Grieving Someone Who’s Still Alive
One of the hardest kinds of pain is the grief we don’t feel “allowed” to name. Losing someone to death is devastating, but at least the world understands the word grief in that context.
But what about grieving someone who is still here?
Maybe it’s a parent who can’t show up the way you desperately needed.
Maybe it’s a partner who’s emotionally checked out.
Maybe it’s a friend whose illness has changed them.
Maybe it’s a child you love deeply but the relationship looks nothing like you imagined.
Maybe it’s someone who walked away without giving you closure.
Or maybe the person is physically present but emotionally… gone.
This kind of grief is confusing. There’s no funeral, no ritual, no clear “ending.” The relationship is technically still alive, but the version of them, or the version of the relationship, you loved is not.
Why This Type of Grief Hurts So Much
When someone is still alive, the grief becomes tangled with hope, anger, confusion, guilt, and sometimes shame for even feeling this way. You might wonder:
“Is it okay for me to grieve this?”
“Why can’t I just accept them for who they are now?”
“How do I let go when they’re still in my life?”
There can also be this painful push-pull:
Part of you wants to hold on.
Part of you knows you need distance.
Part of you is waiting for them to change.
Part of you is mourning the fact that they likely won’t.
That tension drains your nervous system constantly.
Trauma Makes This Even Harder
If you have a trauma history, especially attachment trauma, this type of grief hits even deeper.
You may blame yourself for the loss.
You may keep trying to earn back the version of them you remember.
A younger part of you may feel abandoned or not good enough.
The uncertainty may activate old survival patterns: fawning, over-functioning, or shutting down emotionally.
What Healing Can Look Like
Healing this kind of grief isn’t about cutting someone off or pretending you don’t care. It’s about:
letting yourself name the loss
grieving the version of them you loved
accepting the truth of who they are now
allowing yourself to update the relationship in a way that protects you
supporting the younger parts of you who are hurting
In IFS terms, the grieving part, the hopeful part, the angry part, and the loyal-to-a-fault part all deserve space. None of them are wrong. They’re trying to help you make sense of something incredibly complicated.
You’re Not Broken. You’re Human.
Grieving someone who is alive is one of the most human experiences there is. There wouldn’t be grief if there hadn’t once been love or hope. The relationship mattered to you. In this type of grief your heart is catching up to a reality your mind already knows.
You are allowed to grieve a person who’s still walking this earth.
You are allowed to honor the loss, no apology needed.
And you are allowed to move forward without abandoning the parts of you that still hurt.
