Complicated grief

According to The New York Times, there are about a million people each year who, like me, are unable to comes to terms with the death of a loved one within six months. The phenomenon differs from depression, and from post traumatic stress. They are thinking about classifying as a new psychiatric disease, called complicated grief or prolonged grief disorder.

I'd classify it as an aspiration.

Some of the overt symptoms of this new disease include increased drinking (check) and tobacco consumption (check, I'm smoking cigars again). It's also linked to increased cancer risk, which seems more than odd. But mostly it's about not letting go.

There is physical evidence for the condition:

Then, in 2008, NeuroImage published a study of the brain activity of people with complicated grief. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, Mary-Frances O’Connor, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, showed that when patients with complicated grief looked at pictures of their loved ones, the nucleus accumbens — the part of the brain associated with rewards or longing — lighted up. It showed significantly less activity in people who experienced more normal patterns of grieving.

Should you click over to the article, be sure to read the comments. Very interesting testimony.