We’ve forgotten how to grieve — and it’s taking a terrible toll on our health

SEVERAL years ago someone I knew, a dynamic family man, lost his father. I remember, because I was shocked that he seemed to give himself all of a few hours to grieve, before flinging himself back into his work.

‘Oh, he’s fine,’ said his wife. ‘His way of coping.’ Yet, six months later, a slipped disc in his back immobilised him, and one operation after the other just seemed to make it worse. The third procedure left him practically paralysed for months: his work inevitably suffered, and his business empire eventually collapsed.

He was forced to sell the house, his son went off the rails and broke off all contact, and he quarrelled bitterly with his daughter. His wife eventually left him and he became a veritable wreck.

To this day, I wonder if this downward spiral could have been averted, had he been ‘allowed’ to mourn? I was reminded of this salutary tale when I read recently that one in four of us doesn’t take leave to grieve.

A survey of 2,000 workers who had experienced a death in the family found that 25 per cent didn’t take a single day off work to mourn. A further 10 per cent took just one day. ‘Job worries’ or ‘too much to do’ were among the reasons cited.

Yet around a third said employees should be entitled to at least three weeks off for the death of a partner or child.

Does no one have the ‘luxury’ of the important human emotions we all used to recognise? Like many people, I have suffered loss. In my mid-40s, I lost Jacques, my husband of 24 years, then my father, eight other relatives and my two closest friends, all within a few years.

During this time, I descended to the greatest depths, feeling desolation, dread, rage, yearning and a profound loss of confidence as I struggled to rebuild myself. So I know first-hand that you cannot simply carry on as if nothing has happened.

I also know — from observing friends and family — that those who do tend to pay a huge price later on, just like the man I knew. Attempting to stifle such huge emotions means they only bubble up elsewhere. Yet we live in a time-starved, work-obsessed society — one increasingly in denial about mortality.

But has it become taboo to admit feelings of loss? To say: ‘I can’t go on at the moment’?

Given this strange culture of emotional shutdown, is it a coincidence that post-traumatic stress disorder seems to be so common? And that when the subterranean grief finally erupts, it does so in a virtual tsunami?

Increasingly, we are an impatient, over-stimulated, fast forward-prone society that leaps from one experience to the next — whether relationships or consumer goods — with few pauses for contemplation.

‘Moving on’ and ‘getting on with it’ are two commonly heard mantras. We are so obsessed with outward appearances that inner life appears to have lost its importance. And nothing forces you to come to terms with your emotions and mortality like bereavement — perhaps that’s why we’re so keen to turn the other way.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so shocked by people returning to work so soon after loss, as many other life events have gone the same way: birth and even illness.

Many mothers take decreasing amounts of leave after a baby, while a recent poll showed one in four workers — even if feeling extremely ill from the flu — would have to be hospitalised before they took a day off sick. I’m sure many will see this as a virtue, much like our reluctance to tear ourselves away from our iPhones is praised as ‘dedication’.

But is our determination to be ‘switched on’ 24/7 exacting too great a price? It’s no secret that unacknowledged trauma can throw a life off track.

YOU need only look at the biographies and case files of practically every major criminal to see that there was a significant loss, often at an early age, that was largely unacknowledged at the time: a bereavement, parental divorce (often interpreted as a death by a child), or other loss (home, job, status).

One of the most helpful things said to me at the time I was widowed in 1987 was: ‘Sometimes, all we can do is crawl around at the bottom of the jar.’

That pearl of wisdom came from my bereavement counsellor and it neatly encapsulated how I felt at that time: life was on pause, whether I liked it or not.

A friend also said: ‘If I were you, all I’d want to do would be to pull the duvet over my head and stay in bed for about three years.’

It came as a relief, since mainly the only ‘good’ mourners were those ‘back to normal’ within the shortest possible time. I was fortunate to have both the resilience and support to help me through those times. I suffered depression, panic attacks, insomnia, anxiety and all the other things many bereaved typically experience — but I also managed to find a route through to the other side.

Being Jewish, the community somehow ‘lifted me up’ through ‘shiva’, (seven days of deep mourning sitting on stools with ‘torn’ clothing, more or less isolating the mourner while the community visit, prepare all meals and talk endlessly about the departed), followed by daily prayers.

I cannot pretend that I avoided all work: as a journalist, writing about my experiences was cathartic. I even wrote a book about being widowed, called When The Crying’s Done. It was far from a smooth journey, with lots of bumps along the way (allergies, palpitations). Grappling with my grief, struggling to get my life back on track took longer than anyone acknowledged — sometimes weeks of just staring at the walls — all of which I couldn’t have done had I returned to an office the day after the funerals. I am reminded of an attractive, unmarried fortysomething female friend who was especially attached to her mother and totally invested in her job in PR. When her mother died suddenly, she almost pretended it hadn’t happened, returning to work immediately (putting on a bright smile, higher heels and ever more revealing clothes). But a year down the line, she was suffering hair loss and an eating disorder — alcoholism followed and a stint in rehab. Therapy revealed a troubled childhood with separation anxiety caused by the loss of her father at an early age.

She had learned to cling to her mother and her work, fearing she couldn’t survive without either. But in the end, work couldn’t offer her the comfort she needed.

Not reacting to grief at the time of loss may be a survival mechanism. Studies of concentration camp victims witnessing death all around them showed they often reacted with very little emotion to a friend’s or relative’s death, but would explode over a morsel of food or minor argument with fellow inmates. However, after liberation, many succumbed to mental breakdown, or spent years racked by ‘survival’ guilt.

Anyone who has suffered a massive loss knows the sense of internal desolation and low self-esteem that goes with it.

Then there’s the difficulty of forging a new identity. Never have we been so insecure about our sense of self, because we haven’t been left with much to identify with. All the old totems (religion, nationality, class, even gender in our gender-neutral times) are gone, fast going or considered reprehensible in some way.

Perhaps work is the only ‘permitted’ marker left. A job has become our security blanket.

Sadly, it’s also a distraction that can stop us reaching into ourselves or out to the rest of the world. Far better to detach, to pause, to take stock — however painful that might initially seem.

Wallowing in grief is part of life and essential for a healthy recovery. Death needs to be acknowledged and a loss mourned. It’s so much better for us all in the long run.