Science Has Proven That Losing A Parent Changes Your Genetics
Losing a loved one is never an easy thing. In particular, the death of a parent can be one of the most difficult losses in life. The emotions that come from the passing of a parent is a universal human experience that doesn't discriminate by gender, age, or race.
While we all experience grief differently, scientists have proven that the loss of a parent can change you forever in both a biological and psychological way. Scientists have even proven that it can make you sick.
There Is A Best-Case Scenario For Losing A Parent
The death of a parent is never a good thing and we're not trying to minimize the loss. But psychiatrists have agreed there is technically a best-case scenario. When the death of a parent is anticipated, it allows the family to process the loss, say their goodbyes, and begin to build their support systems.
When a parent finally passes it will still leave a child grieving, but in many ways, there is a sense of peace surrounding it.
The Worst-Case Scenario Will Leave You Scarred
On the flip side, the worst-case scenario for the loss of a parent is when the death is unexpected. This happens with fatal illnesses or traumatic accidents. The sudden loss causes the adult children to have trouble completing the cycle of grief.
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. With sudden deaths, adult children can end up stuck in the denial or anger stage which can take a serious toll.
In The Short-Term, You Basically End Up With PTSD
Staying in the denial and anger stage for too long can lead to the same effects as trauma and PSTD survivors. That's because our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight response, is activated for too long.
Activating that system means cell death stops being pre-programmed and immune responses are put on hold. That can actually be a good thing when you're running away from a bear, but it's a bad thing when it's prolonged.
The Long-Term Effects Will Actually Change Your Genetics
Having that fight or flight mechanism activated can stress out your body in a disastrous way in the long-term. It can cause you to experience hypertension, cardiac events, immune disorders, and even cancer.
The connections between the death of a parent to cancer are because having your normal cells out of a regular cycle for so long is how cancerous cells have proven to grow and spread to other cells in the body. It's shocking just how much a parent's death can change you.
There Are Some Differences Between People Though
Even though we all experience grief with the loss of a parent, there are some differences. Daughters tend to have more intense grieving but sons take slower to move on after compartmentalizing their emotions.
Which parent you lose can also make a difference. Losing a father is shown to connect with the personal loss of "mastery" while losing a mother creates a "more raw response." Whatever the loss may be, there's no doubt that the death of a parent changes you for life.
