Ambiguous Loss

What do you call a loss that is unresolved, enigmatic? A loss that is lacking in clarity, in certainty, in resolution? One that doesn’t allow for the typical markers and rituals that help a person process a loss, delaying and complicating their grief? Though I have a Ph.D. in Psychology, my experience lies outside the realm of the clinical and counseling professions, so I did not have a name for this type of loss. That is, until I came across the concept of Ambiguous Loss (Boss, 2000) – a concept which I have found captures, almost perfectly, the grief I’ve experienced since my (now) 14-year-old daughter abruptly announced she was transgender a year and a half ago.

Like many stories you will read on this substack, my child’s transgender identity came on very suddenly, a few months into the pandemic, with no prior signs of gender dysphoria or of nonconforming behavior, whatsoever. It also, I should add, emerged shortly after the appearance of several significant mental health issues, which brought about changes in our child’s personality that we could not have anticipated.

So, to say I was blindsided would be an understatement. It was as if I had woken up in a parallel universe, where I had a different child: A different name and new pronouns, a different color of hair, different clothing, different interests, even different mannerisms. A universe where, if a person says they are transgender, the only appropriate response is to affirm. One where, at best, I was expected to carry on as if nothing had changed. At worst, I was expected to actually celebrate the loss, to banish my child’s “deadname”, to think of her as "She who must not be named”. To celebrate a new person.

Though I have never – not for even one minute – believed in the authenticity of my child’s transgender identity, my husband and I eventually decided to affirm “him” in making a full social transition, at home and at school. Outside the context of this letter, I use only male pronouns when referring to my child, and no longer address her by her birth name. I understand that affirmation in this way is not what most parents in our disbelieving position generally do. It was a decision we came to slowly, based on what we deemed best for our child under our particular circumstances, at a particular point in time. So, please withhold judgment, and understand that we did our best in extremely challenging circumstances. Each child is different and, therefore, so is each ROGD parenting strategy.

This affirmation, this path of least resistance, inverted my sense of reality, making me wonder if I had slipped into an episode of the Twilight Zone. The experience has been jarring. My daughter is gone . . . but not gone. And I don’t know where she is. I see pictures of her on the wall, come across old photos of her on my phone. I see her name on old documents. I see her old clothing (blouses, bras, and, yes, bikinis) in closets, and makeup in drawers. I miss her, but I can’t say so. I want to say her name, but I cannot.

I run into acquaintances who ask how she’s doing, and I’m unsure of how to answer. In the occasional conversation with a stranger, someone happens to ask if I have children, and I’m not sure whether to say I have a daughter or a son. I sometimes have conversations with other mothers, mothers who share struggles that are unique to having daughters (menstruation, particular body-image concerns) and I have to pretend that I have no frame of reference. I find myself looking forward to doing mundane tasks that I once found a chore, like picking up my child’s prescription at the pharmacy, because it is the only place where I can look someone in the eye and say my daughter’s name out loud without fear of consequence. It is the loss of a life as I once knew it.  

Or is it, really? An added layer of uncertainty lies in not knowing if this is real, authentic, something that will endure. Or, if it is something else. Something that will fade with time, and that will ultimately be counted as one more instance of transgender “desistance” (Or not counted, more likely, as who would I tell? Where would I register this information? Who is keeping track?)

It helps my husband to think of it as “a phase”. But a “phase” does not do this experience justice. A phase is something one need not worry much about – something that will pass – like a small child who will only eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, wear only a certain pair of shoes, drink only from a certain cup. Frustrating, but no harm done. Wait it out. Except that this phase, this fixation involves not demands for a particular food, or for a particular pair of shoes, or for a particular sippy cup. No, this phase involves suffocating binders and requests for cross-sex hormones. Hormones that will, over time, permanently alter one’s voice and result in loss of fertility. This phase, for many, involves surgical removal of body parts.

Please understand, I know better than to assume my grief is comparable to that of losing a child to death. To do so would be to draw a cruel false equivalency. But to pretend it is not a loss is to tell a lie, to be dishonest, to not acknowledge what it feels like to watch a person you love change – change so significantly, over such a short period of time, that you no longer recognize them. To watch, even as you affirm them in their new identity, facilitate a successful social transition, spend every waking hour searching and calling to find the right therapist, the right psychiatric hospital, the right residential treatment facility, the right outpatient program, the right medication. … to watch them slowly slip away, like a coin dropped into a spiral wishing well, watching as it circles the rim and descends further into an abyss.

I have enough life experience to know that, with time, I’ll move past this, come out on the other side. In the meantime, it is a small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless, to have a term, a concept, a name for all of this silent grief.