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What helped me to understand recovery from ambiguous grief wasn’t someone else’s definition, but rather determining my own. Instead of striving to live in a space of another’s devising, I sought to construct it for myself. I started by reverse-engineering the idea of what recovery is by first gaining clarity on what it isn’t. To me, recovery from ambiguous grief isn’t:
- The same for everyone.
- Achieved and then “done.”
- A return to who you were before your loss.
Recovery is a process, and so, too, is defining and shaping it for yourself. As you chip away at what it isn’t, you’ll slowly transition into the life that you’ve created for yourself. Just keep your eyes on your own path, respecting without judgment that what others need may not be helpful for you, and vice versa.
Understanding Recovery
Just as experiences of grief stages aren’t neat or linear, neither is recovery. While recovery isn’t the same for everyone, those in recovery understand a universal truth: Recovery isn’t something “achieved” and then “completed” like conquering some sort of video game that's then never considered again. While it’s true that we have been pursuing this place throughout our travels, arriving here in recovery doesn’t mean we have crossed an imaginary finish line and can now prop up our tired feet and bask in the glow of our new, easy lives. Arriving here is more of a bookend to our journey: It was never the goal and for most of us, it isn’t the end.
Rethinking Recovery
For some, the idea of recovery indicates a return to what was “before"—before the injury, the substance abuse, the loss. But recovery from what ails us doesn’t always mean a return to being as we once were—healed, sober, or joyful. It’s no wonder we should suppose this; after all, the concept is pervasive in our entertainment, from childhood books to classic films, audiences love characters on a quest, overcoming obstacles and villains, and reaching a tidy, enlightening ending. We are relieved when our hero returns triumphant and resumes life in a full-circle sequence, like Dorothy waking up in Kansas with friends and family at her bedside. This plot structure deeply resonates within us and is seemingly woven into our DNA. From ancient mythological stories to modern-day screenwriting, we witness our stories’ heroes as they’re called to an adventure, receive supernatural aid, meet mentors, face challenges and temptations, fail, transform, and return.
Joseph Campbell, author of the 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is credited with first recognizing this plot pattern as recurrent in human storytelling and naming it “the hero’s journey.” Though Campbell indicates that the hero returns with gifts born from the difficult journey, I believe this doesn’t mark the end of the experience. Rather, the end is marked in a few different ways, including in how we do or do not recognize those gifts we’ve accrued, and more importantly, what we do with them.
Whether it’s Dorothy’s desire to return home or yours to return to your pre-loss self, it’s hard to imagine either of you would simply be able to resume life as it once was. After all, how could you, knowing all that you know now? You’ve been tested, you’ve overcome, you’ve learned, and if you’ve been open to the process and worked through real-world exercises, then you’ve likely also grown. If so, it means that you are emerging into this season with new perspectives: on life, love, loss, grief, yourself, and more. This is a component of our grief stories that we often fail to unearth. In doing so, we neglect to discover our own treasure, but if we don’t do that, it cannot be of service to ourselves or others. That is why recovery isn’t a return to your old self, and why you shouldn’t want it to be.
More Than Recovering
As I deconstructed what recovery wasn’t and started to construct what it was, I realized it wasn’t what I thought it would be. Perhaps the word itself misled me into thinking I was traveling a full-circle route, one that would return me to my initial state prior to the cyclone of my activating event. The term that more aptly described my emotional landscape was regeneration—to be formed or created again. In viewing “recovery” from this different angle, I found an implied striving to hide and conceal what has pained you and return to where you once were, as who you once were.
In regeneration, I interpret the intention as more affirming. For me, it reads as an invitation to strive to embrace and honor what has been painful, and, like the natural condition that is grief itself, to use that experience and its gifts for my rebirth.
From whatever angle you are viewing recovery and with whatever word best describes this space for you, I hope you will spend time to reflect on how your awful, amazing, ridiculous, unfair, confusing (insert your own adjective here) journey has changed you, even if it’s not necessarily a change for the better. As you reflect and rethink this stage and what it means for you, you may find that perhaps healing happens more naturally when you are not trying to recover anything, especially your grief.
Instead, when you choose to leave your grief open and exposed to life, you actually begin to unfold to it naturally, like a flower to the sun. In doing so, you’ll find that the grief you once sought to bury is now not only a part of you but is a vital component of your recovery, a springboard launching you into a leveled-up version of yourself.
Excerpted from Soulbroken by Stephanie Sarazin. Copyright © 2022 by Stephanie Sarazin. Reprinted with permission of Balance Publishing. All rights reserved.
