Invisible Losses: Healing After the Life You Planned Changes

When we think of grief, we often picture funerals, black clothing, and casseroles dropped at the doorstep. But some of the heaviest grief we carry doesn’t follow a death at all. It’s the quiet, often invisible grief that comes when life doesn’t go the way we imagined. This kind of grief might arrive after a marriage ends, when we realise the family we dreamed of won’t look the way we hoped. It might come after a redundancy, when a career we poured ourselves into suddenly slips through our fingers. It can follow a life-altering diagnosis, a disability that reshapes our sense of the future, or the moment we realise a cherished dream — the one we’ve held onto for years — may never happen.