Episode 13 Coffee Chats: Margy Brill, LSW on attachment styles and grief
In this episode of Coffee Chats, Ramya continues her conversation around with Margy Brill, LSW. They talk about attachment styles and grief, how attachment styles affect bereavement and mourning, and how grief presents in the body and how we work through and externalize that.
You can watch part one of their conversation here.
Join Margy for Stitching the Wound: Caring for Ourselves in Grief, a workshop for navigating and validating grief emotions, on Sunday, October 26th at 2 pm.
Connect with Margy at Margy@RoomToBreatheChicago.com.
Connect with Ramya at RamyaMK@RoomToBreatheChicago.com.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Ramya’s article on attachment styles
Margy’s previous articles on grief, and her grief groups
Personal Grief Rituals by Paul Martin
Interview transcript {edited for clarity}
Ramya (she/her): All right, hello everybody, welcome back to Coffee Chats. Today, we have Margy back with us. A while ago, we talked - kind of an introduction to grief and loss, and what really that means. Today, we're back with what we're calling Grief and Loss Part 2.
Well, do you want to start with….grief, loss, and attachment stuff today?
Margy (she/her): Yeah, that would be great. I know we were just chatting before about, what did we talk about in the first coffee chat? And…from our memory, and for anyone who's interested in, like, going back and looking at it, we were talking just a lot about, kind of my orientation around grief work being really focused in sort of unlearning some of the, like, very oppressive…you know, the impact of some of the systems that we're living in, and how that affects our ability, especially people as you and I are talking, who are living in the U.S. right now, like, how that can really affect our ability to tune in to our grief, feel safe to do so, feel like we have communities where we can do that and openly talk about it.
And particularly related to death and death loss. Where there's, like, corners of the world where that's really normalized, and where we talk about it a lot in our - in….for many, you know, there's always exceptions, but for many folks in the U.S. and other westernized countries, that's not the case.
And so one of the areas we were thinking about continuing to explore together in this space is… and something I've become really interested in and passionate about in my individual work and with my grief group work is around attachment. And how that affects our bereavement and mourning. And also just how grief….kind of presents in our bodies, and how we sort of work through and externalize that.
So I'd love to, yeah, like, chat with you more about that. I think it's something that - saying it out loud, sometimes it can feel like a very obvious connection, like, sure, the attachment styles that we have affect how we grieve. But it's interesting that it's something that I actually, until I got farther along in this work, like, didn't encounter a lot. And that could be just the classes I was in in my own studies, but it's been something I've been really interested in continuing to explore, and I found it really helpful to talk about with clients who I'm working with through bereavement. After someone, you know, they have a relationship with dies.
Ramya: Yeah, tell me a little bit more about how our attachment style impacts grief.
Margy: Yeah, so there's a lot out there, and I remember you wrote a great blog post around attachment. So also, queuing that for Sierra to maybe link for us.
Ramya: Yes, shameless plug. Shameless plug, go read my blog about attachment styles. There's just so much…yeah, misinformation that’s out there about attachment styles, and I think, like Tiktok, or, like, Instagram…. therapy kind of information that's seeped in there, and I think it'll be good for us to just kind of debunk a little bit of that, but then talk about how that really impacts other areas of our life and mental health. Yeah, go for it. I interrupted you, I'm sorry.
Margy: No, no, no, but the reason I'm saying, yes, go for that, go check out your blog, because I think that also gives, like, a really great overview of, like, what different attachment styles are, which I can refer to today, but giving the plug to go get some great psycho-ed from your blog, and also the….something that I appreciated that you named that I also really take to heart that I want to name before we start this conversation is, like, attachment styles aren't stagnant, we don't just have one attachment style that, you know, some of us may resonate with that, like, you know, we tend to be avoidant in a lot of our relationships, but we also find we have different attachment styles with different people. It can change over time, so….we've kind of expanded our understanding of attachment as, like, it's not just this, you know, you get this one attachment from caregiver, and that's what you have forever. You know, there is research that we've seen around that, and it's helpful to explore our connection with our caregivers, and this comes up a lot in the work that I do with grief. Especially because I do a lot of parental loss work. But it's not limited to that, so I just like to throw that out there. Go read Ramya's blog for more around that.
But related… so just to, like, summarize attachment, a description that I really love from a book called Personal Grief Rituals from Paul Martin that I really love, is he describes attachment as, like, a deep bond and an enduring emotional closeness that connects people to one another across time and space.
Ramya: Mmm…. Wow.
Margy: And so we often associate that with our caregiver. The reason that I'm… and right, this is developed from early childhood, it's our - you know, like, we need our caregiver to provide for our basic needs when we are essentially helpless and reliant on them for everything. And so, you know, we use words like attunement, and rupture, and repair as we're describing attachment. And how that sort of is developed as a child and continues over time, and so….If we think about that lens. And consider it. Consider, like, okay, let's give a scenario here. I have a client who's…. They have a secure attachment with their parent. This client is a young adult. Parent dies when client is in their early 20s. If we're thinking about…. As a young adult, you're losing a parent at this stage in life. Where you often are feeling kind of invincible, you know, you're coming into your own, there's so much opportunity, and excitement and independence. Like, it's completely shattering, because this is a loss that happens that's not retrievable. And often that's, you know, right from, like, an attachment perspective, attachment's grounded in maintaining proximity and closeness. So when someone dies that separation evokes a fear response in many of us, and activates protest.
Which, when we think about a kid, when a parent leaves, the kid's crying. You know, they’re one raw nerve, they don't know how to regulate emotions, like, they're developed, but they're developing this trust, object permanence. My parent will come back. When we, at any life - and this is different with life stage and then with attachment styles, like we talk about, but when a parent dies, that activates a protest in us. And the biggest rupture we can have, because everything in our body is wanting to reconnect with this person. And there's exceptions to that when we have complex relationships. With, which we can talk about. That’s where, like, disorganized attachment really comes in, but for many folks that protest and that fear…. And that, you know, is so unconscious, like, this very primal, guttural reaction that we feel when we experience grief, when anyone we are close with dies. Or have any attachment to of any kind, which we can talk more about, but it offers an explanation for people as to why they're feeling the intensity that they feel.
I also think about, like, it also offers an explanation as to why many grievers are often feeling like they have a desire to do something that “doesn't make sense.” So an example, I hear this a lot. I'll have clients, like, “I feel crazy. I'm talking to my person (the person who died) in the mirror,” or “why do I want to go sit by their grave and talk to them? This doesn't make sense.”
Ramya: Yeah.
Margy: Or, “why am I, like…. I feel sad….And anger, and I'm feeling all these complex emotions, and, like, I'm mad at them that they died. I'm mad at them that they're not coming back.”
And so this basically, it's like, attachment allows us to… it explains that, like, death is sort of contradicting this basic assumption that we have, that losses are retrievable. And that our caregiver. Or… this person we have a secure attachment with, let's just stick with secure for now, it explains why we feel such intense emotional responses on a very primal level.
And the last thing that I'll say that I think is really helpful with thinking about attachment sort of language and framework, right? Is this idea that, like, when death happens, the rupture happens. And so a lot of what I like to think about and frame with clients is what repair can look like when someone dies, and what that often looks like. It's different for everyone. And we go into specifics around attachment style based. And in thinking about what that repair work can look like. But that's where we really think about this idea of continuing bonds. And this idea of, I am….through internal mental representation or through ritual. Through honoring this person in X, Y, or Z way, I am continuing to meet my attachment needs. I am continuing a connection and a relationship with this person in a new way. So we are both… it's like holding on and letting go, we are both mourning and grieving the death. And the irretrievable physical loss of this person's presence, and in time, when the time is right, and that timeline looks different for everybody, we are, we're letting go, and we're holding on. We're continuing to foster the relationship and connect. And reconnect to that attachment. Like, connection and attunement in a new way.
Ramya: Yeah. Can I ask - maybe a little bit of an adjacent topic question to this.
Margy: Yeah, of course.
Ramya: How does that framework shift or flex when the loss isn't just death? Like, say it's about the loss of a lifestyle, or a role, or, like a loss of a friendship, like the person hasn't died, but we've lost the friendship, or….
Margy: Yeah. Yeah.
Ramya: Like, I'm thinking of myself, like, as a newer mom, I feel like sometimes I grieve parts of my old lifestyle.
Margy: Absolutely.
Ramya: And parts of my old roles, and my relationship with my husband, or my relationships in general, and trying to figure out what my new life looks like now with a child. There's a little bit of grief and, like, a little bit of attachment work there, too. How does that tie in when it's not really death-related?
Margy: 100%. I mean, I think everything you just described, any type of loss can be viewed from this lens, and from this framework. And one of the things, especially with the holding on and letting go. One of the things that I think about, Ramya, and that I do talk about with folks is….I like to think about…. Or offer this idea of, what are the aspects or the parts of this loss that I want to sort of affirm or develop or nourish, and then what are the parts that I would like to relinquish or change? So once again, this holding on and letting go.
What are the - because I'm trying to compare it to how I think about a death loss - what are the parts of the relationship with the person that I want to hold onto and nurture, and what are the parts that I want to let go of, relinquish, change?
And I think about that with a lot of losses or transitions, not just death loss. And that… there's a difference between, I like to always say, too, it's like, we're not saying here that we need to find the good in everything. Because I know that can get real murky, right? But it is really, like, thinking about how….what do I want to hold on to, if anything, from this time in my life, from this relationship?
So, like, an example I'm thinking of is, and of course, this can be so different. It will look so different for everybody. But an example I'm thinking about is, like. Also as a mom, right, I've had a huge transition… and I'm still in transition of thinking about my identity now, and parts of myself that I'm grieving that I don't feel as connected to. And so I hold space for that, and I'm also thinking about, what are the parts of this new identity and kind of lifestyle that I'm in now that I want to, like, affirm and develop as an example, like, parenthood has - I have had to set boundaries with work in a different way. And that's been a really positive… like, it's been hard, but that's also been something that I have seen, like really nourish me in other ways, too. So I don't know, I think it's really this, like, thinking about what are the parts of the loss or transition
that you want to hold on to, and what are the parts that you want to let go of?
And then I think tying it back to attachment style, it's like….I think our attachment styles can often inform….
Ramya: How we go about doing that?
Margy: How we go about doing that. Yeah.
Ramya: Yeah, I imagine it's a different journey for everybody. And there's… I was just gonna say, there's just so many layers to that.
Margy: There's so many.
Ramya: Of…. What we want to keep, what we want to continue. How are we continuing that? Because obviously, if you have a child, or if your lifestyle changes, or there's, like, a lot of different transitions, as life always has, the way we do it now is going to change from the way we might even do it tomorrow, or next week, or next year. And that also brings me to how much mindfulness and intentionality that that takes.
Margy: Absolutely.
Ramya: Which can be a little bit difficult if we have a tendency to be a little more anxious, or a little more avoidant, or….you know, have difficulty planning and showing up and being present with that kind of mindfulness and intentionality. Which can also actually be a whole different kind of grief, too.
Margy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like, time not feeling….Like, where… what is time? Where is this… where do I even find the time or the capacity to do this?
And that… so that actually, if you don't mind, Ramya, that brings me back to, like, because a lot of my work is focused around death loss, and so… but I think it connects, as you beautifully brought in too-
Ramya: No, let's go back to it. No, that was just a simple question.
Margy: -To the transitions, but this applies to that, too, I think, is, like - This is where we really can think about. Let's take, like, anxious and avoidant as an example, right? When I have - all of this is the caveat of, like, I am generalizing around these different attachment styles.
Ramya: Yeah, we're oversimplifying the topic for the purpose of our conversation.
Margy: Yes, we know that there's all this nuance in between, our systems of oppression, there's all these other things that we are living in, but….If we're thinking about a trend that I tend to see with a lot of the clients I work with, right? If we have an anxious - so let's say….a loved one dies who we had an anxious attachment with. What I am often seeing in the client, or what I hear from the client, is a lot of emotional flooding, a lot of rumination. And having a really…they are really stuck on that holding on. They are holding on to that relationship with everything that they have… there's some enmeshments a lot of times and, like, having a really hard time with the letting go. Or with the giving themselves permission for many different reasons to start to repair that attachment wound.
And I say that knowing that this is not, like, this easy, yeah, I'm just gonna decide to repair this wound from a death loss. Like, this is incredibly painful. There's different timelines for everybody. But what I'm often seeing is this looks like the person will describe to me that they are, like, dying alongside their loved one. They feel incredibly anxious and sad. And that is because there was this anxious attachment they had. They were, for whatever reason, right? For a lot, maybe codependent, reliant on this person in some way, not always, but that does come up. And so they are…. What we often think about and what I talk about with people with those types of connections, with the person who died, is really focusing on finding a community, finding attunement from others who are going through a shared experience, which is also my promotion for grief groups. Or just humans that they can connect with around a similar loss. And finding who, I like to say grief partner, like, finding who their grief partners are, to be able to safely begin to explore this letting go, and this restoration orientation space, too, that I like to think about of, like, I am continuing bonds with this person in the ways that are healthy, and that I want to continue to remember and foster. I'm repairing this connection in these ways. In a way that helps my grieving, and helps me to be able to….I don't remember what I was gonna say after that, but helps me to be able to… really, it's like reorganizing these attachment behaviors.
Ramya: Yeah, yeah. And like…. healing and grounding and coming back to what feels authentic to us in that moment after these losses, after the death, or whatever it is.
Margy: And oh, I wanted to say one other thing about a pattern that I tend to notice with clients that lost someone who they had a more anxious attachment with, is they're also, like, just, yeah, really wanting to hold on to all parts of this person. And really struggling to start to release or reorganize and let go. As an example, like, I have a client who did not want to move any article of clothing of her spouses for, like, a year. And that is so understandable, right? I also want to really emphasize that none of this means you're grieving in a bad or good way. I think this informs where someone's at. And allows us to be able to work together to get them the support that they need.
So, for example, this client had a lot of anxious attachment after losing, or a lot of anxious attachment was activated after losing her spouse, and could not move anything of her spouse's, for a long time. For a long time. And what we ended up… kind of our work together was figuring out ways to be able….like, who could support her? She got to a point where we were like, we need to move, like, this stuff needs to move for a variety of different reasons, and it is… I am feeling suffocated. It's like, I can't let go of him, and I'm recognizing that there's a part of this that just feels really, like, it's depleting everything around who I am as a person. And so we talked a lot about… this is where we kind of went into the, like, what are the aspects of the relationship with him that you want to continue honoring and fostering and loving? What are parts of your house that you want to stay connected to him through? So it ended up turning into, like, friends came over. Slowly helped with donating some of the items of clothes of his, which was something that was really important to her that we had come up with as a way to honor him. And then, like, did an artwork, did, like, a painting on the wall to sort of honor him, and it felt like this marked transition, right, of the life that we had together. I will always be grieving that.
And there is this…the rupture that happened and the repair is, this is the parts of him I want to honor and stay connected to and remember, but, like, in a new way, the relationship looks different. And now that person's dating, and has started in….and this is just one example. This looks so different for everybody.
But I think on the flip side, what I see with avoidant attachment often, right? Is that grief, we are pushing that grief down. We are avoiding it, it's delayed, it's masked, it's inhibited. Don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole. We’re terrified. And, right, emotions don't feel safe, but grief is scary.
And we've learned, for those of us that are kind of avoiders, we've learned from a young age that we take care of ourselves, and so what I often see here is…Like, I have a client who had anxious attachment with a parent who died. That parents’ stuff was packed up and gone, funeral was done within a week. Done. And they're like, cool! Okay, I have…
Ramya: I'm done grieving.
Margy: I'm done, I did my thing, I'm back to work. And they actually, interestingly, came to my grief group a year later. After mom had died and was like. I'm noticing, like, something doesn't feel right. Like, I'm sitting with some emotions that I just… they are coming out in ways, like, I'm irritable. Feeling dissatisfied with my life, I'm having some panic attacks, and I don't like this. What's going on? I did all of the things. I did all of the checklist items for this parent who died, and so a lot of our work was actually expanding emotional expression. They were doing all the letting go and actually -
Ramya: They were doing all the physical work, but not much of the mental and emotional work.
Margy: Yes. Yes. And so we were really focused on, we have excessive restoration going on, and we actually need to tune in to the emotions, into everything that you were saying earlier, Ramya, through that somatic work, mindfulness work, and that often feels really inaccessible and really scary. For so many different reasons that we know, so a lot of our work is around accessing the grief emotions, tuning into it, releasing it. Processing that. You know, what feels hard or scary to talk about. And so that's where a lot of my work is, around relationships that may have had more of that avoidance in them. For a variety of different reasons.
So the rupture still happens, but the repair and the journey around that continuing bonds work looks really different.
And then, right, for, disorganized, this is where we have a lot of complex grief. Due to complicated relationships, trauma, abuse history. And so a lot of times, we're seeing an oscillation between avoidance and anxiety. Which is so understandable, and so we're just using this as a framework to be able to really - a lot of what it is, is just, like, normalizing. And I'm a very much - I'm a relational therapist, and so, so much of this is just like, yeah, these are human, like, we are connected with other people. And when that connection is severed or ruptured through death or when a loss or transition happens, it activates a system, and affects our body. Affects our emotional regulation. And when we are living, to kind of summarize, to put a little bow on it, right? Like, when we are living in a society or culture that is not community-focused, that is oppressive in many different ways for many different groups of people. When our bereavement leave is frequently, like, 2-3 days. You know, we're just continuing to reinforce a very oppressive ...a system that is not supportive of healthy bereavement.
Ramya: Yeah. Right.
Margy: Allowing space for these attachments. You know, we don't often use language like this to think about it. I cannot tell you the number of clients I work with who feel like they are doing something wrong with grief. You know, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that. Why am I still feeling sad after a year? Why am I still feeling this? So, so much of what I'm doing is just affirming and normalizing through this lens. Like, yep, you're a human. You're connected to another human, and this is why you're feeling this way. So yeah, that's my attachment and grief summary.
Ramya: I love it! I know it feels like we just scratching the surface, because there's so many more nuances and layers, as we always talk about, but thank you so much for setting aside some time to talk about it today, Margy.
Margy: Yes! Of course.
Ramya: Any last thoughts, or quick things that maybe we didn't get to today?
Margy: Yeah, I know there's so much more to talk about, and I just want to emphasize, like, yeah, this is scratching the surface. There's so many nuances. And parts of our lived experiences and identities that factor into this, so I just want to name that. And also, I cannot emphasize enough, I know I'm a broken record at this point, but this is why I find grief group work, and grieving in community so important. And something that we are often so lacking in our society, especially here in the U.S, so I just wanted to put a plug out there, if you are watching this, and if any of this is resonating with you, feel free to also connect with me about some of the grief groups that I'm running, but also there's other great ones that are happening in the Chicagoland area, in Illinois, and also I have some good resources for, national support groups that are happening. And happy to connect with anybody that is looking for community as they are grieving.
Ramya: Yeah, and maybe we can set aside some time to do another segment on that.
Margy: Yeah, that would be great. Always love talking about group work.
Ramya: Yeah alright. Well, thank you for sitting down with me today, Margy, for another wonderful coffee chat, and thanks for everybody tuning in. And we'll see you next time.
Margy: Thanks for holding the space, Ramya.
Ramya: Yeah, always.
