Grief Is Not A Disease

Americans pathologize. Then we commodify. We throw labels at each other: legitimate political criticism becomes “Trump derangement syndrome.” We say “he must be on the spectrum” when we used to say “God, what an asshole.” (It’s possible to be both, Mr. Musk).

The American Psychiatric Association has decided grief is something that needs treatment, so they invented a new malady: “Prolonged Grief Disorder.”

Oh for God’s sake: you can’t “treat” someone out of the pain of loss.

Today is the tenth anniversary of Mike’s death. Angelic Daughter and I will eat lunch at a hot dog joint where Mike always got a gyro and Angelic Daughter got a hot dog with ketchup and onions (children and adult Angelic Daughters are exempt from the “no ketchup!!” rule in Chicagoland).

Then we’ll go do some grave tending, to “meet up” with Mike’s spirit (there’s always a lovely breeze at the cemetery). I told Angelic Daughter we’ll show Dad that we’re ok, that we will always love him and miss him, but we’re trying not to be sad anymore.

So how’s that “trying not to be sad” going for us? Not so good. Something about milestones brings out the tears.

This morning, a long quote about grief appeared in my Substack feed, from someone I don’t follow. Apparently, the vast, sludgy tar pit of algorithms called the internet learned that today, grief is relevant to me, so it served it up on a platter I never requested:

“…grief is not just an emotion. It is an unraveling. A place where someone lived in your heart, and now they are gone.

“…At first, grief feels violent. It hits your chest when you wake up. It follows you into quiet rooms. It shows up in grocery store aisles, in old songs on the radio, in empty chairs at family gatherings. People around you move on with their lives, and inside you want to scream because your world stopped, yet no one noticed.

“Then time passes. Not because you wanted it to. Not because you were ready. Time passes anyway.

“The pain does not disappear. It changes. The sharp edges dull, but the weight stays. You stop crying every day, but the ache settles deeper. You learn how to carry it to work, to birthdays, to holidays. You smile while holding something broken inside, and no one sees it.

“…You never move on. You move with it.

“The love you had does not die. It shows up when you laugh and then feel sad for laughing. It shows up when you reach for the phone and remember there is no one to call. It lives in old photos, in familiar smells, in habits you still cannot break. That love stays because it was real.

“…Grief is not something to hide… It is proof that your heart was brave enough to love deeply. In a world that teaches people to stay guarded, you loved anyway…

“There is no schedule for grief. Anyone who tells you there is has never truly lost someone. Some days you feel steady. Other days one small memory brings you to your knees. Both days are normal.

“If you are grieving now, do not rush yourself. Do not let anyone tell you it is time to be over it. Let yourself remember. Let yourself miss them. Let yourself feel angry, grateful, broken, and still standing.

“Healing does not mean forgetting. Healing means learning how to hold love and loss in the same hands. And if you are still here carrying both, it means your heart is stronger than you think.”

Turns out the beginning, about grief being an unraveling, has been consistently but erroneously attributed to Jim Carrey. The rest of it is probably AI generated. Once you know that, you can see it in the cadence of three-item lists and the thumpity-thumping repetition of this-then-thats-and-thats. That bit about being stronger than you think sounds like Christopher Robin reassuring Pooh.

Someone probably prompted an AI bot to write a sympathy note. The bot then trotted off to scoop up words of of grief etched into the internet by a multitude of living, breathing human beings. It packaged those words into text that the fucking thing knew would go viral (it seems to have been posted for the first time in early 2025, according to, you guessed it, Google’s AI).

My heart hasn’t been “stronger than I think.” I don’t think my heart has been strong at all. Tears have come early and often this month, as the ten-year mark crept up on Angelic Daughter and me. I bawled in church when I asked for prayers for her comfort. I whimpered this morning when I retrieved Hilda, my lavender stuffed animal hippopotamus, from the floor next to my bed, squeezed her tight and told her she’s my best friend and I “wuv and we-wy” on her.

Christ, I’m a 67 year-old crone baby talking to a stuffed animal. Maybe grief is a pathology after all. But whether or not my grief is a “disorder,” it is, at least, authentically human.

Expecting more crying time today, I remain,

your prolongedly grieving, whimpering, trying-to-smile-through-the-tears-for-Angelic-Daughter while acknowledging that “I can’t be Dad, and I know I’m not enough,”

Ridiculouswoman