On Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia"
Sometimes, you read an article by Freud, and being young and just starting grad school, you say, "Ew, Freud! Penis envy! Castration! EW!" and basically read the article with your fingers in your ears singing "La la la I can't hear you, you sexist authoritarian jerkface!" Then you read it again a few years later, and think, "Ah, yes, Freud, brilliant man, had some very good points-- shame that he's wrong about this one." Then one day, you're walking along, thinking about something completely different, and you think, "Oh, that's what he meant! That's very good."
So it is with Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917). In this paper, Freud describes the differences between the processes of mourning and of melancholia (a.k.a. depression), by saying that "mourning" is the process, after a loss, of removing one's energy/libido from the lost beloved. "Melancholia," on the other hand, is the state in which one's energy remains invested in the lost person or thing. The inaccessibility of this energy results in a painful emptiness in the self, and hatred of the depleted self which hides hatred of the abandoning lost person/thing. The lost person/thing is seen less and less as its own separate being, and more a split-off part of the self. In order to recover, the person must cut off from the lost person/thing entirely-- let it be "as dead," so that the person's energy can return to the person.
I initially saw Freud as saying that in order to recover from a loss, we must stop loving our dead-- and that mourning is a process we go through and then end. That didn't match my experience of grief. When people I've loved have died, I still love them and think about them for years afterwards. The best description I've seen of it is in Sandman: "You attend the funeral, you bid farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times, the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live." That didn't sound to me like cutting off from the dead.
But I don't think that's what Freud meant. I think he meant something I've been noticing lately, in others and also in myself, in terms of dealing with a loss. I don't think Freud meant that you need to stop loving your lost ones. I think he meant that you must be all right with the fact that it will be okay again.
When you love someone (or something), they are necessary for your happiness. So is their happiness-- you feel unhappy when they feel unhappy, even if not as intensely as they do. When they are gone, your universe is not quite right. You may have many things you're happy about, but there is a way in which you are simply not okay.
When you lose someone or something, you have two options. One is to live in a universe wherein they are no longer necessary for your happiness. You still love them, you still think about them and miss them and remember what they taught you, but you do not need them in order for you to be okay. And what this means is that you give up the specific kind of "being okay" which they gave you. The ways they made you feel good, the ways they made you happy and reassured you and taught you things-- you will have to find those things in others, or in yourself, or in your memories, because you cannot have them any more from that person. (Or place, or job, or title, or religion, or identity, or whatever else you lose.)
The other option is to live in a universe where you are not okay without that lost beloved. The advantage of this universe is that you can believe, on some level, that someday you will get the beloved back, and then you will be okay again-- that same kind of okay, that same way. Rationally, you may know it will never happen-- the person is dead, that group of friends has scattered across the country-- but you believe you cannot find the kind of "being okay" which they gave you ever again, anywhere else. On a deep level, you believe that your choice is to renounce having that kind of "being okay," forever-- or to stay in your current state of miserable not-being-okay for some amount of time after which the beloved will return (or you will die). You are miserable and angry, but you hold onto that connection to the lost beloved, because you cannot imagine both loving them and being okay without them. Letting go is betraying them. Worse, letting go is accepting that they betrayed you by dying, or leaving, or letting you go.
I think it's normal, for a while after a loss, to reject the idea that you can be okay again. The loss makes strikingly clear to you all the ways in which the beloved made you feel okay, how fundamental they were to your life, all the little subtle ways you didn't notice until they were gone. It takes a while to catalog these effects, to see them all clearly and understand them-- and I think that process is necessary, too, if you're ever going to find those ways of being okay elsewhere.
But I think in the end, it comes down to the question: are you going to be okay again? Are you going to accept that those ways of being okay are gone, and take the risk of trying to find new ones? Are you going to invest the energy and effort it will take to go from your current state of miserable stasis (which is, at least, somewhat restful, if uncomfortably so) to something different? You may be so exhausted from the loss and the process of mourning it that you cannot imagine summoning the energy you would need to find something new. It is a risk, because it's possible that you will not find new ways of getting that kind of okay. No-one else may make you feel the same way, your memories may fade. Your new okay may not be as good as the old one.
But on the other hand, it may be good in different ways. It may be better. At very least, you may be free of your current misery. There's no way of knowing unless you accept the possibility of a new okay-- and the painful letting go of the necessity of the old one.
Even then, though, there comes the question-- what if I find a new way of being okay, what if I go to all the trouble of finding it and building it strong-- and then I lose that one, too? Won't I just end up right back here, as miserable as I am now, but additionally exhausted and hurting for all the effort of going through the cycle again? That fear, I think, more than anything else, is what makes people willing to stay in not-okay. Not-okay is both exhausted and restful-- it's a state of stasis, where you don't take in anything good, but don't expend energy, either. You just sit there, being not-okay, neither further tried nor restored.
In that state, it's hard to remember that when you are okay, you get more good things. When you are okay, you gain strength and energy from the people around you, the fulfilling things you do, the food you naturally remember to eat without having to remind yourself. When you are okay, your mind and body are in a constant state of restoration and replenishment-- growth, even. And the growth means that when the wheel of fate turns around again, and you next lose the things that make you okay, you will be stronger and better able to cope. It may not be as not-okay then as it is this time.
It's a risk. And it can be hard to summon up the energy to take the risk. And that makes sense. It's okay to not be okay for a while.
But not forever.
--R
So it is with Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917). In this paper, Freud describes the differences between the processes of mourning and of melancholia (a.k.a. depression), by saying that "mourning" is the process, after a loss, of removing one's energy/libido from the lost beloved. "Melancholia," on the other hand, is the state in which one's energy remains invested in the lost person or thing. The inaccessibility of this energy results in a painful emptiness in the self, and hatred of the depleted self which hides hatred of the abandoning lost person/thing. The lost person/thing is seen less and less as its own separate being, and more a split-off part of the self. In order to recover, the person must cut off from the lost person/thing entirely-- let it be "as dead," so that the person's energy can return to the person.
I initially saw Freud as saying that in order to recover from a loss, we must stop loving our dead-- and that mourning is a process we go through and then end. That didn't match my experience of grief. When people I've loved have died, I still love them and think about them for years afterwards. The best description I've seen of it is in Sandman: "You attend the funeral, you bid farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times, the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live." That didn't sound to me like cutting off from the dead.
But I don't think that's what Freud meant. I think he meant something I've been noticing lately, in others and also in myself, in terms of dealing with a loss. I don't think Freud meant that you need to stop loving your lost ones. I think he meant that you must be all right with the fact that it will be okay again.
When you love someone (or something), they are necessary for your happiness. So is their happiness-- you feel unhappy when they feel unhappy, even if not as intensely as they do. When they are gone, your universe is not quite right. You may have many things you're happy about, but there is a way in which you are simply not okay.
When you lose someone or something, you have two options. One is to live in a universe wherein they are no longer necessary for your happiness. You still love them, you still think about them and miss them and remember what they taught you, but you do not need them in order for you to be okay. And what this means is that you give up the specific kind of "being okay" which they gave you. The ways they made you feel good, the ways they made you happy and reassured you and taught you things-- you will have to find those things in others, or in yourself, or in your memories, because you cannot have them any more from that person. (Or place, or job, or title, or religion, or identity, or whatever else you lose.)
The other option is to live in a universe where you are not okay without that lost beloved. The advantage of this universe is that you can believe, on some level, that someday you will get the beloved back, and then you will be okay again-- that same kind of okay, that same way. Rationally, you may know it will never happen-- the person is dead, that group of friends has scattered across the country-- but you believe you cannot find the kind of "being okay" which they gave you ever again, anywhere else. On a deep level, you believe that your choice is to renounce having that kind of "being okay," forever-- or to stay in your current state of miserable not-being-okay for some amount of time after which the beloved will return (or you will die). You are miserable and angry, but you hold onto that connection to the lost beloved, because you cannot imagine both loving them and being okay without them. Letting go is betraying them. Worse, letting go is accepting that they betrayed you by dying, or leaving, or letting you go.
I think it's normal, for a while after a loss, to reject the idea that you can be okay again. The loss makes strikingly clear to you all the ways in which the beloved made you feel okay, how fundamental they were to your life, all the little subtle ways you didn't notice until they were gone. It takes a while to catalog these effects, to see them all clearly and understand them-- and I think that process is necessary, too, if you're ever going to find those ways of being okay elsewhere.
But I think in the end, it comes down to the question: are you going to be okay again? Are you going to accept that those ways of being okay are gone, and take the risk of trying to find new ones? Are you going to invest the energy and effort it will take to go from your current state of miserable stasis (which is, at least, somewhat restful, if uncomfortably so) to something different? You may be so exhausted from the loss and the process of mourning it that you cannot imagine summoning the energy you would need to find something new. It is a risk, because it's possible that you will not find new ways of getting that kind of okay. No-one else may make you feel the same way, your memories may fade. Your new okay may not be as good as the old one.
But on the other hand, it may be good in different ways. It may be better. At very least, you may be free of your current misery. There's no way of knowing unless you accept the possibility of a new okay-- and the painful letting go of the necessity of the old one.
Even then, though, there comes the question-- what if I find a new way of being okay, what if I go to all the trouble of finding it and building it strong-- and then I lose that one, too? Won't I just end up right back here, as miserable as I am now, but additionally exhausted and hurting for all the effort of going through the cycle again? That fear, I think, more than anything else, is what makes people willing to stay in not-okay. Not-okay is both exhausted and restful-- it's a state of stasis, where you don't take in anything good, but don't expend energy, either. You just sit there, being not-okay, neither further tried nor restored.
In that state, it's hard to remember that when you are okay, you get more good things. When you are okay, you gain strength and energy from the people around you, the fulfilling things you do, the food you naturally remember to eat without having to remind yourself. When you are okay, your mind and body are in a constant state of restoration and replenishment-- growth, even. And the growth means that when the wheel of fate turns around again, and you next lose the things that make you okay, you will be stronger and better able to cope. It may not be as not-okay then as it is this time.
It's a risk. And it can be hard to summon up the energy to take the risk. And that makes sense. It's okay to not be okay for a while.
But not forever.
--R