Ambiguous Loss: When You're Grieving a Person Who's Still Alive

We're three weeks into grief month, and this episode goes somewhere that doesn't get nearly enough airtime — grieving someone who is still alive. Whether you've had to create distance from a relationship for your own well-being, or you're mourning a version of a person who is no longer who they once were, this kind of loss is real, disorienting, and deserves to be named.

In this Therapy Is My Cardio segment, Jessica walks through the clinical framework of ambiguous loss and four powerful shifts that actually move the needle — straight from the therapy room.

What You'll Learn in This Episode

1. What ambiguous loss is and why it's one of the hardest kinds of grief to process
2. The two main forms ambiguous loss takes — and which one you may be living with
3. Why humans struggle so much with unresolved, "open loop" losses
4. Four practical reps for working through relational grief
5. Why your healing does not require the other person's participation
6. How grief and love can coexist without contradiction

Coming Up Next Week

We're closing out grief month with identity grief — grieving a version of yourself that existed before the thing that changed everything. Don't miss it.

Clinical Concepts Mentioned

1. Ambiguous loss (Pauline Boss)
2. Role grief vs. person grief
3. Narrative disruption in grief processing
4. Internal resolution without external closure
5. Grief and love as co-existing emotional states

Connect With Jessica

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