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WHEN LIFE
HURTS

Nothing prepares you for those moments when reality slaps you in the face, sends you sprawling and turns your life upside down. A ‘reality slap’ can take many forms: the death of a loved one, a serious illness or injury, an horrific accident, divorce, betrayal, assault, infidelity, violent crime, job loss, bankruptcy, warfare, fire, flood, earthquake, pandemic … and the list goes on. We don’t like reality slaps, and we sure as hell don’t want them — but sooner or later, if we live long enough, we’re all going to have them. And one thing’s for sure: the bigger the slap, the greater our pain. Depending on what we are facing, we may experience shock, sadness, anger, fear, anxiety, dread, guilt, shame — perhaps even hatred, despair or disgust. Indeed, sometimes the pain is so intense, so unbearable, our nervous system takes over and ‘switches off our feelings’, leaving us numb, empty or ‘dead inside’.

Sometimes, if we’re lucky, and the slap is not too forceful, we can recover fairly quickly. We can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down, find a solution to the problem and carry on with our lives. But what happens when there is no simple solution; when someone we love dies, or our partner leaves us, or we lose our job? If we sustain a major injury, develop a serious illness, experience a violent crime that wrecks our life? If our loved ones are sick or suffering? If the world falls into pandemic-induced chaos?

Reality slaps always involve loss. We may lose an important relationship — through death, divorce, separation or conflict. We may lose our health, or our job, or our independence. We may lose a sense of security, trust or safety. We may lose freedom, support, belonging — or many other things we deeply care about.

Reality slaps usually give rise to a crisis: a time of intense difficulty and uncertainty, where we’re dealing with something awful over which we have little control. (This is especially likely with those life-crushing, soul-destroying reality slaps that psychologists refer to as ‘trauma’.) At the same time, or very soon thereafter, comes grief. Contrary to popular belief, grief isnot sadness; it is not an emotion at all. Grief is a psychological process of reacting to any significant loss. During a grieving process, we may feel a wide range of emotions from sadness and anxiety to anger and guilt, as well as physical reactions such as sleep disturbance, fatigue, lethargy, apathy and changes in appetite.

The five stages of grief<