grief is only understood by the grieving.”

And except for a few empathetic, kind friends like K.

I did end up meeting her. We ate sushi, drank sake, and made merry midst the misery.