Trueform Therapy

Tag: loss

  • Why We Avoid Talking About Death and Why It Matters That We Do

    We know we’ll die. That’s not the problem.
    The problem is how awkward we get about it. Like we’re trying to quietly back out of the room without making eye contact with the Grim Reaper.

    We avoid the word “death” like it’s bad luck. We say “passed away” or “lost them” or “gone to a better place”. It sounds kind, but also a bit like someone wandered off and joined a travelling circus without leaving a note.

    Photo by V Marin on Pexels.com

    And yes, I get it. Death is uncomfortable. It’s sad. It makes us feel small. Sometimes it makes us cry in the middle of the supermarket. So we do what most people do with uncomfortable things. We avoid it. Change the subject. Or joke about it to make it feel less scary.

    But here’s the thing. All this avoiding doesn’t protect us. It just leaves us unprepared.

    Why do we find it so hard to talk about?

    We’re not weird for dodging the topic. We’re human. And most of us were never taught how to talk about death in a way that felt okay.

    Some of it’s cultural. In the UK, we’re famously good at saying “sorry” when someone steps on our foot, but not so great at sitting with someone’s grief. We keep things respectful, which often just means silent.

    And there’s the fear.
    Fear of saying the wrong thing.
    Fear of getting emotional.
    Fear that if we talk about death, we’ll somehow make it happen. We won’t.

    It’s easier to change the subject. Or pretend we’re fine. Or assume the other person doesn’t want to talk either.

    Sometimes, both people in the room are grieving and both are pretending they’re not. You end up with two people making tea and talking about the weather while trying not to cry into the biscuits.

    What this silence really costs us

    When we avoid talking about death, we’re not just avoiding pain. We’re also avoiding truth, clarity, and connection.

    People die without having said what mattered.
    Families are left guessing at funeral wishes.
    Friends drift apart because they don’t know how to show up for each other in grief.

    And for the people left behind, it can feel incredibly lonely. Not just because someone they love is gone, but because no one wants to talk about it.

    Photo by Bacho Grigolia on Pexels.com

    Grief becomes this quiet, invisible thing people carry around while trying to act normal.

    And when we can’t talk about death, we also can’t talk about life. Not fully. We can’t say, “This is what I want.” Or “This is what I’m afraid of.” Or even just, “I’m scared.”

    Something That Stuck With Me

    There was a time I avoided the topic too. I’d sidestep it in conversations or just offer some polite version of “I’m so sorry” and hope that covered it.

    But then someone said to me, after losing someone they loved, “I wish people would stop pretending this didn’t happen.”

    And that hit me.
    Not talking about it didn’t protect them. It just made them feel invisible.

    Since then, I’ve tried to be braver. Not always eloquent, but honest. Sometimes it’s just sitting in silence with someone. Sometimes it’s saying, “That must be really hard,” and meaning it.

    What we can do differently

    We don’t have to become poets of mortality overnight.
    We don’t need the perfect words.
    We just need to start being real.

    Real might look like saying
    “I’m here.”
    “I don’t know what to say, but I care.”
    “Do you want to talk about them?”

    Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.com

    It might mean having the slightly uncomfortable conversation with someone you love about what they’d want or what you’d want. You don’t have to make it formal. You can start with, “I know this is a weird thing to bring up, but…”

    These conversations might feel strange at first. But they’re also the ones people remember.

    If You Take One Thing from This…

    Avoiding death doesn’t make it go away. But talking about it, even a little, can make us feel less alone in the face of it.

    And if you’ve made it this far, you’re already doing it. You’re thinking about the thing we’re all quietly carrying.

    So this Death Awareness Week, maybe let’s stop whispering about it and just talk.

    Even if it’s a bit awkward. Even if no one has the right words.

    Sometimes, saying something imperfect is the most human thing we can do.

    If you’re feeling the weight of something unspoken or just need space to sit with whatever’s coming up, you’re not alone.
    You can find out more about how I work at trueformtherapy.co.uk — when you’re ready.

  • Grief Isn’t Just Tears and Sad Songs—It’s Talking to the Dead and Getting Annoyed with Them Too

    Grief is strange. One moment you’re making a cup of tea, the next, a song sneaks up on you, and suddenly, you’re back in a moment you can never return to. It’s an uninvited guest, showing up at the worst times, making itself comfortable when you least expect it. Despite what we’re led to believe, grief doesn’t follow a neat arc from devastation to closure. If you’ve ever found yourself talking to someone who’s no longer here, feeling an irrational surge of anger at them for leaving, or wondering who you even are without them, you’re not alone. It’s like trying to walk through your home in the dark after someone has rearranged the furniture—you know the space, but nothing is quite where it should be. We expect grief to be a storm that eventually clears, but more often than not, it lingers like fog, reshaping the way we move through the world.

    Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

    The ‘Normal’ Parts of Grief Nobody Talks About

    We tend to have a scripted idea of grief: sadness, tears, and a gradual journey towards ‘moving on’. But real grief doesn’t fit into a script. It spills over into the everyday, creeping into moments you never expected. It’s waking up and, just for a split second, forgetting they’re gone. It’s laughing at a joke they would have loved, then feeling the gut punch of their absence a moment later. It’s carrying an invisible weight that shifts in size, sometimes crushing, sometimes barely noticeable, but never really gone. And grief isn’t just about longing for someone—it’s about learning to live in the empty spaces they left behind, navigating a world that suddenly feels both familiar and completely altered.

    I still think of my grandmother every time I bake. I can hear her scolding me if I rush the process or measure something wrong. It’s been more than 20 years, but in those moments, she’s as present as the flour dusting my hands. I reach for a rolling pin, and suddenly, I’m a child again, watching her knead dough with a patience I’ve never quite mastered. Many people keep these conversations going with their loved ones—sometimes out loud, sometimes in the quiet of their thoughts. Some whisper their names into the silence, hoping for a response they know will never come. It can feel odd at first, like speaking into an empty room, but it’s often a comfort. It reminds us that love doesn’t simply vanish when someone dies; it lingers in the rituals and the echoes of their presence.

    Nobody warns you that part of grief might involve being furious with the person who’s gone. It’s illogical—they didn’t choose to leave (or even if they did, the loss was never truly in your control). But that doesn’t make the anger any less real. Maybe they left things unsaid or unresolved. Maybe their absence just feels unfair. It’s like being abandoned mid-sentence, left holding words that will never be heard. But anger doesn’t mean you didn’t love them; if anything, it proves just how much you did. Love doesn’t disappear, but in grief, it shifts into something harder to carry—something with edges that catch and sting when you least expect it. And that’s okay. We are complicated creatures, capable of loving and resenting in the same breath.

    Grief isn’t just sadness; sometimes it’s relief, and then the guilt that follows. If someone suffered before they died, you might feel a quiet gratitude that they’re no longer in pain. If your relationship with them was tangled in conflict, you might feel relief that certain tensions are over. But then guilt creeps in, whispering that grief should be pure sorrow, nothing else. Yet, feeling relief doesn’t mean you didn’t love them. It means you’re human. We are wired to seek comfort, to want suffering—both ours and theirs—to end. And sometimes, their release from pain means the beginning of ours, an unfair and painful trade-off that we never agreed to yet must find a way to live with.

    When we lose someone, we don’t just mourn their absence—we mourn the version of ourselves that existed with them. Who are we without them? It’s an unsettling question, but an important one. The people we love shape us, sometimes in ways we don’t notice until they’re gone. Their presence influences our choices, our routines, and even the way we see ourselves. And when they leave, it can feel like a part of our identity has been stripped away. It’s like looking in the mirror and finding your reflection slightly altered — recognisable but no longer quite the same. Grieving isn’t just about remembering them; it’s about discovering who we are now, how we carry them forward, and how we begin to reshape our lives in their absence.

    Photo by David Kanigan on Pexels.com

    Growing Around Grief

    Grief doesn’t shrink over time, but we grow around it. That’s a hard truth to accept when all we want is for the pain to stop. But eventually, the sharp edges soften. Grief stops being the centre of our world and becomes something we carry—not in defiance of loss but in harmony with it. We weave it into the fabric of our lives, allowing it to shape us without overwhelming us. And in time, we learn that grief isn’t just about holding onto what we’ve lost—it’s about figuring out how to live in a way that honours what we had.

    There’s so much pressure to ‘move on’, but that’s not how grief works. You don’t move on from it; you move forward with it. The people we lose stay with us, not just in memory but in the ways they shaped us. In the things they taught us. In the habits we picked up from them without even realising it. We hear their laughter in the jokes we still tell. We see their influence in the way we comfort others, in the way we take our tea, and in the way we organise our bookshelves just so. Moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting; it means carrying them with us in a way that lets us keep living.

    Some days, grief is sharp and raw. Other days, it’s a quiet hum in the background. You might go months feeling fine, and then, out of nowhere, it crashes over you again. It isn’t linear. It shifts, just as we do. Like waves that change with the tide—sometimes gentle, sometimes overwhelming, but always in motion. The loss doesn’t get smaller, but we grow bigger around it, learning how to hold it without letting it break us.

    Losing someone forces us to ask hard questions: Who am I without them? What do I carry forward? It’s an uncomfortable, sometimes painful process. But grief, at its core, isn’t just about death—it’s about life. About understanding how we continue, how we evolve, how we shape our world in the wake of loss. And if there’s one thing we learn, it’s this: love doesn’t die with the people we lose. It lingers in the spaces they once filled, in the stories we tell, in the ways we choose to live—not the same, but never alone.