Unacknowledged GriefSep 4, 2026
Why the Second Year of Grief Is Often Harder Than the First
Everyone braces for the first year of loss. Almost no one warns you that year two, when the support fades and the numbness wears off, can hit harder.
The LibraryBylines12 pieces
Marissa Overcash
Death Doula & Grief Support Specialist
Marissa Overcash spent over a decade as an estate-planning paralegal before training as a certified death doula (2025) and a certified grief coach (Certified Excellence, 2025). Based in Jacksonville, she works across northeast Florida, southeast Georgia, the Florida panhandle, and central Florida, a region with very few practicing death doulas to meet the need. Her focus is the caregiver as much as the dying person: she leads advance care planning and vigil sitting, supports families through anticipatory and disenfranchised grief, mediates the family conflict a death often surfaces, and stays with families inside funeral homes through the days that follow. She currently runs workshops and group sessions for caregivers and is building them into an ongoing course layering anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief, and practical guidance into one program. She writes for Otherside Life on grief, loss, and the space between the legal and emotional sides of dying.
12 pieces published with Otherside Life.
- Certified Death Doula — 2025
- Certified Grief Coach — Certified Excellence, 2025
GriefFamiliesCaregiversLegacyTraumatic LossMediation
Marissa’s practitioner profileEverything by Marissa Overcash
Unacknowledged GriefSep 4, 2026
Recognizing Unacknowledged Grief: Why Some Losses Never Get Witnessed
A field guide to the grief that doesn't come with a script — miscarriage, estrangement, a second year that's harder than the first — and the research behind why each one goes unwitnessed.
Unacknowledged GriefSep 3, 2026
The Emotional Guide to Death Admin
Nobody warns you a cell phone bill can undo you. The practical checklist for closing accounts exists elsewhere — this is how to actually get through it while you're grieving.
Unacknowledged GriefSep 2, 2026
How to Survive "Grief Brain" at Work
Forgetting names, rereading the same email four times, blanking mid-sentence — grief brain is real, physiological, and rarely talked about at work. Here's how to function through it.
Unacknowledged GriefSep 1, 2026
What to Write in a Sympathy Card for a Non-Death Loss
There's a whole aisle of cards for a death, and nothing for an estrangement, a miscarriage, or a friendship that ended. Here's what to actually write, loss by loss.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 31, 2026
Grief Brain Fog: A Two-Minute Grounding Practice for Foggy, Heavy Days
Grief doesn't always look like tears. Sometimes it's a thick, disorienting fog — and a two-minute grounding practice for exactly those moments.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 27, 2026
12 Honest Truths About How Grief Actually Works
Grief keeps colliding with expectations nobody fact-checked. Twelve real patterns in how grief works, each paired with the research or history behind it.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 24, 2026
Disenfranchised Grief: A Practical Toolkit for Unacknowledged Loss
Naming the loss, the Anchor Object practice, and other concrete tools for grief that society never formally recognized in the first place.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 20, 2026
How to Set Boundaries With a Grieving Loved One (Without Guilt)
"Am I a bad person for needing space from my grieving friend?" On secondary grief, compassion fatigue, and how to actually say you need a limit.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 17, 2026
Why Grief Hurts (and Why It's Invisible to Everyone Else)
Pain isn't a malfunction — it's information nobody else can see. Understanding why evolution built us to hurt explains both the pain and why it goes so unacknowledged.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 13, 2026
From Estate Planning to Death Doula: What Legal Work Taught Me About Grief
Fifteen years as a corporate paralegal taught Marissa Overcash where legal support for a death or diagnosis ends — and where the actual grief begins.
Unacknowledged GriefAug 10, 2026
Grieving a Miscarriage: Why It's More Than Losing a Pregnancy
Miscarriage grief rarely gets treated as what it actually is — the loss of a whole imagined future, not just a medical event with a short recovery window.
Write for Otherside Life
Clinicians, doulas, funeral professionals, and people who have been through it. If you know something families need to know, we want to publish it.
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