When I started my journey toward becoming a credentialed victim advocate, I knew I’d be learning about trauma. I knew I’d be studying crisis intervention, legal systems, and support strategies. What I didn’t expect was how much I’d be learning about grief—and how much of my own grief I’d finally be able to name.
The Losses That Shaped Me
I’m sitting in this training module about grief support, and I keep pausing the video. Not because it’s difficult material—though it is—but because I keep seeing myself in it.
There’s Ginger. A little red fawn French Bulldog. I got her when I was living on my own, and she became my companion through dark, cold nights and too many breakups. She was my soul dog—the kind that just brightens everything. When I was diagnosed with chronic depression, I fell into deep despair. It took over a month for my medication to start working, and during that crisis, the only reason I got out of bed most days was because Ginger needed to be fed and walked. In that darkness, she was often the only reason I smiled at all.
She was only 10 when she died. Not old. She declined suddenly, rapidly, right in front of my eyes. A congenital heart issue that presented without warning. She was in so much pain. I had to make the decision to put her down, and she died in my arms. That moment is still with me. It lives in my body even now.
There’s my friend. Ten years of friendship. We held each other through so much—my depression, her open heart surgery. We celebrated recoveries and small victories. But four weeks ago, it ended. The end came from a lack of communication—communication I felt I deserved after a decade of showing up. Something happened that could have affected my livelihood, and she didn’t think it was important enough to tell me. That realization devastated me.
After I decided to part ways, other people in my life started speaking up. My partner. My mother. My partner’s mother. They’d seen what I’d failed to see for so long: the reciprocity I thought existed in this friendship simply didn’t. I was the last one to the party—the last one to realize I didn’t mean as much to them as they meant to me.
I’m still processing this. I feel embarrassed. Angry. And absolutely devastated by the loss of what I thought was going to be a lifelong friendship. Grieving a living friendship, especially one where you were apparently the only one truly invested, might be one of the loneliest experiences I’ve ever had.
And there’s my family. My sister. My two nieces. For over a decade, they spent every summer with me and my parents. I can still hear their voices in our house, still remember the rhythm of those visits. We’re a family of immigrants, and our small family relies on each other deeply. Though separated by oceans and borders, our yearly summers were vital. They kept our family unit close.
Then COVID came. Then the war between Russia and Ukraine. Now they’re trapped in Russia while drones strike their town, and I check my phone compulsively for news alerts, terrified of what I might read. My mother, who has COPD, now worries she may not see my sister and nieces before she passes away. There’s no end in sight to the war. The loss of their presence and the fear for their safety—we feel it every single day. It’s heavy. It’s unrelenting.
What My Training Is Teaching Me
Here’s what’s hitting me hardest in my victim advocacy coursework: I’ve been doing grief wrong because I thought there was a right way to do it.
The training materials are dismantling myths I didn’t even know I believed:
Myth #1: The Five Stages Are Universal
I kept waiting to move through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s famous stages—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But my grief doesn’t work like that. Some days I cycle through three of them before breakfast. Other days I feel nothing at all. Then, months later, anger arrives like an unexpected visitor.
Here’s what the training taught me: those five stages were never meant for people like us. Kübler-Ross was describing what terminally ill patients experienced as they approached their own death—not how the rest of us navigate loss. When our lived experience doesn’t match this model, we assume we’re broken. I know I did.
Myth #2: The First Year Is the Hardest
I thought I was supposed to feel better by now. With Ginger, with my friend, with the distance from my family. Everyone says the first year is the worst, so why does year two sometimes hurt more? Why did missing my nieces’ voices feel sharper last month than it did right after the borders closed?
The truth: there is no timeline. Some people don’t even begin processing grief until after the first year. Some find that distance from shared life makes the loss more acute, not less. The pressure to “feel better” on schedule just adds stress to an already overwhelming experience.
For me, my friendship ended just four weeks ago. In those four weeks, I’ve moved through waves of anger, deep sadness, and shame—as if every negative feeling was a visitor in my heart throughout the waking day. It made me question my self-worth. But I’m better now. Not healed, but better. And here’s what surprised me: my desire to become a victim advocate has been a great source of relief. Channeling myself into something useful. Something worthy. It’s helped me remember that I, too, have worth—regardless of how one person chose to value me.
Myth #3: The Goal Is Closure
This one nearly broke me. I kept thinking I needed to “get over” these losses. Close the chapter. Move on.
But here’s what I’m learning in my advocacy training: grief doesn’t end. It integrates.
I don’t need to stop loving Ginger to move forward. I don’t need to erase ten years of friendship to be okay. I don’t need to stop aching for my family to function. Integration means learning to carry these losses while still building a life. It means the grief gets woven into who I am, not excised from it.
We don’t close love. So we don’t close grief either.
Why This Matters for Victim Advocacy
As I prepare to support survivors of crime and trauma, I’m realizing that victim advocates encounter grief constantly—and it’s rarely about death.
Survivors grieve:
- Their sense of safety
- Their trust in others
- Their identity before the trauma
- Relationships fractured by what happened
- The life they thought they’d have
- The person they used to be
If I’m going to hold space for that kind of loss, I need to understand my own. I need to know what my nervous system does under stress (it freezes, then floods with anxiety). I need to recognize when I’m projecting my timeline onto someone else’s process. I need to practice the same patience with survivors that I’m learning to give myself.
The training keeps emphasizing: we support grief, we don’t treat it away. We’re not fixing anyone. We’re building capacity to move with the loss, not around it.
What I’m Practicing Now
I am learning practical tools I’m using for myself—and will eventually use with the people I support:
Validating language instead of minimizing clichés:
- Not: “They’re in a better place” or “Everything happens for a reason”
- Instead: “This is so hard” and “I’m here”
Nervous system regulation when grief overwhelms me:
- Deep breathing when the panic about my family spikes
- The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique (name 5 things you see, 4 you hear, 3 you feel, 2 you smell, 1 you taste)
- Butterfly tapping on my chest when the feeling of loss resurfaces
Permission to grieve in my own pattern:
- Some days I need to talk about Ginger
- Some days I need to sit with the silence where my friend used to be
- Some days I need to let myself cry about my nieces without apologizing for “still” being sad
Naming what I’ve lost—out loud:
- Ginger’s name still matters
- My friend’s name still matters
- My nieces’ names still matter
Silence doesn’t honor grief. Speaking does.
The Hard Truth About Healing While Helping
Here’s what I’m sitting with: I’m training to become a credentialed victim advocate while still carrying significant, unresolved grief of my own. Some days that feels like hypocrisy. How can I support others when I’m still learning to support myself?
But maybe that’s exactly the point.
Maybe the best advocates aren’t the ones who’ve “moved on.” Maybe they’re the ones who know what it’s like to wake up and choose integration, again and again. The ones who understand that grief isn’t linear, that there’s no closure, that some losses get carried for a lifetime.
I’m not pursuing this credential in spite of my grief. I’m pursuing it because of it. Because I know what it’s like to lose something precious. Because I know what it feels like when someone tries to rush you through it or minimize it or tell you that you should be over it by now.
I know what it’s like to need someone who will just sit with you in it.
What I Want You to Know
If you’re reading this and you’re also carrying grief—whatever form it takes—please hear this:
You’re not doing it wrong.
Your grief doesn’t have to follow a stage model or a timeline. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else. It doesn’t have to be “resolved” for you to be whole.
You can grieve a pet and have it matter deeply. You can grieve a friendship that others might dismiss. You can grieve people who are still alive but unreachable. You can grieve your own lost sense of safety or identity.
All of it counts. All of it deserves space.
And if you’re also trying to help others while healing yourself? You’re not a hypocrite. You’re human. And maybe that’s the most qualified you could possibly be.