The Brain and Grief: Navigating the Fog

 The Brain and Grief:
Navigating the Fog

Part Two

      The night of January 24th, 2024 will always be etched in my mind.  We should have been celebrating my son's oldest birthday, instead Tiffanie was being transported by ambulance to the York Hospital because of the amount of fluid that was building up on her heart.  That was the first domino that would fall that would lead to her passing ten months later.  It would also be the first day that grief would become a normal part of my vernacular.  I vividly remember that night.  Tiff was in the ambulance and she sent me home to pick up a few items from the house.  I remember calling people frantically, crying, hurting, and having an overflow of emotions.  I then had to drive over an hour to the hospital.  The drive was up mountain roads that I was unfamiliar with.  The fog was so thick.  I couldn't make out what was in front of me.  The road was still there, the signs were still standing, and my destination on the GPS still showed that it existed.  I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.  I kept my speed incredibly slow and I braked at every sharp turn.   Little did I know the prophetic nature of that drive.  My life would soon be in a fog, but emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.  My typical steel trap of a memory vanished overnight, but I had to ask myself, what happened?  

      This is part two of my look at how grief affects the brain.  Just a quick disclaimer, I am not a therapist, counselor, nor a physician.  I am just someone who has personally carried the weight of death and loss.  The last time I wrote about how the brain struggles with emotional responses, now I want to focus on another part of the brain.  This part of the brain is called the hippocampus.  The hippocampus sits deep in the brain, highly protected because of it's vital role for learning and retaining memories.  This part of the brain organizes memories and directly helps us navigate life's daily decisions.  Grief is like a shock to the brain, it overloads it and overwhelms it.  The brain tries to rewire itself, or maybe a better way of saying it, it tries to reconcile the newly felt, deep seated loss.  The brain gets attached to things and people.  Things and people become normal to the brain.  A loss of someone that we deeply love or news that will alter our life forever is like water boarding the brain.  The brain literally seeks out the person that we lost.  There are moments in grief when the person thinks that their loved one will just walk right through the door.  That's totally normal and expected.  The best way that I can explain this event is when your computer or phone needs to update.  It takes awhile for your device to catch up and update.  The brain does the same thing.  The brain misses that person.  It has become attached to them.  That isn't theory, that's fact.

      So, what does this look like?  When grief strikes, the brain sends out cortisol which is a stress hormone.  This stress hormone infringes on the ability of the brain to recall or remember.  Some people call it grief fog or grief brain.  The person is under an neurobiological storm and their brain literally struggles to recall.  Over time an 'overdose of cortisol' can cause long term damage to the brain. For me personally, I struggled with remembering where I parked my car, walking into a room and not remembering why, I couldn't concentrate, I forgot to pay bills, I forgot appointments, having a hard time maintaining conversations, and my work load struggled.  I worked at a very busy ministry that required a lot of organization.  Grief initially was a bomb that leveled my ability to get things done, and to be fair, nearly two years later, has ruined my ability to remember everything like I used too.  Grief settles over the brain's navigational system and everything feels so foreign. It makes the needle of the compass spin without a clear direction. The brain struggles to hold any capacity at that moment.  It's during this time when the brain goes through 'friction.'  By that I mean that the brain has to learn how to categorize the person in the past, instead of expected in the present and hoped for in the future.

      People outside of grief will think you are forgetful, lazy, or disorganized.  They will make comments about you, I know I have heard quite a few negative, graceless responses over the course of time.  I tried to explain that I'm not lazy, that I'm not weak, I'm just struggling to navigate each day.  I'm grappling for just one thing I can hang on to.  But I understand where they are coming from because I am speaking a language that they don't understand.  People struggle to understand why you can’t pay attention or get tasks done.  What they don't see is the inner storm of your mind, soul, and heart.  Major emotions are bottle necking and having a hard time getting processed.  Picture it this way.  Imagine a lot of people trying to sign into the internet at your house.  The more people that sign in the less bandwidth you have and the slower the connection will be.  The same can be said about grief.  The mourning person's bandwidth has settled into survival mode, and they need grace...long term grace.

      Grief fog and grief brain can be incredibly frustrating for the grieving person.  They know they need to remember, but they simply can't.  But there is comfort as the brain rewires itself during grief.  While we may forget, there is someone who will never forget.  Isaiah 49:15-16 says "Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, but I WILL NOT forget you.  Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me."  The prophet paints the image that a mother would never forget her child, how much more will God not forget you.  In my Bible I have the words I WILL NOT FORGET YOU underlined.  I circled the words WILL, NOT, and YOU.  To my grieving friends who are struggling, who feel like the drain plug of life has been pulled, please know, that there is a God in heaven who has not, is not, and will not forget you.  Grief may affect our ability to remember, but it doesn't affect God.  You may feel like you are losing the pieces of your life, but God is holding those pieces together.