Legacy Matters

Addicted to Grief

Just about every adult has experienced the grief of losing a loved one.  In time, we move on keeping the loved one as a blessed memory,  no longer a painful one.

Some people, a minority to be sure, never get over it.  Years later, they still feel the  loss acutely.

Complicated grief can be debilitating, involving recurrent pangs of painful emotions, including intense yearning, longing and searching for the deceased, and a preoccupation with thoughts of the loved one.
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Reporting in the journal NeuroImage, scientists at UCLA suggest that such long-term or "complicated" grief activates neurons in the reward centers of the brain, possibly giving these memories addiction-like properties

Addicted to Grief? Chronic Grief Activates Pleasure Areas of the Brain

"The idea is that when our loved ones are alive, we get a rewarding cue from seeing them or things that remind us of them," O'Connor said. "After the loved one dies, those who adapt to the loss stop getting this neural reward. But those who don't adapt continue to crave it, because each time they do see a cue, they still get that neural reward.

"Of course, all of this is outside of conscious thought, so there isn't an intention about it," she said.