Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

Medicalizing Grief and DSM Criteria

• Many argue that DSM “prolonged/disordered grief” exists to define when professional help is warranted (e.g., inability to function, self‑destructive behavior), not to pathologize all ongoing sadness.
• Several commenters think the author would not meet those criteria, noting she works, parents, and maintains life routines.
• Others stress that even when grief is understandable and expected, it can still justify diagnosis and treatment if it’s severely impairing.
• There’s concern that laypeople misread DSM language (“disrupting routines”) and feel labeled “broken” when criteria are actually narrower.

Grief, Culture, Religion, and Death-Avoidance

• Multiple threads say contemporary Western culture is cowardly or avoidant around death: little ritual, few elders, and social pressure to “move on” quickly.
• Some link this to secularization and individualism: losing religious frameworks and ancestor traditions that normalize death and grief.
• Others counter that secular people can find deep meaning and handle mortality without religion; they see religion as comfort rather than truth.
• Debate arises over whether atheism tends toward nihilism or whether both religious and secular worldviews can meaningfully situate death.

Stigma, Over-Pathologizing, and Therapy-Speak

• Older commenters recall being told to “suck it up” and see less acceptance of therapy in older generations.
• Others say stigma has flipped for younger people: therapy is normalized, and many casually self‑diagnose with depression, ADHD, OCD, PTSD, etc.
• Concern: the spread of psychiatric labels into everyday language (“panic attack,” “triggered,” “masking”) can trivialize severe conditions and confuse what’s “normal but hard” vs. what truly needs care.

Diagnosis, Systems, and Practical Utility

• Several note that formal diagnoses are often needed to access leave, insurance coverage, disability benefits, or accommodations; “medicalizing” can thus be protective.
• Others warn diagnoses can later be used against people (e.g., safety‑sensitive jobs like pilots) and argue this incentivizes hiding distress.

Personal Grief Narratives and Dreams

• Many share vivid, long‑lasting grief: decades of missing partners, siblings, parents, or friends, often re-experienced in dreams or reflexive urges to call/text the dead.
• Common view: grief never fully ends; it changes shape, resurfaces in waves, and can become part of identity.
• Several emphasize that allowing and accompanying grief—rather than timing or fixing it—is more humane than forcing it into an “expiration date.”