Grief Gets an Expiration Date, Just Like Us

In what way is this not western as well? Implying that western culture does not remember, contemplate, and revere those that have gone before us is a bad take.

I also think its not a simple east-west divide. Different cultures have many different ways of dealing with death. The contemporary west does have a problem, although i doubt it is the only culture for which that is true.

My family follows a mix of Christian tradition (e.g. memorial masses) and Sri Lankan (e.g. donations of food in memory of the dead).

I think this idea is ~10 years out of date. If anything, we now seem pathologize every behavior and personality quirk into a mental health issue. At least on social media, it's also trendy to have a mental health issue to the point that people will claim to have ADHD because they're easily distracted by their phones. I've also lost count of the number of big "content creators" who casually mention their therapist or going to therapy. If there is a stigma, it's not found among the younger generations.

If anything, I find religious people are the ones who believe humans are special.

Not having "answers" to what comes next has never been a weight for me - at least not since I was a child. Death being a completion, or a finality, is freeing; The end of what has been and what I hope continues to be a wonderful journey. The only weight I carry in regards to death are for those closest to me, and especially those for whom I'm responsible.

I think the way we deal with death nowadays has more to do with arrogance or hubris, coupled with wishful thinking. We're used to thinking we control things, and can get anything we want. One thing useful from the religions was having a healthy sense of your own limitations, or you could say a sense of wonder or mystery or perspective. A reminder that you're not the most powerful thing in the universe. Which is true, and healthy to be aware of, whether any god exists or not.

Edit to add: There are few places where that hubris and certainty tend to be more pronounced than among doctors. Part of what this woman is grieving is probably the loss of certainty, of control or the illusion thereof.

It's a broad observation about culture - there's no "alternative" to a well-established culture, no single forum comment will change society.

> Seriously, what is the alternative meant to be? ... Constantly reminding people that everyone will die and you'll be forgotten completely in about 3 generations?

I think you're on to something here; there's an inherent conflict between ruthless individualism that tells people they can do anything they put their mind to, and the stark, limiting reality of mortality. That's a bummer, so don't think or talk about it, or it'll mess with your grindset.

Collectivist cultures already embraces the idea that one's life is more than just about the individual, so grief and talking about death are far less radioactive. Religions that embrace ancestral spirits being presence offer comfort in continuity; her husband isn't really gone, and he may even watch ober their daughter, and even help her in math exams. In that light, dying is less of a big deal - more of a transition really - compared to oblivion, which is super heavy. I'm not saying these are better

+ Yes, allowing people to have a celebration goodbye party before they go

+ Allowing for medically assisted dying on a person's own terms

+ More open conversations about: directives, how people would like to be treated when they near death, wills, inheritances, funerals. These are all taboo topics

+ A natural part of life

It often is:

> It can be helpful to think of ADHD not just as a deficit or disorder but as a ‘difference’.

Especially as it seems to come with positive traits! It goes on to list focus, responding well in a crisis and creativity as common ADHD traits.

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/mental-illnesses-and...

In that case I would say it’s not ADHD, which as its name suggests is disordered. If the ADH part isn’t negatively impacting your life why would it require a diagnosis?

I guess your point is why does it require a label at all but science abhors a taxonomic vacuum, everything must be classified and if so I'd rather it be a disorder than a disease or illness.

Of course this opinion is just mine, I have no idea how other autistic or adhd people see this as I don't keep up with the neurodiverse community and what words are considered good or bad.

We didn't have much of a relationship. He had friends, but never close ones. He was weirdly mean or weirdly seclusive or weirdly awkward at times - and also incredibly intelligent and occasionally gracious and hilarious.

After he passed, I wondered if he might have been somewhere on the spectrum - but his peculiarities were simply ignored. A poor boy, in a poor urban neighborhood, with a dead father, being raised by an immigrant mother and immigrant siblings doesn't get diagnosed with much of anything - if they see doctors at all. And hey, he had a near photographic memory, and did great in school, so what's there to worry about?

It's always been "how he was", and that's probably ok, but I do wonder if he would have had a better or somehow different life if he knew more about _why_ he was the way he was.

Waking up from those is so painful but I am grateful I still get to see and hug him once in a while.

I guess we'll know when they turn 40 and are still saying things like "I had a panic attack" and "I'm literally shaking rn".

Similar to how some people look at raw stats of autism diagnoses and think hugely more people are becoming autistic when in reality it's that we've got better at diagnosing autism; I think we (society, in at least some countries) have got better at being honest about mental health conditions. Meaning that more people, especially younger people who've grown up around less mental health stigma, will talk about having an actual genuine problem even without more diagnoses or more exaggeration. I think studies would be needed (that I'm not aware of) to figure out how many more people are using labels that don't really fit, vs how many more people are being honest about actual serious conditions.

When I was in my 20s, if I needed a day off work because of depression I would always use a bullshit excuse to avoid mentioning the actual reason. I don't any more, most of my colleagues know what issues I do or don't have. And the younger generations are starting from that place, rather than having to grow into it.

I guess my thoughts on the trend you're critiquing is that it happens almost entirely outside of the medical community. As you describe the people who are most impacted by this often find actual medical treatment unhelpful and un-validating and turn to self-medication or other "medically inspired" coping techniques. I think the people who actually don't have these conditions and are applying medicalized treatments and explanations are opportunistically drawing on medical language because people often respect it socially. But also there are lots of people who engage in self-deception (or just normal deception) for social advantage and I don't know that people who use medical language are better or worse? A word is just a word and unless that word is actually on a medical record somewhere it only has the power you give it.

The flip side of this is of course that the medical establishment has many well-studied and documented biases. They offer poor treatment to overweight people, black people, people with mental health diagnoses, basically every vulnerable population that's been studied gets worse service from medical professionals. That very reasonably leads to people distrusting "the system" and searching for coping mechanism outside of it. I think that is generally pretty harmless and helpful - as long as it doesn't get into the realm of serious self-medication like you describe. Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus.

I'm deaf. When I tell people this, one of the most common response is "Oh, don't worry. I'm a little bit deaf too." Now not to go policing people on their identities but -- no you're not.

Like what do I need to say? Clinically deaf. Severe-profoundly deaf. Cannot hear a fire alarm without hearing aids?

It's one thing when it's an elderly person. Yes maybe they are in fact a bit deaf too. But for all the people in their 30s or 40s who have said it to me -- the odds they all have moderate or worse hearing loss is nil! Most of the people who are saying it presumably have normal hearing. I understand that they're trying to identify with and not alienate me. But it's such a strange dynamic.

The thing is, many people have valid reasons not to trust the medical system. Not so long ago:

1. Homosexuality was considered a mental disease

2. Forced sterilization of minorities was good medical practice

3. FDA ignored warnings about pesticides being potentially harmful because that would be bad for business

4. FDA ignored warnings about pesticides being potentially harmful because that would be bad for international politics

5. Entire field of psychiatry was just basically random shit, it's not until very recently that we have any actual scientific knowledge

6. Pregnant women were presribed medicine that fucked up their fetuses

Not to mention that most likely when you go to a doctor you're not getting state-of-the-art diasgnosis, most likely the doctor is just a random guy doing his job, sometimes better sometimes worse. Personally I don't trust medical system with my mental health because medical system is a product of a society that made me have mental problems in the first place.

"Truth hurts, don't it" is a very true phrase. It's a very sick trend affecting Millennials and Gen Z alike, and contributes to other worse mental health and criminal outcomes.

It's not even new.

Somewhat unrelated, but I complain about the same thing in software parlance. Our work gets divided up into "sprints". A SPRINT is traditionally something you do a handful of times in your life, like when you're fleeing for your life, pursued by a bear. And then when you're a safe distance away and the adrenaline wears off, you collapse from exhaustion and rest. The idea that your employer would use that term to describe how they envision their employees structuring every day of the rest of their lives is either painfully tone-deaf, or even worse, is a brutally honest view of how they regard employee burnout.

apparently, any time that you need to politely smile when you dont feel like it is "masking"

To be fair, giving you an example of someone else who performatively pretends to have a mental illness is a great way to understand them.

I mean, our industry is filled with people of all ages with ADHD (arguably because it’s one of the few industries where you can succeed while having severe ADHD), GenZ folks are just more likely to admit it in public where older millennials are more likely to either be quiet about it or ignore the fact that they are subject to it.

That said, if that's what the author was trying to talk about, I think they are doing so in a way that unfairly indicts the medical system for assertions it doesn't make. They say "Apparently, that’s a disease", but as I said I do not think it is. I think they've misunderstood what makes a disease under the diagnostic criteria they list.

> We could just as well have a culture that treats grief as a normal part of the human experience.

That culture does exist. Even in this article there is an experience of grief that's considered normative in the medical community. Including, I would argue, the authors' grief. I would argue that the medical approach to grief is actually better than other western treatments of grief.

I agree that western cultures (and US culture in particular) is horrible about grief. We want people to be robotic and predictable and not make us think about loss and be sad in private and a whole mess of awful, inhuman things. But I don't think that pressure either comes from the medical community or is furthered by how the medical community talks about grief.

Edit: I specifically think it's wrong to say we medicalize grief because we fear it. We medicalize it because some people would like a medical intervention with their grief. It's great and right that the author does not want that - but also they shouldn't write in a way that suggest that medical interventions in grief are wrongheaded.

I don’t believe, completely in the narrative of American men not taking stuff out, but it is a factor. The underlying issue for not talking stuff out is ensuring you feel understood. That you are not alone in this experience. That grief is okay, normal. That you have been taught a life philosophy that encompasses grief. That it can exist without consuming all. It helps anchor these powerful emotions. There are other ways to achieve this, everyone will have their own strategies. I do think you have to have a philosophy and process to handle grief however you do it.

I believe in acknowledging grief and practicing Stoic style thinking to stay present. It really helps me to acknowledge the moment is precious. Wrenching on a car with a buddy. Sitting at the dinner table with your family. Acknowledge how special that is. That it won’t last forever. Cannot. Tell them and yourself how special it is. Visualize life without that moment anymore. Bring a little grief to the every day and present as a part of our human condition. It is okay! It is not spoiling the moment if you are using that emotion to fully experience the present.

Grief as many people experience and process it is almost always the past. Even simply acknowledging it as the powerful force in our mind can help tame it. Observe the grief so to speak, see it as an observer. I am glad you found your way. Everyone should think about grief and talk about it. Just part of us.