The Grieving Brain

I am drawn to grieving resources, and Grief Haven* sends a periodic bulletin to my inbox. This month has been on the grieving brain. According to neurologists, the brain thinks traumatic loss is a threat to our survival. The amygdala (brain's center of emotions) is wired to protect us, so is always on the lookout for threats. "When triggered, it sets off a cascade of events that put the entire body on high alert—the heart speeds up, breathing rate increases, and blood circulation is increased to the muscles to prepare to fight or flee." But this response doesn't just happen at the event. The following days, weeks and months are filled with reminders that trigger that response, so the amygdala (deep inside the primitive brain) grows increasing sensitized and hypervigilant, at the expense of the advanced brain, which is the seat of reason and judgement, creating psychological responses like denial and dissociation. Left untreated, over time, the fight or flight response can remodel the brain to strengthen the amygdala and weaken the cerebral cortex (the advanced brain). This can be reversed with post-traumatic growth and therapy. Post-traumatic growth is a technique that helps us take new meaning from our experiences in order to live our lives differently than before the trauma. "Time alone doesn't heal all wounds; it's what you do with the time." 

The studies show that grieving can be thought of as a learning as it tries to figure out how to deal with everyday events without the loved one. "Your brain is trying to understand every situation where your loved one should be there, but somehow isn't. I think of it like a computer that is updating a program in the background. It can be very difficult to type in a word document while it's churning in the background, making the words appear slowly on the screen. I think the brain is similarly distracted when we are trying to do simple tasks in life, and certainly when we are trying to do complicated ones." The distractedness and difficulty concentrating usually resolves over time.

 While it is hopeful to know the brain continues to learn, I believe it doesn't help a grieving person to say: "perhaps this happened because you needed to learn something." Or "whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger." If we want to support a grieving person, we can share about how the brain is working to make sense of things, and encourage talking to a professional who is trained to guide post-traumatic growth.

When Mom died, a friend told me I will make mistakes. And wow, did I! I had a whole group of people signed up for a training on a different day that it was to be held. I was grateful to know this about my brain, and to give myself some grace as it got used to the new normal. The neurologists said our brain's response may have developed when we were first separated from loved ones, like kids going off to school. Powerful neurochemicals make us long for them and reward us when we're reconnected. The brain wants us to find them, or make such a fuss that they come to find us- all subconscious. But may be why we sometimes "see" the loved one in a crowd or have a feeling they'll come walking through the door. 

A friend was accompanying me through the sudden death of my older brother at age 35, and she felt she saw him in a crowd. I'm amazed at how deeply she entered my grieving with me. 

Recently our neighbors faced the traumatic death of a loved one. I am aware that events like this cause my brain to re-enter its grieving work.

* GriefHaven (aka The Erika Whitmore Godwin Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation dedicated to providing grief support and education to those who have loved and lost, those who want to know how to support someone who is grieving, and professionals who work within the arena of death and dying.