Loss In a Diagnosis

Brandon Robbins
4 days ago
3 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

A life-threatening or life-changing diagnosis is not a single loss. It is a cascade of losses that unfold over time—some immediate, some delayed, some invisible to everyone but the person carrying the body that has changed.

Below is an exploration of that grief, its emotions, and its impact.

The First Loss: The Assumption of Tomorrow

Before the diagnosis, there is often an unspoken belief: My body will carry me forward.

A diagnosis fractures that assumption.

Suddenly, the future is no longer a wide horizon—it becomes conditional, negotiated, uncertain. Time may feel compressed or strangely suspended. Some people experience a sharp rupture; others feel a slow dawning realization that life is now divided into before and after.

This grief often arrives as:

Shock or numbness (“This can’t be right.”)
Disbelief despite evidence
A sense of watching life happen from behind glass

Even hope can feel destabilizing—because hope now carries risk.

Grief of the Body: Betrayal and Estrangement

Many people grieve their own body.

The body may feel like it has:

Betrayed them
Failed to protect them
Become unreliable or hostile

There is grief for:

Strength that fades
Energy that once felt endless
A body that required no monitoring, medication, or fear

This can create a quiet estrangement—living in a body that no longer feels like home.

Emotions often include:

Anger at the body
Shame or self-blame (“What did I do wrong?”)
Fear of pain, procedures, or deterioration
Grief over physical intimacy changing or disappearing

Identity Grief: Who Am I Now?

A diagnosis can dismantle identity.

“I was the dependable one.” “I was the caregiver.” “I was the athlete.” “I was the provider.”

Illness introduces a role many never wanted: patient.

This shift may carry grief for:

Independence
Competence
Privacy
Being seen as whole rather than fragile

Some experience a loss of dignity—being examined, monitored, and discussed. Others grieve how illness eclipses everything else they are.

There may be resentment when the world now sees the diagnosis before the person.

The Grief of Unchosen Dependency

Needing help is not the same as being supported.

A life-changing illness can force dependence—on partners, family, healthcare systems, medications, schedules. This loss of autonomy can be deeply painful, especially for those who valued self-reliance.

Common emotions include:

Guilt for “being a burden”
Shame for needing help
Fear of abandonment
Anger at limitations

There is grief in asking—and grief in not asking because it costs too much emotionally.

Relational Grief: Shifts, Strains, and Silence

Illness reshapes relationships.

Some people show up. Some disappear. Some stay—but differently.

There is grief when:

Friends grow uncomfortable with vulnerability
Loved ones minimize or over-optimize (“Stay positive!”)
Conversations become centred on symptoms instead of the self
Partners shift into caregiver roles, altering intimacy and equality

The person diagnosed may grieve the loss of being met emotionally—seen beyond the illness.

There is also anticipatory grief: worrying about how loved ones will suffer, remembering that one’s pain echoes outward.

The Grief of Uncertainty and Waiting

Few things exhaust the nervous system like not knowing.

Waiting for test results.Waiting to see if treatment works.Waiting for the next flare, scan, decline, or milestone.

This creates:

Chronic anxiety
Hypervigilance toward bodily sensations
Difficulty planning or dreaming
A constant background hum of fear

Grief here is not about what has happened—but what might.

Social and Existential Grief

A diagnosis can fracture one’s sense of belonging to the “healthy world.”

Others plan freely. Others complain about trivial aches. Others assume longevity.

This can leave the diagnosed person feeling isolated—even in crowds.

Existential questions often surface:

Why me?
What matters now?
What do I leave unfinished?
How do I live with meaning under constraint?

There is grief for the life that could have been—the unlived chapters, postponed dreams, altered paths.

Complicated Emotions: The Ones People Don’t Expect

Grief here is rarely pure sadness.

It often includes:

Relief (finally having answers)
Gratitude tangled with resentment
Hope that feels fragile
Jealousy toward healthy bodies
Fear of being forgotten or replaced
Anger at platitudes and forced optimism

Many grieve in silence because their pain feels socially inconvenient—too heavy, too frightening, too close to mortality.

The Ongoing Nature of This Grief

This grief is not a single event. It renews itself at:

Anniversaries of diagnosis
Symptom changes
Medical milestones
Loss of function
Watching others age freely

It is a grief that walks alongside life rather than resolving neatly.

Closing Reflection

To be diagnosed with a life-threatening or life-changing illness is to mourn:

A body that once felt safe
A future that once felt promised
An identity that once felt stable

And yet, within this grief, many also discover:

Fierce clarity
Deepened compassion
Redefined meaning
A more intimate relationship with time

Not because the loss was necessary—but because the human spirit adapts even when it never consented to the change.