Crafting an Escape Plan for Your Grief
When you’re anticipating a loss and you need to get out fast.
A couple of months ago, I sat down with a close friend to talk about the impending death of her loved one. She, her family, and a collection of doctors knew that it had come down to a waiting game and decided that it was just a matter of time before they were all going to have to face this life-changing loss.
She was experiencing anticipatory grief, of course — grieving in advance of a death — but she expressed another fear with me that I remembered having when I entered the waiting game in my own loss.
My friend expressed anxiety about getting the news… specifically getting the news at work. Or getting the news while driving. Or getting the news while she was out somewhere with friends.
Distance makes getting bad news hard — but what makes it even harder is being out in a public place, where the emotion hits you raw and all at once. How can you possibly prepare for that?
I told her that it might be a really good idea to think about crafting an escape plan for the moment she got the news — literally strategizing and visualizing the steps she would take…
