When Grief Isn’t Recognised: Hidden Disenfranchised Grief

Exploring the hidden emotions that might sit beneath stress, anxiety, or low mood and adjustment disorder…

Grief doesn’t always arrive with tears, eulogies, or sympathy cards. Sometimes, it hides in plain sight—under sadness that doesn’t make sense, motivation that suddenly vanishes, or an anxious feeling you can’t quite name.

You might be feeling overwhelmed after a breakup, a job change, a health diagnosis, or simply a big life transition. And maybe people around you are supportive… but only to a point. Or maybe they say things like, “It could be worse,” or “You’ll bounce back.” Or maybe, you say this to yourself!

Minimising your experience, and your feelings can be harmful.

Because deep down, part of you feels like something important has been lost. Even if no one else seems to see it. And sometimes the loss isn’t recognised at all because something wonderful has been gained and becomes the focus: like the birth of a beautiful healthy baby (but the loss of your independant identity) or the pronation at work (but the loss of being with an amazing team or special colleague).

This quiet, often unacknowledged pain is known as ‘disenfranchised’ or ‘ambiguous’ grief—a kind of grief that doesn’t always get recognized or validated by others.

It can show up when:

• You end a relationship and feel like your whole identity has shifted

• You leave a job, a city, or a version of yourself behind

• You experience infertility, illness, or an invisible health condition

• You care for a loved one whose needs have taken over your own

• You miss a person who’s still alive—but no longer emotionally present in your life

I encourage you to gently consider: have there been times in your life when a stressful or difficult experience was actually wrapped in grief? A grief that maybe wasn’t about a person dying, but still marked the end of something meaningful?

Even when the world doesn’t notice your pain, you can.

And I’d invite you—if it feels right—to honour those quiet losses with the care and tenderness they deserve.

Grief is, in its own way, a form of love.When something you value is changed beyond recognition or lost entirely, the love you once expressed outwardly becomes a heavy, heartbroken energy inside you. It doesn’t know where to go.

Giving yourself time to name it, to sit with it, to feel it—this is the beginning of growing around the grief. And the gift that can slowly emerge (though you may need support to get there) is a deeper compassion for yourself. A capacity to meet your own pain gently. And perhaps, in time, to hold more empathy for others too.

Because if there’s one thing we all share in this human experience, it’s this:

We love deeply.

We lose things we never thought we’d have to let go of.

And we grieve—quietly, imperfectly, and in our own time.