Coping with Bereavement as a PhD Student

Imagine being a PhD student whose life mostly revolves around the lab until you are hit by the worst news of your life. You have just lost one or both of your parents and bereavement sets in. You still cannot really believe it, spend your nights crying, and find yourself grappling with a whole pile of admin you did not even know existed. And in all that, you are also supposed to care about what the function of protein X is in a liverwort. I lost my dad to pancreatic cancer when I was 24. I had just started my PhD program. The day before I was talking about cool papers with my rotation supervisor and the next day I was emailing her to say I was no longer sure I could join her lab as a PhD student. I found myself needing to move back home to take care of my terminally ill father. I was a mess, my family was a mess, and my academic career looked in no better prospects.

What Do You Do?

Is there a protocol to follow? You guessed it, there is none. I am not a shrink, so you will not find mental health advice here. Instead, I want to help you with the practicalities of facing both your PhD and your pain.

You Can Grieve and Still Work on Your PhD

You CAN both get a degree from a high profile university, and go through the grieving process. Many academics (from PIs to undergrads) might tell you that you must make a choice between career and family and that your new responsibilities, together with your bereavement, will only get in the way. Ignore them. There are a number of brilliant minds who are living proof of the opposite (have a look here for some examples). For the record, you will hear the same story about having a baby.

You Are Not Alone and Your University Can Help

There are mechanisms in place to help students with special circumstances. They can range from giving financial support to students who need to commute often, to allowing you to intermit for months or even years. To find out more, visit your university’s website, ask someone at the counseling service, or simply talk to your supervisor.

Use Those Resources

Don’t play stoic. Going back to work the day after the funeral because ‘you must be strong’ (you’ll hear those words a lot, I’m afraid) is counterproductive for both yourself and your research. Give yourself the time you need. Come to terms with the fact that you might need a week, a month, or a year. If you intermit, your PhD is frozen, and every deadline changes accordingly. Sure, this means a whole lot of things might change in the meantime, including your project (in fact, this is very likely to happen as your field moves forward while you are away).

Lost Interest – Do Not Worry

This is only temporary and it is a physiological response to the enormous amount of stress you are going through. You will become engaged with your research again as you begin to process the initial trauma (provided you follow point 3 above). Equally, push through the guilt you might feel when you start enjoying your work again. Renewed interest in your research does not mean you are forgetting your parent, but simply that you are entering a healthier phase of grief.

You Have Control Over Who Knows

You choose if, when, and whom to tell. Your supervisor and the staff processing any related paperwork will know, but you should feel under no pressure to tell anyone else if you feel uncomfortable. It might be easier for you to resume your academic life if everyone treats you as usual and not as if you were a fragile crystal vase (personally, I stopped telling people precisely because of that). Normality can be a powerful healer. On the other hand, do tell your colleagues if you feel that it would make your working environment better. You will have bad days, and this could create confusion or tension if they do not know why you are acting hostile. Bereavement is the typical “the-only-way-out-is-through-it” situation. We all grieve differently and you may not have power over every aspect of your PhD . Ultimately though, remember you have some power over yourself.