In the mid 20^th century Abraham Maslow presented his theory of human motivation — what we refer to today as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In a nutshell, Maslow said that humans are motivated by different types of needs, beginning with the most basic like food, shelter, and safety. Once those fundamental needs are reasonably (though not necessarily completely) met, people can begin to focus on higher-level needs like belonging, sense of self, personal growth, etc.

This isn't to say that if you are experiencing threats to your physical safety and security that you don't care at all about higher level needs. That would be far too reductive. But it does seem logical that when a person doesn’t know where they are going to sleep that night or how they will buy groceries, they will naturally devote more energy to questions like "How will I pay my bills?" than "What makes me feel fulfilled?"

[For a detailed discussion of the ways loss can impact a person at every level of Maslow's Hierarchy, head here]

When Loss Compromises Your Most Basic Needs

Maslow's Hierarchy isn't perfect, but it does have a certain logic that I think provides helpful context for understanding how many people may triage concerns after experiencing a loss. It's something I think we should all consider, both as grieving people and as those who support them.

For the most part, grief resources, theories, and therapeutic tools focus on helping people process their emotional response to loss. That work is incredibly important. But when we consider the far-reaching impact that loss can have, I wonder whether grief support sometimes starts in the wrong place. Do we often skip over the pressing concerns many people understandably have about how they'll meet and maintain their basic needs for stability and safety—for themselves and the people they love?

The following are just a few of the ways threats to basic needs can affect people after a loss:

• Losing some or all of the household income
• Losing a home or having to move
• Loss of trust in support networks
• Legal issues or ongoing criminal investigations
• Having to return to the workforce or take on a second job
• Struggling with job performance due to stress, grief, and the demands of life after loss
• Having to give up objects, hobbies, luxuries and other elements of one’s lifestyle
• Going into debt/having to pay off someone else’s debt
• Needing to ask children to sacrifice in more adult ways
• Pressure to protect children from further loss and change
• Loss of time, balance, health, and self-care
• Needing to learn new skills like car maintenance, finances, parenting, home repairs

Loss is destabilizing for everyone. But for some, it creates financial and logistical problems so overwhelming that finding the time and emotional space to process their own grief can feel like a luxury.

If you don't know what I mean, I'm glad. That doesn't mean you haven't experienced immense suffering—after all, loss doesn't care who you are or how much money you have—but it may mean you haven't had to spend as much time navigating this particular side of life after loss. (And grief is a megagon—which is a shape with 1,000,000 sides. Look it up.)

Considerations

Secondary Losses can happen fast and compound

People often use the analogy of falling dominoes when discussing secondary loss. The primary loss is like the first domino, knocking down the next one, and then the next.

When it comes to practicalities, not having many resources like time, money, support, savings, stable work, and so on, places your dominoes very close together. The closer together they are, the easier it is for one falling domino to set off the rest. The slightest setback—a dead car starter, a busted water heater, or a week of illness—can knock so many other pieces of your life out of place.

Without a surplus of resources, everything starts to feel interconnected. You have to make very deliberate choices about whether to repair the car or pay the electric bill, or whether to spend your time picking up an extra shift at work or watching your daughter's championship basketball game. Decisions like these can have an obvious practical toll (and physical), but they can also bring up a host of emotions, including guilt, fear, frustration, anger, shame, and isolation.

You may feel like you're putting off or delaying grief.

We've spoken to many bereaved people, particularly grieving parents raising grieving children, who have told us they felt as though they waited until their children were relatively grown before fully grieving the loss they had experienced. In most of these instances, this wasn't something they consciously did. Rather, it was something they only recognized years later, when their grief became much louder after their children no longer required quite as much of their mental and physical energy.

For many people, compartmentalizing grief so they can get through the day-to-day feels like their only option. This doesn't mean they won't experience grief, but they may become adept at keeping it at arm's length because they don't have the time, energy, support, or emotional capacity to fully process it. Ideally, even people who are stressed, overwhelmed, and overworked can find spaces, places, and people that allow them to process their loss and grief directly. We also know, however, that this is often easier said than done.

Other people may not recognize what you're going through.

Directly following a loss, many people do seem to understand there will be a financial and logistical fall out. These days you often see people starting a "Go Fund Me" immediately following a loss and we more often hear the advice to offer to help with practical matters.

That said, as we pointed out at the beginning of this article, most grief support focuses on emotions related directly to the loss. Though some grief theorists and support people make space for the practical fall out, we see far less recognition and support for it. So long term, there may be less recognition for these types of struggles and supportive people often revert back to assuming that what a person needs is to focus on their emotions - talk it out, go to the therapy, check out a support group, read a book - when what they really need is someone to help them understand the household finances.

It can also be difficult within grieving families when one person takes on most of the practical burden, often in an effort to protect everyone else. One example is a widowed parent raising a grieving child. The parent may go to great lengths to shield the child from adult concerns, but in doing so, they become so overwhelmed and stressed that they aren't emotionally available in the ways the child needs. The child, meanwhile, may struggle to understand why, not only because they're a child, but because the parent has successfully protected them from their burdens.

You're constantly reminded that if the person who died were still here, everything would be easier.

Perhaps one of the most significant realities, a thought that might cross your mind 10 times a day, is that if the person who died were still here, so many of your struggles wouldn't exist. This thought can bring up a number of emotions, including anger, a sense of injustice, bitterness, and helplessness. Most of all, it reminds you of the many, many ways you miss the person who died.

As poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote, ""Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."

We invite you to share your comments and questions with the WYG community in the discussion section below.