Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends. I hope you’re all doing so, so well today. I just had the pleasure of seeing the first hummingbird of Spring. I have this big beautiful window in my office that looks right out on our front lawn and we have some flowers and I got to see a couple of hummingbird flit by as I was writing this episode. I love hummingbirds so much. I do have a hummingbird feeder, my husband LOVES to remind me that we got one for like $50 and an outdoor store, I can’t remember where and that I was so excited and I just had to have it and then the first time I used it, I did all the stuff, I boiled down the sugar in the water and everything and then I put out the feeder and forgot about it for like 6 months. You’re supposed to change out the hummingbird feed, like the sugar water, every day or so depending on how hot it is, because you don’t want it to spoil, and that level of physical investment is so much more than I am willing or able to commit to- so it’s like a little treat when I get to see those beautiful little hummingbirds. Like they will probably never make my house a consistent stop to eat at or anything, so when I do get to see them I am as giddy as can be. 

So, if there is something like that, some small joy in your life, I hope you get to experience that today!

Ok, let’s talk about disenfranchised grief, because, I mean, who doesn’t enjoy talking about grief?

The reason I want to cover disenfranchised grief is because in it’s very name it is a grief that is not really recognized. Now, this might not apply to you or your situation but I want all of us to be aware of it so we can, at the very least, be a support to ourselves or someone else that might be experiencing it. 

And you might have even experienced it and just not even known it, and hopefully this episode will maybe validate some of your experience. So I’m going to explain what disenfranchised grief is, I’m going to give you plenty of examples so that you can recognize it. I’m going to share my personal experience with it, and then give you some suggestions on how you can support yourself if you’re experiencing disenfranchised grief. 

So first, what is disenfranchised grief? Disenfranchised grief is a term that was coined by Kenneth Doka in the 80s. And it’s basically when someone’s society denies them the need, the right, the role, or the capacity to grieve. 

In other words, disenfranchised grief is when the loss goes against cultural norms and it’s not seen as valid by those in the person’s support network or community. It’s not openly acknowledged, it’s not socially mourned, or it’s not publicly supported. 

And as you can imagine, there is a lot of nuance to this subject. So for the purpose of making this podcast friendly, I’m simplifying things and I’m adding a bit of my own thoughts and experiences. And for those of you who are interested in grief theory or who want to learn more, I recommend that you go check out Doka’s book, which is appropriately titled Disenfranchised Grief. 

So before we break this down and give some examples, I think it’s important to pause and remind ourselves that grief is in no way limited to a death loss- although that is culturally how we tend to think of grief or what is associated with grief. And while we most commonly think of grief as a result of someone’s death, non-death losses are just as valid as death losses. 

I like to think of grief as a person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions following a perceived loss. Thoughts, feelings, actions following a perceived loss. And since perception is unique to the individual, then so is grief. So what one person believes is a loss might not be what another person believes is a loss. It’s all about perception. 

So let’s break down disenfranchised grief and give some examples. Doka suggests that disenfranchised grief can happen when the loss isn’t seen as worthy of grief. So for instance, a non-death loss such as the loss of a pet, or the death of someone you didn’t know, a death of someone who maybe abused you or hurt you could be a loss that isn’t seen as worthy of grief. 

Other, non infertility/ IVF examples could be Or maybe it’s the loss of something you really expected that was really important to you but that other people don’t understand why it was so important. So maybe you had your hopes up for a job, maybe you had your hopes up for the perfect vacation, maybe you had your hopes up for something that was going to come to fruition that just didn’t. 

For the purposes of what we talk about here on the podcast, disenfranchised grief and be things like a cycle that yields no or few embryo’s (with the understanding that the outcome breaches your expectations). A transfer that fails to implant, or the results in a miscarriage, any miscarriage at all, if you’re doing genetic testing and those results are not what you had expected, hell, even for some of us the process of infertility and IVF as a whole, like the fact that it’s our best chance for a pregnancy- that in and of itself is a type of disenfranchised grief. 

And to you, it’s a big deal. But other people might not see it that way. 

So the loss isn’t seen, from society or an onlookers perspective, as worthy of grief, for a lot of what we experience during infertility and IVF many people don’t really see that as something to grieve, the person grieving is not recognized as a griever, or also the way you are grieving is stigmatized. So maybe you aren’t displaying any outward grief, or maybe you’re displaying what other people believe is an extreme grief response. Since infertility and IVF, for those that do not have lived experience, our outward displays of grief or sadness or whatever, can seem incongruent to their expectations- whoever “they” may be. And I think this is never more apparent than when people might see us upset or maybe we are sharing our frustration or struggle and the response is “you just need to relax” or something in that vein. Because our reaction is disproportionate to their expectation. 

So we can be judged by our culture and by others and we can judge ourselves in a number of ways. And this is the judgment that results in disenfranchised grief. And you can imagine the potential for intersectionality. Now if you’re not familiar with that term, intersectionality, it is a framework that was developed in the late 80’s early 90’s by legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw, to understand who a person’s various social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege Now, I won’t get too into the weeds about this, right now, because believe me I could, but intersectionality is important because there are many cultures around the world that have a lot of views on infertility, IVF, grief, emotional expression, vulnerability, etc. So if you belong to a group that maybe places all of the social stigma for infertility on the woman, regardless of diagnosis, that is an aspect of intersectionality. Because beliefs around grief are not just specific to social culture, say in the US, but also pertains to the culture of your origin, or the culture that you have been raised in as a black person, indigenous person, or another person of color- so we cannot discount those experiences and that intersectionality at all. 

I mentioned that I’d share my experience with disenfranchised grief and before I do that, I want to add that another way to think of disenfranchised grief using the model that I teach is that disenfranchised grief is when other people have thoughts that our grief is somehow less than or invalid, or we think they do. Because sometimes people share their thoughts with us and sometimes we just assume that we know what they’re thinking. And the latter is what I struggled with unknowingly of course. I created an experience of disenfranchised grief for myself even after I had been coaching for a while. 

Because when our embryo transfer failed in September of 2020- I will say that my family, my community, was very supportive. Very compassionate. I got nothing but love and support. But I think through that experience and because we have, arguably, had great success with IVF, that some people might think my loss would be less valid because we did, at that time, already have two healthy kiddos. Or that my grief through at that point the 7 years into our journey would seem less valid. All of this happened around the time I pivoted from general life coaching to this more specialized IVF coaching. 

Now, no one ever explicitly said anything to suggest that this was true. No one ever looked at me crossways. I literally had no evidence for this story. And so what I later concluded and what I know now is that I was really just projecting my own thoughts about my loss, about my journey, onto this nebulous “they”, whoever they were. I was very worried what they would think, even though no one had said a word. But what was happening is I was having thoughts that my grief was less valid because we had experienced success with IVF- so I had a lot of thoughts about how that probably made my grief less valid. 

And that matters because my own thoughts about other people potentially not accepting my story and my grief almost kept me from working with my beloved IVF’ers. I almost did that to myself. And I’m so glad I figured this out because if I hadn’t, this podcast wouldn’t exist. All the women who have worked with me directly or have benefitted from the podcast wouldn’t have been helped. 

And I tell you this story not because you’re probably trying to become a coach but because I don’t want you to make that same mistake. I can save you from potentially making that mistake, I want to do that. Maybe you’re noticing yourself worrying about what other people think, but you’re not questioning whether there’s actually anything to worry about. 

Frankly, I’ll tell you that even if they are having thoughts about your grief, it’s still nothing to worry about. But I also don’t want you to put something on yourself like I was doing that almost didn’t even exist in reality. I had no evidence for it. 

So if you’re experiencing disenfranchised grief, here’s what I suggest. And truthfully, I suggest this for all of you. If you’re in grief, all of this applies, but especially if you’re experiencing disenfranchised grief. 

So remember, all of your feelings are valid, even if others don’t understand. Doesn’t matter. The more significant the loss was for you, the more intense the emotions will be. And that’s all unique to you and to your perception of the loss. So don’t tell yourself that you shouldn’t feel the way that you do. 

And the more you can open up to the truth of how you feel, and of course, how we feel is caused by our thoughts, but it doesn’t even matter because if we’re already thinking those thoughts and we’re already feeling those feelings, and the more we can open up to that, the more we can process those emotions instead of resisting them or avoiding them. 

And then the easier it will be to integrate and adapt to the loss. Don’t make it a condition that other people need to understand your feelings in order for you to process them and take care of yourself. If you make your grief dependent upon other people’s support, then you’ll always be trying to change something that you can’t. 

It’s impossible for us to control or change other people, so don’t make your feelings conditional upon the support or understanding of others. Remind yourself that you don’t owe anyone an explanation. 

This grief is your grief. You get to decide who you share it with, how you navigate it, all of it. It’s yours. You don’t need to explain it or justify it to anyone. 

Allowing yourself to own your grief, doesn’t make the grief harder, it makes it yours. It gives you the power to manage it, handle it, and adapt to it a completely personal experience and that is such a beautiful and precious gift to give yourself. 

And I want all of you to experience that gift. 

So, that is what I have for you today. I hope this explanation of disenfranchised grief was helpful to you. Maybe you saw some of your own experiences in what we talked about, maybe some people came to mind that now you kind of understand their struggles a little bit more or why it might just be a little bit harder for them based on their unique circumstances and that that’s useful to you. 

Leaning into that compassion for yourself and others, that is the endgame my beautiful friends. 

Ok, that’s all from me. Have a wonderful week and I will talk to you soon.