Psychology Today | 11.02.2026 03:57
When someone we love dies, we have a funeral. The loss is clear and clean—while the relationship might have been complex, the loss of the person is not. We will never see, hear, or speak with them again. But when someone we love has dementia, succumbs to addiction or mental illness, ghosts us, disappears, or cuts off contact with us, we lose the person and relationship in a way that doesn’t allow for the same kind of closure. This kind of loss is called “ambiguous loss.”
