Some words hurt more than they help.
I have two friends who recently lost someone very close. As people have tried to comfort them, they’ve repeatedly heard the same phrase: “Everything happens for a reason.”
This only makes them feel worse.
David Kessler, an author of several books on grief, heard the phrase a lot when he lost his son eight years ago. It made him feel isolated, frustrated and angry. He told me that he once pressed someone for an explanation. “I could use a good reason,” he recalled saying.
It’s easy to understand why we use phrases like this, said Joanne Cacciatore, a professor of social work at Arizona State University and the author of “Bearing the Unbearable.” It’s because we’re uncomfortable. “We don’t want to see that people are on their knees,” she said.
Most of us haven’t been taught how to handle other people’s grief, added Alexandra Solomon, a psychologist at Northwestern University. “So we will reach for aphorisms and platitudes to fill in that space,” she said.
But grief needs to be witnessed, not deflected, Kessler said. “And if I say to you, ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ I am missing your pain.”
Still, it can be hard to find the right words. So I asked the experts for their advice.
If you’re grieving …
When someone who is trying to comfort you accidentally makes things worse, your best response will depend on your relationship to the person and how you’re feeling, Dr. Solomon said. She suggested saying: “I’m not there yet. I don’t know if I ever will be. I’m just doing my best, day by day.”