Role Loss

Excerpt from “Grief is Holy: A Practical Guide to Grieving with God”:

Role loss is also one that can intersect other losses. In the case of the death of a loved one, your spouse, friend, parent, or sibling passes away, and they take with them the title of your relationship. You may no longer be considered someone’s wife or brother or mom. When someone else’s role changed, yours did too.

This could also look like the job you worked at for 30 years choosing to let you go because they’ve hired someone who’s younger and a little faster at the tasks than you are. Maybe your children don’t need you or run to you like they used to. Now you’re not sure how to be a mom in spurts. Your heart’s in it full-time, but your role is feeling like your hours have gotten cut.

This can also refer to your childhood. Maybe you had to grow up too soon for whatever reason - whether there was a sexual experience that happened with or without your permission, or your parents got divorced and you had to take care of your younger siblings’ emotions at the expense of taking care of your own. Maybe there was parentification, and you as a child became a parent for your parents, handling things that were way too heavy for your age. Childhood gone, innocence removed, and your permission wasn’t given for any of it.

Often our roles are tied to our identity. Who are we when what we’re connected to gets taken away, or is different than the way we used to know it? Role loss feels like a piece of us is gone, and we don’t know what to do or who we are without it. We always feel like something’s missing when that part of our identity is unresolved, or is subject to the decisions of someone else.

What have you experienced when it comes to role loss?