--- type: "article" title: "This Is Not A Cry For Help. This is Grief" newsletter: "Midlife In Motion" newsletter_handle: "midlife-in-motion" newsletter_url: "https://midlife.joycestack.com/" author: "Joyce Stack (@joycestack)" published: "2026-08-09T11:58:39.000Z" canonical_url: "https://midlife.joycestack.com/a/this-is-not-a-cry-for-help-this-is-grief" markdown_url: "https://midlife.joycestack.com/a/this-is-not-a-cry-for-help-this-is-grief.md" chat_url: "https://midlife.joycestack.com/a/this-is-not-a-cry-for-help-this-is-grief/chat" source_url: "https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/2117849/emails/195323474526340682" body_source: "native" likes: 1 replies: 3 body_words: 1041 --- # This Is Not A Cry For Help. This is Grief # This Is Not a Cry for Help. This Is Grief. Its 10 months since Mum died. They erected the headstone while I was in Ireland recently. My Mothers name etched in white font on the grey granite. The family name - STACK - in large font across the bottom. The finality of mortality shoved into my face in cold hard stone. For 45 mins I sit and sob in the evening sun. I cling to a tatty, snotty piece of tissue, vexed that I didn't bring more. I ask Mum for one. She always magically pulled a clean one from her sleeve. "I'm out the other side" I have been proudly stating as if its been an insufferable head cold that I've been enduring. Then the headstone sets off the next wave and it all starts over again. How do I describe what grief does to a day? The random outburst of crying has started again. As women we are socialized to just get on with it. God I'm so bored of it. Pull yourself together woman. I feel restless yet unable to find the energy, focus or agency to change anything about the circumstances. Throughout the day your life comes into sharp focus all at once, at the same time. My glass half full outlook causes me to spiral. Why can't I find the agency to change my job, to write more, to choose a paint colour for the living room, to book a holiday or to bother with friends. It doesn't stop there - I want to go deeper into my misery and feed it. Why am I so intellectually starved in work, life, friendships. Maybe I need to move back to Ireland? Brighton feels like a failed experiment. This wave of grief has brought a visceral anger at everything. I want to strap on a pair of marching boots and wield a large saucepan and hammer and shout my anger into the void at the horror of everything. The world burns, the fucking tech bros, AI, womens sex based rights being eroded, the local Council can't even empty the fucking bins, my South facing flat in 40 degree heat. Why did I buy this fucking thing? Each day in work, I have to dig deep to clearly articulate myself to the AI machine, re-explaining myself in exhausting detail only to feel ignored. Fuck you Claude why can't you see my grief? Senior leaders have drank the Kool Aid. They tell us the sky is orange; I can see it's blue. It all feels very 1984. I have finally acknowledged these last few days that I am in another wave of grief. Getting to this point has been a wild ride. I am someone that needs to understand the *why* so rather than accept its grief, I've started to treat myself as a puzzle to be optimized. Why has it been difficult to make friends in Brighton? Oh I know its social optimization exercise so I'll join a co-working space. This did not yield the results I desired and feeds the misery further. Crying all the time now. Must be low vitamin D, low ferritin. That's what Claude says**.** Local blood tests, researched and never booked. Intellectually starved at work - I know the fix, I'll hire another coach. This one I have gone through with. Deep down I know its a distraction, giving me a sense of control at a time of feeling out of control. In the depths of my Mum's dementia I hired a career coach. Looking back it was insanity. Why am I dreaming of the guy I dated over 2 years ago? Let me consult the Jung oracle of dreams and diagnose my subconscious. He was emotionally unavailable at the same time my Mum was becoming unavailable. OK. Maybe I should join the local Buddist center? One secret to happiness is something transcendental in your life. And of course there is the 3000 tonne elephant in the room. - P.E.R.I.M.E.N.O.P.A.U.S.E. The box of HRT sits in my bathroom cabinet. This doesn't feel cyclical. Maybe it would help? Maybe it'll make me more insane. I ask to talk to a chemist. They dispatch a 23 year old male. He asks about sore breasts. Oh FFS. Why can't I just find someone to give me the time to listen to me before I shove a bunch of hormones into my system. My decision making capacity is shot to shit. Choosing which white t-shirt to wear feels like a life or death decision. *Wintering: the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience, and to commit healing them the best we cant.* This is an extract from Katherine Mays beautiful book called *Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times.* Acceptance is a word that has been coming to mind lately amongst all the chaos. It is time a time to feel deeply, not distract. This can't be solved with sef-help books or bullshit online personality tests (like the happiness test I took one month after my Mum died - WTF?) Life has been on hold for a little over 3 years with Mum's dementia and decline. Frantically, I am seeking levers to pull like some grubby slot machine....pull the lever and Ta-Da! I win. Life is not like that - its messy and difficult. Accessing Mum before the dementia and hospital beds is challenging. The final few years seared into my brain cancelling everything else out. There is something there all the time around me - something I can't feel or describe but a presence of something, not in a religious way but an off-ness I can't describe. I need to accept my fate - it maybe Summer outside but Winter for me....I trust that my Springtime will come but now I grieve. `Post 1 of #100DaysToOffload (lets see how this goes)` **Joyce Stack** Hove, Brighton United Kingdom You are receiving this email because you signed up at [Midlife In Motion](https://midlife.joycestack.com). If you no longer wish to receive emails from us, you can unsubscribe at any time. Unsubscribe [![Sent by MailerLite](https://assets.mlcdn.com/ml/logo/sent-by-mailerlite.png)](https://www.mailerlite.com) *** ## Discussion (3 replies) Numbering shows the reply tree: `2.1` is a reply to `2`. Message text is reproduced verbatim as posted. ### 1. Joyce Stack (@joycestack) - 2026-08-09T12:38:45.922Z There are days you need to process and verbalize to process. Today is one of those days. ### 2. Kin Lane (@kinlane) - 2026-08-09T18:55:15.696Z <3 <3 <3 Grief is a bitch. Big hugs my fried. <3 <3 <3 ### 3. Joyce Stack (@joycestack) - 2026-08-12T08:33:30.393Z For anybody who needs this - an interesting read into the neuroscience of grief - https://havinggoodhealth.substack.com/p/harvard-neuroscientists-reveal-losing?r=dflc&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true