The Grief nobody sees: How unacknowledged loss shows up as anxiety in the workplace

The Grief Nobody Sees: How Unacknowledged Loss Shows Up as Anxiety in the Workplace 

Kate arrived in my therapy room the way so many high-functioning professionals do: apologetically. She'd been recently promoted to manager, had tried CBT two years earlier for panic attacks, and came armed with a list of self-improvement goals. "I need help with my anxiety," she said. "I want to work on my mindset. Be more confident. Manage my emotions better." 

She'd tried everything already, visualisations, affirmations, all the tools Instagram wellness promised would fix her. Nothing worked. Her IBS, which had flared since COVID, was a constant reminder that her body was keeping score of something her mind refused to name. 

What Kate didn't say in that first session, what she couldn't yet see, was that she wasn't anxious. She was grieving. 

The Anxiety That Wasn't 

Kate presented as a textbook case of imposter syndrome. Newly promoted, constantly overwhelmed, convinced she was failing despite all evidence to the contrary. She spoke about needing a "growth mindset" and asked if we could work on her self-sabotaging patterns. These were reasonable requests. They were also a distraction from what was really happening. 

Within our first few sessions, I noticed something: Kate was extremely cruel to herself. Every accomplishment was dismissed. Every setback was proof of her fundamental unworthiness. She had a younger sister who, in Kate's experience, did everything right, more successful, more together, more enough. When I listened carefully to how Kate spoke to herself, I heard someone else's voice. Her mother's words, weaponised inward. 

"I just need to be better," she'd say, her tone harsh and cold. But underneath that efficiency, that get-up-and-get-on-with-it energy she'd inherited from her family, was a little girl who'd never been allowed to struggle. In her childhood home, success was the only acceptable currency. Failure was something to be ashamed of, hidden, overcome quickly and quietly. 

So Kate had learned to be small with her pain. And now, at 30-something, watching her friends settle into marriages and parenthood while she remained single and childless, that pain had nowhere left to hide. 

The Loss No One Talks About 

Here's what workplaces don't understand about grief: it doesn't always arrive with a death certificate. Kate was mourning a future that hadn't materialised, the partner, the children, the life timeline she'd assumed would unfold naturally. Around her, friends were hitting

milestones she ached for. Every baby shower invitation, every pregnancy announcement, every couples' dinner she attended alone was a small cut that never quite healed. 

This is the grief nobody sees. The grief nobody names. The grief that shows up to work every single day dressed as "anxiety" or "overwhelm" or "imposter syndrome." 

Kate's anxiety wasn't irrational, it was devastatingly logical. If you spend your entire life believing you're not good enough, and then life withholds the things you most desperately want, what else could you conclude but that you've failed? That you're fundamentally broken? 

Her dating life reflected this. She fell into an anxious attachment pattern, always putting others' needs first, always at the mercy of someone else's choices. She played two roles on repeat: the fixer of other people's problems, and the victim of her own. Both roles kept her safe from having to claim what she actually wanted. Both roles confirmed her deepest fear, that she was powerless. 

The Work: Reparenting and Permission to Grieve 

Early in our work, Kate would sometimes regress during sessions, her voice would shift, become younger, more tentative. That little girl inside her, the one who'd been shut down and told to get on with things, was still waiting for someone to notice her pain. 

We worked psychodynamically to excavate how her childhood shaped her present. I held space for that younger version of Kate, the one who desperately tried to fix her mother's moods, who learned that love was conditional on achievement, who internalised the message that her needs were inconvenient. 

Slowly, with consistency and compassion, we began the work of reparenting. I helped Kate see that the voice she used on herself; harsh, dismissive, impatient, wasn't hers. It was an inheritance she could choose to put down. 

We broke overwhelming tasks into smaller pieces, not because Kate couldn't handle complexity, but because her fear of failure was so acute that procrastination had become a shield. We used our sessions for accountability, creating a space where "not completing the task" wasn't evidence of inadequacy but simply information about what she needed. 

In her dating life, I empowered her to get curious about herself, her actual needs, her patterns, her choices. What if, instead of waiting to be chosen, she practiced choosing? What if disappointment didn't mean she'd done something wrong? 

The Breakthrough: A Boy in a Supermarket 

The most profound shifts in therapy often happen between sessions, out in the world where real life unfolds. Kate came to one session visibly shaken. She'd been in a supermarket and

seen a little boy crying. His mother had knelt down to his level, held him, offered complete presence and unconditional safety while he struggled with his big emotions. 

"I realised," Kate said, tears streaming, "that I've never had that. And I've been trying to be good enough to deserve it my entire life." 

We held space together that day. There were a lot of tears. And underneath the tears, a vast, terrifying freedom. 

Kate wasn't broken. She was grieving. She was grieving the childhood she deserved but didn't get. She was grieving the mother who couldn't see her. She was grieving the future she'd imagined. And for the first time, she gave herself permission to feel all of it without rushing to fix it. 

The Transformation: From Grief to Agency 

Once Kate could name her grief, everything shifted. She gave herself permission to be angry at her mother, not to weaponise it, but to honor it as information about what she'd lost. She moved through anger into acceptance, not the toxic positivity kind, but the kind that says:  This happened. It was wrong. And I can still build a life I love. 

She applied this same lens to her present circumstances. Yes, she was sad about being single and childless. Yes, she felt left behind. And also, she could hold both the sadness and the trust that what she wanted was still possible. She could acknowledge she wasn't where she wanted to be without making it mean she'd failed as a human. 

Through an existential lens, we explored her identity, meaning, and purpose beyond the roles she thought she was supposed to fill. What was actually within her control? What could she invest in right now, regardless of whether a partner or children materialised? 

She threw herself into her work, not as avoidance, but as genuine investment. She delivered brilliant projects, secured another promotion, and now leads a team with empathy and strategic clarity. She's able to hold boundaries with her mother and sister, tolerating the discomfort when they try to pull her into old patterns without rushing in to fix or defend. 

Most importantly, Kate has developed a robust sense of self. She trusts that even when painful things happen, and they will, she can cope. She knows how to be the person she's always needed. 

Why This Matters for Workplaces 

Kate's story isn't unique. Across workplaces, people are carrying grief that has no name, no ritual, no acknowledgment. The colleague who's childless not by choice. The team member mourning a life they thought they'd have by now. The employee whose identity has shifted and who's grieving who they used to be.

This grief doesn't take bereavement leave. It shows up as disengagement, anxiety, procrastination, overwhelm, imposter syndrome. It impacts performance, decision-making, relationships, and retention. And because it's invisible, organisations have no framework for addressing it. 

What Kate's journey demonstrates is this: when we create space to name and process ambiguous loss, the kind without a funeral, without flowers, without casseroles, people don't fall apart. They become more resilient, more self-aware, more capable of navigating uncertainty. 

The work isn't to eliminate grief. It's to stop treating it like a pathology and start recognising it as part of the human experience of being alive, of wanting things, of building a life that doesn't always unfold as planned. 

Kate didn't need a growth mindset. She needed permission to grieve. And once she had it, everything else became possible. 

Names and identifying details have been changed to protect client confidentiality. 

This case study is the work of Rachel Giddings, an accredited integrative psychotherapist specialising in grief, loss, and life transitions. She works as Health Partner at Pathpal, bringing clinical depth to workplace wellbeing.