Web Event #3: Unbinding Mourning

The definition of unbinding is formally “to release from bonds or restraints.” When I think of feminism unbound, I think of it in terms of unbinding the traditional idea of feminism, “queering” it in the sense that normative views and ideas on feminism are released from bonds or restraints. Everything goes beyond the surface of its normative definition and in this case, feminism and mourning can be related in terms of unbinding traditional definitions of the two. Mourning on the surface is grieving the loss of something or someone that meant something to you. Mourning an idea sounds like it is making a mockery of the process, how can you mourn something that was all in your head? Unbinding the traditional sense of mourning offers that mourning can be a process done by anyone for anything that has been lost.

The loss of an idea can be as traumatic, if not more than the loss of a person, in chapter six of Wendy Brown’s “Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics” She Mourns the loss of her feminism, everything that she knew and believed in getting revolutionized into something unrecognizable is a tragic loss. Re-imagining everything that empowered you and adapting to new norms is worth the mourning process, you need to start all over you’re stuck at a monumental impasse. Wendy Brown was mourning the loss of second wave feminism, the step up from the first wave of suffrage and gender equality, it looked at the liberation of women and it spread all over the world. When this idea began to revolutionize, she was scared,  where could we possibly go from here, what was going to happen? The loss of anything, or the changing of one thing we knew into something else is traumatic in the sense that we have to re-learn, re-adjust and work ourselves around this new experience.

The process of grieving traditionally has five stages. One: denial and isolation, two: anger, three: bargaining, four: depression, five: acceptance. Denial is pretty self-explanatory, there is a shock and instant pain that is felt which brings you to isolation, you will shut yourself off. Anger comes when the shock wears off and you realize the severity of your situation, your feelings of grief and loss will become anger and you will project, most likely on someone who you believe could have done something to stop it.  Bargaining will come with time and you will blame yourself, this is a reaction that almost everyone has to the feeling of helplessness. Depression sets in when the whirlwind of emotions wears off, when you are alone with your thoughts and the realization that there is nothing that can bring back what has been lost. Acceptance is the best of the five stages and also the hardest to achieve, this will happen when you tell yourself your life will go on, and you truly believe it. These are all subjective and will happen at different levels for each individual loss for any given person. Some of them may not happen at all. The fifth step takes the most time and may never be achieved at all but for arguments sake there are five stages of grieving. But will they happen for each loss? Does it make your mourning less valid if they are not achieved?

When I was in sixth grade my art teacher passed away and he was the first person I ever knew to die, it was a very traumatic experience there was a bond of emotion with all of the students he had. At that age and at that time I was mourning but looking back I don’t feel the emotion and I don’t recognize it. There is the question of knowing someone who passes away and how much you feel like you are entitled to mourn, how much will you allow yourself to mourn depending on the level of the relationship you had with the person. The answer goes back to the five stages. Mourning is subjective and if you are hurt by a loss then no one can tell you “I’m allowed to be sadder than you because I knew them better.” When I lost my grandmother this past February I felt a different hurt than I felt when I lost my teacher, but that doesn’t mean my mourning was any less justified. Losing a family member is losing your own blood, there is no way to describe the emptiness that I still feel whenever I think back to that phone call. There are of course levels of mourning but they are each as valid as the other.

When mourning an idea or a dream it is possible to experience the five stages of grief but in the sense that we are unbinding mourning and it’s traditional definition, there may not be five stages, there may be more or less. Mourning a dream is coming to the realization that your life is going to go in a completely different direction than you ever imagined. You have had it all planned out, as a little kid you were full of different dreams, changing everyday but then there is one that you trust and you stick with. Then the real world comes and you realize you need to make money and have a house and get a job. The dream that seemed so close as a small child starts to get further away. There must be stages that you have to go through when coming to terms with this loss, whether they are the traditional five stages doesn’t matter. It all comes back to the validity of mourning in every sense of the word.

Unbinding mourning releases it from the restraint of “the loss of a loved one”, the first thing that comes to mind when hearing the word mourning. There are different stages for each type of mourning. Mourning is natural and will happen when it happens. Grieving is not an allowance, it a process that will come with loss. There is subjectivity in both but no one’s process is any less valid or justified, we all have mourning, we all have loss.