From a very young age, we begin to develop expectations about the world around us. Our brains create rules to help us organize the boatloads of information we encounter every day. Some of these are simple, practical rules. As we age they become more complex rules, which we apply in almost all situations. They shape our beliefs and expectations about life. There are schemas (aka schemata) that rule our understanding of objects, people, roles, traits, and most other aspects of our lives. We absorb subtle ideas about what values our family, culture, and society have collectively attributed to things, and these shape our schemas.

Wait, wasn't this article supposed to be about nonfinite grief?

I know, this sounds like it has nothing to do with grief. But bear with me. Schemas are critical to understanding nonfinite grief. Because the meaning and significance we ascribe to the things we want, expect, idealize, and fear in life begins early. Things can become meaningful to us long before we actually have (or lose)- them, because of our expectations and ideals. When life is proceeding as we anticipated, we barely notice these schemas. If we don’t encounter anything that challenges or violates our schema, then we just go on living, tucking the things that happen neatly into our existing expectations.

Imagine I came from a childhood where my family and peers generally expected me to get good grades, go to college, settle into a stable career, meet a man, get married, and have children. That is what I saw in my friends and family members around me. If everything proceeds seamlessly along that path, those schemas are just running in the background. As I check things of the list, I file it away as part of my 'normal', good, or successful life. Schemas are often only barely on the edge of conscious awareness. But what happens if my life veers from that course?

Nonfinite Grief and the Loss of Plans, Hopes, and Expectations

Now imagine in that same scenario that I went to college, met someone, and got married. My mind keeps seeking and expecting the next things too – a stable career, getting pregnant and having children. But imagine if I can’t find work in my chosen career or can't get pregnant. Suddenly my life has diverged from my schema for a normal, happy, or meaningful life. In this situation, I'm suddenly acutely aware of the ways my life does not align with my expectations.

Nonfinite grief is the grief we feel when we lose these non-tangible things, watching our imagined future dissolve. Sometimes this starts with a death, though quite often it can be a result of many nondeath losses. In Nonfinite Loss and Grief, Bruce and Shultz define this grief that exists when life falls short of our expectations. They say that nonfinite grief is “contingent development; the passage of time; and on a lack of synchrony with hopes, wishes, ideals, and expectations”. There is an ongoing dissonance between our expected life and the life we're living.

Nonfinite Grief Creates Fear

Often, one step beyond the uncertainty and the dissonance, is fear and dread. Of course there is always a fear of the unknown, when the life we pictured falls away. But sometimes it is more than that. Sometimes the life unfolding one that our schema tells us is something to be feared and avoided.

For example, when I realize my career and plans for a family won’t be what I always imagined, there is a deep loss that I must acknowledge and continue to grieve. There is also uncertainty but, more than that, if my schema understands a life without that career or without children as something objectively dreadful or terrifying, this creates even more fear. Let’s be clear, here. If I’ve always wanted children and that doesn’t happen, there will be overwhelming grief regardless. But that fear can make adapting even more difficult.

If, instead, my schema accommodates that there are many types of meaningful families, some with children, some without children, my pain will still be immense. I still with have the devastating grief of losing the life I wanted and imagined. But I will not have the added barrier of believing the alternative is something fearful. I won’t assume that a meaningful life is impossible for anyone, even if I see it as difficult for me.

Nonfinite Grief is Ongoing and Separates One from the Mainstream or ‘Ideal Life’

One of the challenges of nonfinite losses is that they are ongoing. A specific event often creates the loss, but the impact of the loss continues across time. For instance, if I experience a devastating injury that leaves me paralyzed, this is a single event. But this isn’t simply a single event to be grieve, but rather a loss that will be ongoing. Each aspect of my life impacted by the injury, in the present and the future, expands the loss. Nonfinite losses often, though not always, create life where people feel their experience is now “other” or "abnormal". Rather than viewing the new life trajectory an alternative path, we see it as less-than, abnormal, and outside the bounds of a mainstream experience. (Schultz & Harris, 2011). This not only creates a distance between the self and other, but it also reinforces the path that is vs the path that should be.

Grieving The Ideal Life

Many of the examples of nonfinite grief that we’ve shared thus far involve an event that derails a trajectory. If I am a professional hockey player, in my first year in the NHL. I expect and imagine a long future as a player when an injury ends my career. It is easy to understand why I might find myself grieving what ‘could have been’ or ‘what should have been’ because I reasonably expected that life.

But what if my mother left me when I was just a baby? I never met her, nor did I ever have any expectation that she would be in my life or my future. Though this type of nonfinite grief will have plenty of differences from that when our trajectory is actively derailed, this is still it’s own loss. The idea of a mother-child relationship is part of most people’s schema of the ideal life, the life that one should have. Even if we never knew a life on that path, we can still feel a deep sense of loss that we didn’t have that relationship we believe we should have had.

Dealing with grief can be confusing, particularly when its difficult to see.  Next time we will post some helpful tips to navigate nonfinite loss.  If you feel you would like to talk to someone about your grief with a professional, please do not hesitate to contact us either via the website, email: [email protected], or phone: 48621701.