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.

Sorry for your loss, and thank you for your perspective.

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

I never thought about it but it likely stems from loss of religion, like many other problems. If I see my life as insignificant in the chain of generations - as a conduit between ancestors and descendants - and believe in the soul at least as a metaphor - then personal death or that of others is sad, but is in the context of a deeply meaningful existence.

On the other hand, if I am closer to atheistic hedonism/nihilism - there's nothing else but me and my thoughts and experiences, then my existence or non-existence takes on a very heavy weight - and we project that onto others.

All the atheistic/agnostic people I know believe they are insignificant in the grand scheme of nature, not just in the chain of generations of people.

If anything, I find religious people are the ones who believe humans are special.

I think you're right on the word level but I think there's a difference about what significance and insignificance means to these groups.

As a religious person, I see my life as insignificant compared to Gd, and compared to the chain of generations, but what I do with my life is extremely significant. As in, whether I bring children into this world and raise them well, is massively significant.

So maybe the way to say it is - religious people see themselves as insignificant in the context of much greater significance.

The other view of insignificance is that nothing is significant - including myself. I don't subscribe to that.

Do you really believe atheists are incapable of recognizing the significance of children or of caring about them?

No, I don't believe that. I valued children just as much when I was an atheist as when I became religion.

What's significant though is the PREVALENT opinion. 100% of my religious friends want and have kids, while the majority of my secular friends do not. I work in FAANG and previously in finance, so my peers are people who can certainly afford kids and are positioned to take care of them - and yet literally most are choosing to do something else.

I am not commenting on a universal attitude, I am commenting on a significant trend that I think is obvious.

Putting aside the question of whether your own experiences hold for the general population, you must consider why these opinions are so prevalent, either way. One might argue that religion doesn't teach 'values' so much as 'roles', and so people feel they must do these things, not for any significance or with little thought to possible negative repercussions, but simply because... well, that's just what you do, right? Find a partner, have kids, go to church. That's the lifestyle religion teaches. One might also argue that secular people aren't as intent on having kids because they're more willing to accept different lifestyles.

For what it's worth, krapp's comment is better written but is what I'm talking about here.