Counterfactual thinking often involves our real or imagined role…

Counterfactual thinking often involves our real or imagined role in contributing to the death or the suffering of our loved one. It is the million "what ifs" that roll through our mind: If I had done this, he never would have died. If I had not done that, he never would have died. If the doctor had done this, if the train had not been late, if he had not had that last drink... The number of possible counterfactuals is infinite. Their infinite nature gives us endless thoughts to focus on, to consider and reconsider, turning the scene around and around in our mind.

— from The Landing (Death) · *Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science of How We Learn from Love and Loss by Mary-Frances *

In the book

Grief turns out to be a country you cannot know until you arrive in it; its first shock can dislocate both body and mind. Much of its torment is the endless reel of "what ifs," the things we torture ourselves imagining we might have done differently; much of it is the mind still reaching for a loved one by the old coordinates — here, now, close — that death has quietly erased. Psychologists describe the healthy path through it as a kind of oscillation, a moving back and forth between facing the loss and stepping back to keep living. — The Landing (Death)

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