Grieving Cultural “Norms”- Releasing Idealistic Expectations

There is really so much that is packed into this topic – I cannot touch base on all that I would like to, I will expand on some of these thoughts in the next few posts I share … I did not understand grief until a few years ago, I was perplexed when parents said that they grieved over their child’s autism diagnosis. Out of my confusion, I went in research mode to try to understand grief and understand why these parents felt this way. Grief is predominantly defined as the loss of a loved one or you can also, feel grief with having an illness with no cure. When I understood that, I was able to see the paradigm these parents had about autism (even still today) being an incurable disease. I understood their emotions much more, however; I did not feel the same way. It’s not a disease.

I personally, gained much more understanding when I read this, “Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, spiritual, and philosophical dimensions.” Wiki 

Throughout my life, I did not allow myself to grieve more accurately; I did not understand how to grieve. I do not have the same response to death and loss as others seem to have; my grieving process is different in many ways when it comes to the loss of someone or a pet(s) that I loved. I do not want to dismiss anyone’s emotions or condemn them for what they (feel) felt, however; I encourage people to read A Parent’s Guide to Responding to a Child’s Autism Diagnosis as a more positive approach. Words like “coping” and “grieving” fed into my fears. I chose to reject such social norms of negative thinking, but that came through a process. It was not instantaneous. How could I instantly be accepting of something that I did not understand? Not only that I had to filter through a lot of negative muddled perspectives in order to come to my own conclusions.

I grieved over our world and my naivety of human behaviors, though I did not know that I was mourning and grieving.

Continued ... Grieving Cultural “Norms”- Releasing Idealistic Expectations