When Teens Suffer Loss
They’ve Probably Had Enough
Adolescents have enough going on without having to deal with grief and loss, especially when that grief intersects with sensitive subjects and rapid world events that are shaping more than their personal lives.
Teens are becoming adults and living in a world that feels more uncertain than it did even a few years ago. That can be unsettling to recognize. Navigating these times with them may feel uncertain, too. Even intimidating.
Changes are natural in life, but lately it seems that puberty isn't solely responsible for today's mood swings or yesterday's acne outbreaks. It's more complex and nuanced than that.
No one needs to say life is tough; who doesn’t already know? The question may be, who is with you when life gets tough? What happens when families are overwhelmed and don’t know how to be there for their teens like they’d like to?
It’s not a loss of love; it’s a loss of how to do life when life is too much, when you’ve all had enough. You’re struggling; they’re struggling. At least that’s the common thread right now: the struggle.
Things are starting to show up in places and spaces no one asked for, especially for adolescents. When it seems like your little kid is too big of a kid now, support, guidance, and being there are needed more than ever. Sadly, not everyone has the person they need most beside them. And not just because a death happened. Sometimes loss isn’t connected to a person at all. Sometimes it is connected to unwanted and unwelcome changes that create a different kind of space within a family, a space that can feel disconnecting, unsettling, and uncertain.
The hardest part of adolescence may be navigating a sense of injustice.
What happened wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.
Adolescence is A Lot, So Is Loss
The rawness and realness of life doesn’t stop just because puberty shows up. That rawness and realness can look like a lot of things. Some raw stuff, like suicidal ideation, self-harm, or unsafe situations offline and online. Some real stuff, like friendships that come with transactions rather than substance, disconnection within families, tension with growing pains, and conflict within relationships.
The landscape of adolescence seems more capitalized, or perhaps simply more visible. Literally everything, from attention to status symbols, can feel amplified. Sometimes this may look like moving through an invasive digital age while trying to stay analog, or perhaps trying to keep up the appearance and performance of analog life. All of it becomes part of the landscape. Intersections seem more apparent in these years across all sections of adolescence.
There are natural losses in the adolescent years, and many unasked for things are asked of teens that they may not have been expecting, let alone the adults in their lives.
Some are growing out of childhood and are in the awkward in-between stage of being a tween. Tweens are often on the cusp of their teen years, but no one told them where the starting block was. Is it an overnight thing that happens like in Pixar’s Inside Out 2, or does your kid suddenly seem different around 5th grade? Who, what, and how you plan on presenting yourself seems to be more of a priority.
Adolescence is also the process of growing into greater maturity, into the makings of a young adult.
Some teens may have no issue being part of their families and may enjoy family life. They know who has their back and will try to ‘get’ what they are communicating. Others may not have that at all. Others may begin to distance themselves, or may have already been distant before adolescence, especially when life is surrounded by grief and loss.
The disconnect isn’t with the person sometimes, it’s how the person within their family is connecting after a loss, even years after the loss.
What Seems So Different?
What is considered a milestone today may not carry the same meaning or gravity as it did ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. Family navigation can get lost in translation, and in the space-time continuum of life, when everyone is reaching different stages at different ages than ever before. Someone can become a parent at 50 while someone at 18 is already one.
What pervasive narratives may be limiting us or failing to give us a fuller, realer picture of a person's life? One that isn't so curated.
Many teens encounter access to more information than previous generations could have imagined: news, data, reels, media, and whatever else is out there lately to identify with, yet does what we consume offer identity? Probably not.
I don't have the bandwidth to even get into AI with this post. Nor am I dismissing AI or the murky discussions surrounding technology, tools, and human involvement (or lack thereof) in all of this. Teens are not to blame for any of that. Is accessibility itself worth questioning: its origins, let alone its use? It’s not a blame game, just an observation. What is permitted may end up shaping things long before the prefrontal cortex is fully developed. Some families and teens are informed, but being informed doesn't necessarily mean knowing how to navigate these worlds. There may be more confusion than clarity.
There is more access to worlds that do not seem to be for a majority of adolescents. Those spaces are likely not supporting them either, even when it seems like they do. Influence matters, but influencers? Maybe not. What is real nowadays, what is even originality or authenticity? Is that the question being asked?
What do real relationships take? Some teens learn with loss that relationships have risk. So making up for what’s not there or needed to be there will be sought elsewhere.
What’s the big deal? Is it even a big deal?
No one needs to max out anything. But maxing out, pursuing the latest trend, or finding something to do or play a role in just to feel something may be an attempt to meet a need. This doesn't speak to every teen. However, everything appears too amplified in the teen’s environment, rather than the responsibility belonging solely to individuals.
Not keeping up or participating is a choice in this sphere, but one that seems harder to make lately.
And what happened to the third spaces? Meetups, hangout spots, and the actual places to be and do things with friends. The friends they actually like, and maybe even the family likes. These spaces haven’t quite gone the way of the Dodo, but it feels like it.
This is not to say most teens don’t navigate life well enough. Many do, more than some may acknowledge or some may give them credit for, but life is asking more of them now, and childhood is coming to a close as adulthood rears its inevitable self around the corner. Life stops for no one.
Some may be desensitized to the changes, or it may simply be a non-issue. For others, it’s all they ever want to talk about when they want to talk about stuff.
There are no easy resolutions when life grows serious and solemn. Issues are not removed just because they’re mentioned or how self-aware your teen seems. It takes everyone who notices to say something or help connect someone to the support they need.
It takes the village, wherever said village is, and all the villagers to participate in making life work as much as continue to give it meaning that matters.
Loss Is Not A Life, But It Is A Part Of Life
When loss enters the picture, everything changes. There are no universal boxes, identity labels, or social categories that can tell us who an adolescent is or what they are experiencing. Tweens and teens are figuring out who they are. Forming an identity is a natural life stage. Categories may help some people describe themselves, but no category automatically tells us who a particular person is or what they are going through.
You do you, right?
There may be teens who don’t see themselves clearly, or at all, when a loss happens. Finding your identity after a loss can be tough enough as an adult, even with some solid sense of self. It can be even harder when you’re just beginning to figure out who you are. Identity begins to take shape more than ever during these years.
Who am I? What do I want? How do I get it? Where am I going? What am I going to do?
What about what?
All valid questions worth exploring and figuring out, regardless of age or life stage.
The death of a loved one or close friend, or simply witnessing the volume of things going on, can be enough to numb and disconnect anyone. A teen may be grieving a lot lately, and it doesn’t have to be related to a death or someone dying.
Adolescence in itself involves loss, just as it involves the gains of growing up. Experiencing loss is still hard. It may mean that things will not be the same as they once were, even when you wanted them to stay that way.
Maybe the world is falling apart. Maybe pigs do fly after all. That doesn’t mean it’s time to put a therapist on speed dial every time something feels hard, though ChatGPT may answer faster than a therapist. It cannot replace human therapeutic support when that support is needed most.
Relational, soulful intelligence and human relationships matter. At least it’s real, even when it’s raw.
Life experiences that were meant to be accessible and even meaningful may not always feel that way, but that doesn’t mean they are not meaningful.
It’s A Brave New World… Run
Meaning is harder and harder to come by. Every generation has different pictures of meaning, ones that were meant to mean something. Some milestones keep changing, the goalposts move, and there are not enough likes in the social sphere for the likes of you.
There are real pressures and unasked-for demands placed on this generation as they rise up. Whether they’re a college freshman entering their first semester or a freshly minted middle schooler, puberty is no cakewalk, just as the world they are entering into isn’t.
Adolescence is like track. They start running after hitting the pavement. It’s a brave new world; you better run.
How you look, talk, and even breathe all matter. Your running style even. Everyone seems to be watching, and today’s world seems more monitored, curated, and over-saturated than ever.
Maybe it’s a loss not to have that same simplicity, to keep your sanity without emotional costs and mental taxes.
Aldous Huxley was probably ahead of his time, but Holden was already trying to catch something in the rye.
We’re Not Okay, What Happened to Us?
Family tensions, conflicts, and discord may become the norm when grief comes to stay and loss is an unwelcome, overstayed guest. Loss is a thief. It can come in during the drollest daytime hour and still rob you blind.
Teens have their own minds, opinions, perspectives, and experiences that may or may not clash with their families around many things, but grief and loss can bring those differences into sharper focus, sometimes painfully so.
Differentiating and differing are natural parts of adolescence, but feeling separate from your family while grieving can make a difference, and not necessarily a positive, adaptive one.
Some families applaud having a stance on something. That can be meaningful. Other families may experience it differently. Some families may be torn between competing expectations when societal pressures and demands, as well as cultural ones, become more of a priority than free will and individual choice.
That’s already a lot and there are no easy answers. Everyone has probably had enough, and we don’t need to add more to anyone else’s load.
Grief carries a lot of loss, and loss sometimes creates a life no one wanted, but it’s still a life worth living while finding out who you are in that world. Taking the next best step is still a step.
When life is too much, where to go?
Sensitive topics sometimes require the gravity they carry. When having a hard time is more than it appears, when suicidal thoughts or other serious concerns are present, call or text 988 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Taking a load off with an actual person can change the parameters of a situation and become the lifeline that was needed at just the right time.
When something feels increasingly difficult to manage, consider reaching out to a mental health provider or another trusted source of support before a situation becomes a crisis. Many things are figure-out-able, even when it doesn't feel that way or there doesn't seem to be a clear next step.
It’s Okay To Connect About What Happened
Sometimes it’s okay to connect even when it’s not okay. It’s okay when the landscape changes too, with you, your teen, or your family. Sometimes, needing extra support for a time means adolescents, or families of teens, don’t have to manage everything alone.
Sometimes support means having a place to slow down, reflect, create, and make room for what is being carried.
The 3 Brushes, LLC provides in-person art therapy for children, tweens, teens, and adults in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Art therapy can offer another way to explore experiences that may be difficult to put into words, while creating space to process, reconnect, and move at a pace that feels manageable.
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If you are curious about how art therapy may support you or someone you care about, I invite you to schedule a complimentary 20-minute consultation. It is an opportunity to ask questions, learn more about the process, and explore whether this approach feels like a good fit.
You do not have to have the right words. You do not have to know exactly what you need.
