I am experiencing ambiguous loss

Two summers ago, after a year of shameful drinking behavior, I ran away from my hometown and quit my job via drunken text message. I wasn’t willing or able to show up for the shit show of a life my drinking had, once again, created. Acknowledging the pain I had caused my loved ones was unbearable. So rather than dealing with the situation, I fled.

Ever since then I have been experiencing an unexplainable sense of grief. My family is still alive and well. Why does it feel like I experienced multiple deaths? Does everyone think I am just a cold-hearted addict? Am I even allowed to feel this way after causing so much pain?

Recently I stumbled upon a term coined by Pauline Boss in the 1970s called ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss occurs when a person suffers a confusing loss that they are unable to process. Boss describes two basic types of ambiguous loss:

1. Person perceived as physically absent, but psychologically present.
2. Person perceived as physically present, but psychologically absent.

One of the hardest parts about recovery, for me and possibly most addicts, is coming to terms with the first kind of ambiguous loss. One of Al-Anon's main principles is detachment, for goodness sake. Al-Anon teaches folks to physically remove themselves from the addict's life as a form of self-preservation. It’s not uncommon for addicts to lose all communication with their families. My family has been physically absent from my life for two years, but sometimes psychologically present through my iPhone. The distance between us has created what feels like a large frozen mass of grief hovering above my heart.

Additionally, there is no doubt in my mind that families who deal with addiction first hand also experience the second type of ambiguous loss. While I was engaged with my eating disorder and alcohol addiction, I was physically present, but dead on the inside. My addictions worked as numbing agents, freezing all emotion. My family was not living with me, they were living with a hollow frame fueled by shame.

Understanding ambiguous loss helps me normalize and understand the gut-wrenching grief that comes with sobriety. I have been grieving my life before, during, and after addiction without proper language in a society that stigmatizes and looks down upon me for years. The cards have not been stacked in my favor. It makes sense that this is hard.

Pauline Boss’s work finally put language to my experience. Her work has helped me understand my emotions and, as a result, has helped lift some of my “runaway addict” shame. Next time I feel that pit of ambiguous loss in my stomach, I can welcome those emotions with open arms knowing it is perfectly normal to feel this way. 

I am experiencing ambiguous loss.