Managing grief

Let’s face it, death isn’t a typical dinner conversation topic. And often, when the subject does come up, we speak about it in hushed euphemisms: “She’s passed”; “He’s no longer with us” – anything but the D-word. Yet 500,000 people die every year in England alone, with each death directly affecting at least five others. Every year, most of us have a birthday card we don’t send, and times we miss being able to turn and talk to someone we’ve loved and lost. Death and grief affects all of us, in some way, all the time. So why don’t we talk about it more?

“We’re told it’s a depressing subject that should be avoided,” says bereavement counsellor Julia Samuel, (Penguin Life, £9.18). “And there’s also an element of magical thinking – as though by speaking about death, you’ll somehow invite it.” But, she argues, that can mean we struggle when we have to deal with grief. Our culture’s tendency to tiptoe around death can mean you don’t express grief in a healthy way. The result? You may develop unhealthy strategies to deal with your pain, from throwing yourself into an inappropriate relationship to drinking too much.