The Kind of Grief That No One Brings Flowers For

By Amaal Zaki (Ama)

There’s a kind of grief that doesn't come with casseroles or condolences. It doesn’t wear black or take time off work. No one calls to check in. There’s no ceremony, no eulogy. But it can hollow you out just the same.

It’s the grief for the life you should have had.

I’m talking about the grief that lives in people like me, people who grew up without safety, without care, without anyone to tell them they mattered. People who were hurt and then blamed for it. Who asked for help and were told to calm down. Who learned too early that some people’s pain is taken seriously, and others’ is ignored.

I’ve spent years learning to name this grief. It shows up quietly, but with weight. It’s the heaviness in your chest when you see someone being comforted in a way you never were. It’s the ache that tightens your throat when someone talks about their “support system,” and you realize you have none. It’s watching the world extend gentleness to others and feeling like you’re screaming behind soundproof glass.

This kind of grief is complicated, because it’s not about what happened. It’s about what never did. You’re grieving an absence. A hole where safety should have been. A silence where love should have spoken. And because it isn’t tied to a single event, people don’t always understand it. Even you question it.

But this grief is real.

Psychologists call this disenfranchised grief, a grief that isn’t openly acknowledged or socially supported. That includes grieving estranged parents, childhoods lost to trauma, or even the emotional safety that was never there. And for many people, especially those failed by broken systems, it can be lifelong.

When you try to talk about this grief, people change the subject. Or they suggest you’re too sensitive, too dramatic, too something. But how do you explain to someone what it feels like to carry a lifetime of unmet needs in your body? What it’s like to keep asking for help and being told no, or worse, nothing at all?

This week, that grief came back sharp and raw. I reached out for help again. I walked into a system and asked, plainly, to be seen. To be supported. To be treated like someone worth helping. I was met, again, with dismissal. With the cold efficiency of forms and jargon. With professionals trained to assess, not listen.

The thing is, when you've been failed so many times, being failed again doesn’t just hurt, it reopens every wound that came before. It confirms the fear that no one is coming. That you're on your own. That even now, even still, your pain doesn’t matter.

And that is grief.

There’s grief in realizing that the people or institutions you thought might finally help you still don't see you. There’s grief in knowing you’ve survived everything you’ve survived, and still, you’re the one being questioned. There’s grief in knowing that what you needed most was basic human care, and somehow, that was too much to ask.

But here’s the thing I want to say to you and to myself, this grief is real, and it deserves to be named. Even if no one else understands it. Even if there’s no funeral for what you lost. Even if the loss was invisible.

It still happened. You still feel it. And you’re not the only one.

If you’re carrying this kind of grief, I hope you know that it’s not a character flaw or a weakness. It’s a sign that you loved and needed and hoped in a world that didn’t always respond. And that matters.

This grief isn’t the end of the story. But pretending it’s not there won’t heal it. Naming it is how we start to loosen its grip. And maybe, one day, how we learn to offer ourselves the care we never got but always deserved.

About the Author

Ama is the pen name of Amaal Zaki, an Egyptian writer who has lived in Ireland since 2012 and is now an Irish citizen. Her work spans personal essays, cultural commentary, and narrative nonfiction, exploring themes like grief, healing, ADHD, sex, power, and the politics of being heard. Her essays are currently under editorial review at The Atlantic, The New York Times, HuffPost, Literary Hub, The Cut, and others. She recently completed a memoir and is actively seeking publication.