The importance of finding community in grief

Connecting with other bereaved people helped me heal.

In the weeks and months after my brother Elliot passed away, I trawled through pages and pages of Google searches, desperately trying to find someone who’d shared their experience of sibling loss. As insomnia took me in it’s arms like an overbearing relative, keeping me alert to the uncertainty of the long, dark nights that come with grief, I would arrive at the doors of internet forums that had long been abandoned, trying desperately to relate to the stories I found there.

Podcasts weren’t as much of a thing back then, so the very few YouTube videos I’d find on the subject would be played on repeat as I tried to get some sleep, the strangers in them keeping me company when I felt completely alone.

In 2013 when I lost my brother, there weren’t many resources out there for people who’d lost a sibling. The books on loss were either very clinical or too impersonal. The online resources weren’t often catered specifically for the loss of a sibling. I was navigating the rough and unforgiving terrain that was grief without the help I needed to get through the worst of the storm. I couldn’t see my own two feet, let alone a destination. Grief is a lot more isolating when you have nobody else to share it with.

Despite it being a lot better in the last ten years, society has generally been pretty shit at talking about loss. We’ve avoided it like the plague, hoping if we keep our heads down for long enough, it might stop competing for our attention. Nobody wants to be the person who depresses everyone else in the room with their macabre outlook on life. I liken it to that scene in the new Barbie film when Margot Robbie’s character asks if any of the other Barbies ‘think about dying’ before the music cuts out, the rest of the Barbies and Kens standing in silence, horrified by the idea anyone could have those dark thoughts, let alone speak them out loud.

Many of us who have experienced grief wish we could live in the naivety of Barbieland. But unfortunately, loss is the price we pay for being human. 

So after months of suffering in silence, stumbling through the maze of life after loss, I came across a forum run by a charity called The Compassionate Friends. At the time, I was desperate to understand why grief was so physically painful. I felt like a stranger in my own body, chronically anxious about every muscle pain and unusual feeling I couldn’t find a reason for with Dr. Google. Grief was making me unwell, and most days I wanted to climb out of my own skin. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes before panic set in. I carried my emotional pain like chain mail, a heavy burden across my shoulders. 

Although the posts on the forum were no longer active, the site led me to a number of Facebook support groups specifically for sibling loss. After typing out my reason for joining, I waited anxiously to be accepted. Within an hour, I was a member of a Facebook group nobody really wanted to be in. After scrolling through the stories of other bereaved siblings, finding comfort in the fact I wasn’t alone in worrying that this overwhelming grief might drive me to madness, I typed up my first post in the group. I was looking for a few words of support from people who knew this pain.

I was quickly inundated with comments from other members, all sharing their own experiences of loss. Despite having never met face to face, we recognised each other. We saw ourselves and our experiences reflected in each other like a mirror.

Over the last ten years, the people in those support groups have helped me heal. Even if I posted in the early hours of the morning, struggling to find words for my feelings, a familiar face would pop up in my notifications, equally as desperate to find company in the depths of their loss. Over the years, I’ve made real-life friends through the group as we’ve added each other to our personal Facebook accounts. Every year I see their anniversary posts and remember their brothers and sisters as though I knew them personally. I know them through the stories their loved ones tell about them, the loving anecdotes and memories that allow them to live on, memorialised on social media. Some of these people I still haven’t met, but they feel like family to me. 

A few years after joining the support groups, I plucked up the courage to go to my first sibling bereaved retreat, organised by The Compassionate Friends. I almost cancelled hours before getting on a train to the venue, imagining the awkwardness of being stuck in a room full of people I might not relate to or get on with. Looking back, I’m so glad I pushed myself to go to that first retreat. Connecting with people you’ve only spoken to online can be a daunting experience, but I felt I knew so much about these strangers already. We were connected by the loss of our siblings and I was surrounded by people whom I didn’t have to explain myself to because they just understood. After each person shared their story in the group sessions, we’d reply “It’s just shit isn’t it?”. There was no need to put any of our feelings into coherent words or translate why we felt the way we did which I often felt I had to do with others.

Finding community in grief is so important for your mental well-being. It gives us a sense of belonging, a place to share our thoughts and feelings with people we can relate to. You know you have a safe space to share your thoughts when you feel nobody else will understand you.  Online communities mean we have access to a network of support at any time, day and night. Reading other bereaved people’s stories can help us understand our own loss and create an outlet for our grief.

Although I still regularly speak to many of the bereaved siblings I met online, my posts on the Facebook groups have become less frequent in the last few years as I’ve become busier with work and found other coping mechanisms. I still leave comments on other posts, leaving some words of support for those swept up in the tornado of loss that runs through your life after losing someone you love. Grief will often trip you up again when you least expect it. Big anniversaries, significant life events, or just certain times of the year can make you feel like you’re back at square one. That’s why online communities are so important to healing and finding support.

T.A. Webb: “A burden shared is a burden halved.”