During the summer of 2006 a search was mounted in the Big Moose region of the Adirondacks in upstate NY. The hoped for find was my cousin. There were at least two other man hunts that summer for other missing hikers and campers in the region. No trace was found. It is now five years later and still no evidence has surfaced of what happened to him or the others. There is little comfort to be found. Speculation leads to more unanswered questions and feelings of uneasiness. My family and I have no sense of closure. His absence is a wound without a scab. We are suffering an ambiguous loss.
Ambiguous loss is typically not officially acknowledged by others. The nature of the loss implies there is no possibility of closure or completion. There are two types of ambiguous loss. When someone is physically missing but their whereabouts is unclear. They are psychologically present in the minds and hearts of the survivors because their status as dead or alive is unclear. The second type is when a loved one is psychologically absent but physically present. Examples include brain injury, dementia, and addiction.
Pauline Boss, PhD, identifies missing soldiers in a war, missing people in a natural disaster, kidnapping, hostage-taking, terrorism, incarceration, desertion, mysterious disappearance, missing bodies as in murder or a plane crash, Alzheimer's disease and dementia, chronic mental illness, addictions, depression and traumatic head injury as catastrophic and sometimes unexpected ambiguous loss. More common ambiguous losses that we often don't even identify as loss include immigration and migration, adoption, divorce and remarriage, work relocation, military deployment, empty nest, moving to assisted care facilities/ nursing home, homesickness, preoccupation with work, and obsession with computer games, internet, tv and other social media.
In this context, we all share common feelings and struggle with ambiguous loss. For more information about coping with ambiguous loss please read Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (1999), Loss, Trauma, and Resilience (2006) all by Pauline Boss, PhD and visit http://www.ambiguousloss.com/.
