When we first started WYG in 2012, we leaned heavily into a category of grief support advice that we no longer endorse. To be more specific, we did that thing where we told people looking to support grieving people what "not to say" and, to a lesser extent, offered ideas about what to say.
Whether grieving or supporting someone, you've likely encountered this kind of advice. It's probably the most common type of advice, which may mean our opinion is unpopular, but we have our reasons for advocating for unscripted grief support tips, if you'd allow us a few moments to explain.
Some "Don't say..." advice is okay
First, I want to clarify that we don't believe all "don't say" advice is wrong. There are a few things that are, hands down, objectively ill-advised. For example, we'll always wholeheartedly stand by the advice not to say things that begin with "at least."
Though I cannot guarantee the person you're speaking with will dislike the statement, typically, sentences that start with "at least" are minimizing attempts to find a silver lining at a time when silver linings feel irrelevant. The intent is usually good; you want to provide comfort by focusing on something other than the person's pain, but efforts to bypass or ignore the pain of grief often cause people to feel unseen and uncared for.
I think we can also stand by black-and-white advice that tells people not to say things that blame the grieving person or the deceased, stigmatize the people involved, or outright dismiss the gravity of their pain. So, there are some obvious "don'ts" - many of which I can summarize by saying, "Don't be an a-hole." But it's usually not the a-holes who are online looking for advice on how to help.
Why We Stopped Using this Approach
Interestingly, we've seen plenty of instances where "dont say/do say" advice has resulted in people offering worse or no support.
[For example, check out Litsa's Instagram story below on "How Instagram Made Me Scared to Support People Grieving" and the 300 comments people left in response.]
This type of advice is meant to educate people, but it often confuses them further when they see posts telling people to say or do (or not say or do) the very thing they have just heard someone say they hate and vice versa. And maybe this infomation is even imparted in a way that imposes shame on the person who's done (or thought to do) something contrary to the advice.
Suddenly, the person who cared enough to seek advice feels uncaring and insensitive, as though they should have known better. But they didn't know -- and they still don't know -- and now they're even more confused. If you fear saying the wrong thing to someone you care about, it's paralyzing -- and we suspect it does paralyze some people into saying or doing nothing.
Unscripted Grief Support: Unique Grief Requires Unique Support
The longer we work in this field, the more grieving people we talk to. And the more grieving people we speak to, the more we know about what we can never know. A true "grief expert" may understand concepts and theories and can bust grief myths, normalize, and validate -- but they also know that when it comes down to understanding anyone's individual grief, they know very little.
A few years back, we did an informal survey with our readers about the "best" and "worst" things said to them in their grief, and here's what we found:
We recently asked WYG readers about the best and worst things anyone has said to them in their grief, hoping for some specific examples that we might then be able to offer as guidance to all those seeking answers. And though they provided some amazing insight, things still remain, well, complicated. In fact, we found that some of the EXACT SAME PHRASES were listed on both the best and the worst lists.
For example, one person will say, "I prefer people to acknowledge they "can't imagine" the gravity of my loss." While another person will say, "I appreciate someone saying they're at least trying to imagine what I'm going through." Or one person may like hearing "they're strong," while another hates the statement because it makes them feel pressured and unseen. The examples are endless.
If we can acknowledge that each person's grief is incredibly unique (and this is a fact we must acknowledge), then it has to follow that the types of support that will be helpful to the individual will also be unique to who they are as a person, their loss, their relationship with the person who died, and many other factors. Therefore, a singular approach or vocabulary for providing grief cannot exist.
Take advice with a grain of salt
Knowing so many differences exist is also scary -- and this is why the idea of "don't say/do say" scripts can feel enticing. But remember, this advice, though often stated as an absolute, is also predicated on preference.
If someone tells you there is a black-and-white rule, I encourage you to test the statement before accepting it as truth because many of these pieces of advice are well-intentioned but biased. They are the things that work for that person or their friend, or perhaps they even have a consensus from a group of people. No disrespect to anyone else because we've made these statements ourselves, and when we did, they were biased by us, our preferences, and our experiences.
Here's an example: we've seen a lot of consensus online about the advice "just show up (literally) and hold space." Okay, yes, but realistically, is that a hard and fast rule? Is that going to be helpful for everyone? Are you the one who should be doing the thing suggested?
Maintaining some type of presence and availability does matter, but take some time to think about how that advice applies to the person you're supporting. Because I will share with you that Litsa and I have a consensus that very few people could get away with "just showing up" to quietly sit on the sofa in our hour of need. And if they say they're there to hold space, they better mean it sarcastically.
Perhaps I've now scared someone out of taking this advice, but that's not the point. The point is that it works for some and not others, and this is why instead of giving people rules, we need to be helping people rely on their interpersonal strengths, what they know about the person grieving, and, worst case scenario, believe in their ability to recover and repair if they do make a grief support mistake.
Shifting the Grief Support Paradigm
We will share an article in the next week or so that suggests a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize grief support and grief literacy, so I encourage you to stay tuned. In many ways, moving away from a scripted approach to grief support seems to create more unknowns and ambiguity. But those unknowns were always there. In interpersonal relationships, they are always there. We need an approach that acknowledges each situation's uniqueness and helps people think more specifically, critically, and creatively about who you are, your strengths as a grief support person, who the grieving person is, and what they might want or need.
In the meantime, here are a few other articles from the archives that may be helpful.
- Being There for Grieving Friends and Family: Support vs. Comfort
- How to Support a Grieving Family Member or Friend: 6 Principles
- Good Grief Support Isn't Just a One Time Thing
The post The Case for Unscripted Grief Support: Why we no longer advise people what not to say appeared first on Whats your Grief.