Grief Analogy

[Sparky1]

I'm reading a little booklet I was sent from my counselor called Discovering  Permission to Grieve

The author states that " grief is like peeling an onion, it comes off one layer at a time and you cry a lot" . If people are given onions to peel, some would peel them fast and others would peel them painfully slow and take their time doing it. Just like grieving, everyone does it differently.

[Yoli]

I will never finish peeling that darn onion.

[Gail 8588]

That is true, but it doesn't address so many additional components of grief, such as the excrutiating pain, the confusion, ability to  think clearly, etc. 

Some people look at the onion and can't figure out what to do with it.  Some people in grief aren't even aware the onion is in their hand. 

Sorry, I shouldn't be so negative, it just struck me as sort of trivializing grief.  I agree with the point that everyone goes through grief their own way. 

Gail

[foreverhis]

I'm with Gail on this one.  Though it's an analogy I've used when describing changes when I started having health issues as I was slowly forced to let go of the way my life, our life, had been, IMO it's sadly inadequate for spouse loss and grief.  I do understand that people are looking for a connection and a way to describe it, but this grief is not fully describable in words.  It affects every cell in our bodies, minds, and hearts.

I also don't see it as being something we peel off in layers.  It's more like we absorb and incorporate it as part of our lives, mixed in with all the other emotions and experiences.  There was a rawness for me the first year or more that is slowly softening.  If I had to put it in cooking terms, I guess it would be "sweating" as we do with onions to make them less pungent and harsh.

I'm well aware that I'm overly sensitive sometimes, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but I bristled at the notion that someone grieving would be "painfully slow" and "take their time doing it."  Though it acknowledges that we're all different, my sensitive mind sees that as the author thinking doing it quickly is better--which absolutely the faster I can chop an onion the happier my eyes are, but that's an actual onion and not my grief.  I don't think any way or process of grieving is better than another.  I believe it's very rare indeed for someone to intentionally grieve the same way for a very long time.  In fact, the process of discovering how to carry my grief and my love forward with me has been so slow, so gradual, that I couldn't even say when X, Y, or Z shifted as I've made those baby steps forward on my journey.

And no one needs to or has the authority (if you will) to give us "permission" to grieve!  We do grieve; we do it our own way and in our own time; and it cannot be distilled into a single image.

But, Sparky1, I'm really glad you posted this.  It's obviously a jumping off point for some of us to try to envision how we would describe what we're going through.  As we know, the notion of set "stages" is wrong and rather insulting, and any single analogy cannot capture the enormity of what we face every day.  Also, I'm sure that others will react differently from me (and Gail, if I may speak for her a little bit).  We're constantly looking for ways to make sense of the senseless and if it helps some to picture their grief this way, then that's a good thing.

[Sparky1]

10 hours ago, Gail 8588 said:

That is true, but it doesn't address so many additional components of grief, such as the excrutiating pain, the confusion, ability to  think clearly, etc

Absolutely. To me the author's explanation was way too simplified. It could be a great big onion for some of us with big thick layers. The layers of pain, loneliness, heartbreak, etc. I know counseling tries to make one feel better, but for me nothing has changed. I still am heartbroken, lonely, devastated, and crying 100 times a day. Grief takes a lot of time and each of us has to go through it in different ways.

[KayC]

While it's true there may be many layers to grief there is no adequate description of it that I have found!  And it's different for us all, although most of us find commonalities in it.  And it's the rest of our lives in some form or another.  

I have known some who did not grieve the death of their husband, a close friend (my FIL's companion of 30 years or so) had been married to an alcoholic who beat her for years, she found nothing but relief in his being gone.  It was her liberation day.  That is not most of our experience, however.  I still miss my husband tremendously after all these years.  I always will.