I spoke to a large group of social workers last week. When I told them that I thought grief was one of the major social problems of our time, they looked at me like I was on something. Grief is a social problem? They seemed shocked at the thought. Conventional wisdom sees grief as a period of sadness after someone dies. Most think the process should last about three months and then we should move on. If it last longer than that, the person is probably wallowing in their pain and enjoying the attention.

This misguided conventional wisdom is easily understood. When I started writing about grief in the late seventies, I read every book I could find on the subject, that was three books. Now there are libraries full of books about grief, which means we have learned almost everything we know about grief in the last thirty years. It is a brand new study, and we are a long way from discovering the depths of its impact on human lives. 

We already know grief is not over after a few months of sadness. We already know grief is never really over, We do not "get well" like some disease cured with medication. Grief bites a chunk out of our hearts and it does not grow back. We learn to cope with it in a new way, but we do not just get well and never think about it anymore. I will often say in these blogs, that the pain one feels at first will one day become a dull ache, but it will always be at least a dull ache.

It is evident that anything that impacts our lives as deeply as the death of a loved one, will of course, have an affect on our very being, and sometimes can have life changing results. 

That is why I announced to a room full of social workers that I think grief is one of the major social problems we face. We have no idea how many of the things we call social problems, had their beginning in grief or trauma that were not properly dealt with, and were allowed to sit there and fester until they exemplified themselves in some of the things we call social problems. Most of the time, the connection between the two are not noticed. Most of the time there is no way to really study the connections and there are no statistics to substantiate my claim. We do know the impact sadness and depression have on our lives. We just don't seem to dig deep enough to see the amount of sadness and depression that lingers after suffering grief and or trauma in our lives. 

In future blogs in this category we will discuss the connections between grief and divorce, suicide, substance abuse, and eating disorders. All of this is designed to be a constant reminder that grief is a process to be walked through. To avoid doing so can have far larger impact than conventional wisdom now knows.