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

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

Newsletter: https://healingismyhobby.com

Website: https://healingismyhobby.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby

Clinical Practice: https://jessicacolarcolcsw.com

Clinical Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicacolarcolcsw

Want to stay in the know? Subscribe to our newsletter here. Contact Jessica here. Let's connect: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingismyhobby/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@healingismyhobby Would you like to learn more about Jessica's clinical practice? Click here.

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Episoder(36)

Identity Grief: Losing a Version of Yourself

Identity Grief: Losing a Version of Yourself

In this final episode of the April grief series, Jessica explores identity grief — the grief that comes not from death, but from losing a version of yourself. Whether it's a milestone birthday, a care...

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The Grief Nobody Validates

The Grief Nobody Validates

Episode SummaryIn this week's This Might Be a Trauma Response segment, Jessica takes the conversation about grief a layer deeper — moving beyond last week's broad definition of loss into a specific an...

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Grief Doesn't Always Look Like Crying

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Why Am I Like This? The High-Functioning Trauma Edition

Why Am I Like This? The High-Functioning Trauma Edition

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What Is Trauma, Really? Big T, Little t, and Two Experiments to Try Today

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Your nervous system isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do.But when the danger has passed and the responses stay — the numbness, the sleeplessness, the reactions that feel way too...

23 Mar 20min

Master Your Nervous System: 4 Steps to Calm Mild Triggers

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What if your triggers weren't signs of weakness, but proof your nervous system is working exactly as designed? In this Therapy Is My Cardio workout, Jessica walks you through a four-step real-time reg...

16 Mar 9min

Trauma Explained: Big T, Little t, and the Nervous System

Trauma Explained: Big T, Little t, and the Nervous System

What if trauma isn’t defined by the event — but by how your nervous system experienced it?In this episode of Healing Is My Hobby, Jessica Colarco, LCSW, breaks down one of the most misunderstood topic...

9 Mar 23min

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