When Everything Feels “Griefy”: Living in an Era of Cumulative Grief

Lately, everything feels “griefy.”

I used this word recently, fully aware that it is not technically a word. My Google Doc underlines it in red. Autocorrect tries to fix it. But the word emerged naturally because sometimes language shows up before permission is granted.

People are talking more openly about grief, or perhaps I am simply more exposed to it now through social media, news cycles, and the constant availability of information. In some ways, I welcome that openness. In other ways, it brings with it a sense of collective weight, a shared heaviness that feels difficult to escape.

What feels different now is not the existence of grief, but how much of it we are carrying at once.

The “Griefy” Moment

During a recent conversation in a pet grief education group I co-moderate, the topic of cumulative grief surfaced. Someone described feeling worn down in a way that didn’t map neatly onto a single loss.

That’s when the word griefy came out.

It captured something broader than bereavement. A kind of grief for the state of things. For how humans are being treated. For the things being said out loud now. For the erosion of dignity, safety, and care.

For people of color, especially African Americans, this sense of cumulative grief is not new. Grief has long been layered, contextual, and shaped by historical and systemic realities. My work has always emphasized context, because grief never occurs in a vacuum. It lives within bodies, cultures, communities, and histories.

As a Black woman, some of what I encounter now grieves me deeply. Recently, I felt a wave of sadness reading reports that the president suggested civil rights-era protections caused white men to be “very badly treated.” My intention here is not to be political, but human. If you don’t understand why that statement would grieve me, I’m open to conversation.

These moments accumulate and coexist with stories of people being killed, dehumanized, or treated cruelly, and non-death losses related to safety, belonging, healthcare, mental health funding, free speech, or the ongoing strain of caring for adult children with complex needs. And this is only a snapshot.

This is not one grief. It is many.

Cumulative Grief as a Lived Reality

During my research on the African American experience of pet loss, cumulative grief emerged as a central theme under the broader umbrella of grief inequities. Participants described grief not as a singular event tied only to the death of a pet, but as something layered and intersecting, shaped by multiple losses, ongoing stressors, and broader systemic challenges.

Many participants spoke about grieving their pets while simultaneously holding other forms of loss, including the deaths of human loved ones, non-death losses such as divorce or illness, and the weight of ongoing life stressors. For some, pet loss became another layer added to an already complex grief journey, rather than an isolated experience.

Cumulative grief showed up in very tangible ways. Participants described multiple pet losses across adulthood, sometimes within short periods of time. Others spoke about anticipatory grief for a surviving pet while actively grieving another. Several participants described grieving their pets while navigating cancer treatment, divorce, or significant workplace pressures.

Other participants discussed the disproportionate grief burden faced by African Americans. They connected their pet loss to a broader cultural familiarity with grief shaped by gun violence, socioeconomic hardship, and historical inequities. Pet loss intersected with the death of a parental caregiver, particularly when the pet had been closely associated with that caregiver. In these cases, the death of a pet intensified an already significant grief burden rather than existing apart from it.

Cumulative grief, in this context, was not about comparison or hierarchy. It was about accumulation.

From Cumulative to Collective

While cumulative grief has long been a familiar reality for marginalized communities, it feels as though we have entered a new era of collective cumulative grief. Many people now find themselves holding layers of loss simultaneously. Death losses and non-death losses. Personal grief and witnessed grief. Moral injury, dehumanization, cruelty, and erasure. All of it unfolding in real time, often without pause, processing, or containment.

What feels new for many is not grief itself, but its ongoing nature. Losses arrive one after another, often before the previous one has been responded to. The exposure is constant. The information is relentless. And the nervous system is left to carry more than it was designed to hold.

This is where the word “griefy” feels appropriate. It captures something that is difficult to name. Not one loss, but a pervasive atmosphere of grief.

Naming What Is Happening

We cannot look away, because there is something sacred and troubling in bearing witness. And yet, bearing witness without rest takes a toll on the heart.

Perhaps this is what it means to live inside cumulative grief. Not brokenness, but exposure.

If everything feels griefy right now, it may be our honest response to a world that is asking too much.