Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

There is a problem with rigid medical definitions. There is a huge difference between the author of this, a young pregnant woman losing her husband, and say, something like a middle aged person losing an elderly parent (as I did earlier this year). Of course it will take her far longer to recover (if at all).

I would guess her grief is not "disordered" though. As she says she functions - she works, she looks after her child, she looks after herself.

> We medicalize grief because we fear it.

Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west.

> Absolutely right. There is a certain cowardice in how we deal with death in the contemporary west.

Someone always rocks up to say this in these threads, and then never actually offers any suggestions of what they think an alternative should look like.

It's in the same vein as people who complain no one ever talks about serious subjects, and I'm just wondering why they think I want to get into discussing the meaning of life in the workplace cafeteria.

Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? A celebration of death? Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations? Why focus on the inevitable rather then actually living?