Healing from traumatic grief & loss, part 3: Grieving the person you used to be
Healing from Traumatic Grief and Loss, Part 3: Grieving the Person You Used to Be, with Lisa Hoang and Robin Castillo
Grief is not only what happens when someone dies. Sometimes the thing you are grieving is a version of yourself. The person you were before the trauma. The role you used to hold in your family before things shifted. The sense of belonging you thought you had before you realized how much of yourself you had been editing to keep it. This kind of grief is real, and it is often harder to name than loss through death, because there is no funeral for it, no casserole on the doorstep, no built-in permission to say "I am grieving" out loud.
This is the final post in our three-part series on healing from traumatic grief at gokc, and it focuses on two clinicians whose work, from different angles, both sit inside this territory: Lisa Hoang, LMSW and Robin Castillo, PLPC. If Part 1 was about traumatic grief that destabilizes anxiety and identity, and Part 2 was about grief that gets numbed instead of felt, this post is about grief that shows up as the quiet, ongoing loss of who you used to be, or who you were always told you should be.
Grief without a death certificate
There is a name clinicians sometimes use for this: disenfranchised grief, grief that is not socially recognized or validated in the way other losses are. It includes things like the end of a relationship with a parent who is still alive, the loss of a cultural or religious identity you were raised inside of, the erosion of a role you built your whole self around, or the slow realization that the family or community you belong to does not fully see you. None of these losses come with a clear before and after. There is no single day to mark. And because of that, people carrying this kind of grief often do not call it grief at all. They call it anxiety, or restlessness, or a vague sense that something is wrong that they cannot quite locate.
Lisa and Robin approach this territory from two different but connected angles, and pairing their work in this final post reflects how differently identity-related grief can show up depending on where it comes from.
Lisa Hoang: grief carried across generations and identities
Lisa Hoang is an LMSW and EMDR-trained trauma therapist at gokc, seeing clients in person at our Brookside office Tuesday through Saturday, and via telehealth across Missouri and Kansas. Her specialties include trauma and PTSD, LGBTQ+ affirming care, intergenerational and cultural trauma, anxiety, grief, and identity. As a queer, second-generation Vietnamese American therapist herself, Lisa brings a particular understanding of what it means to carry an identity that is layered, intersectional, and historically marginalized.
Some of the grief Lisa works with in session did not originate with her clients at all. Intergenerational trauma means grief and pain that were passed down, absorbed from parents or grandparents who survived things they never fully processed themselves. A client might come in describing anxiety or a persistent sense of not belonging, without realizing that what they are carrying is, in part, inherited grief, wounds passed down through generations that show up in ways they are only beginning to understand.
There is also a more direct form of this grief that Lisa sees often: the loss that comes with living between cultures, or between the family you were raised in and the identity you have grown into. For second-generation clients navigating the gap between their family's world and their own, or for queer clients whose family loves them but does not fully understand them, there is often a real grief underneath the daily navigation. Grief for the relationship that could have been simpler. Grief for the version of belonging that did not require translation or self-editing. Lisa's approach treats this as legitimate grief, not just "family stuff" to manage, and EMDR work can help process both the original wounds and the ongoing weight of navigating an identity that was never fully welcomed.
What makes Lisa's approach distinct is that clients do not have to explain or justify their identity before the grief work can begin. She describes her practice as a space where your full identity is not just tolerated but genuinely welcomed, which matters enormously for grief that is tangled up with feeling like you have to earn the right to be understood.
Robin Castillo: grieving the roles that no longer fit
Robin Castillo, PLPC, sees clients in person at our Brookside office, as well as virtually across Missouri and Kansas. Her specialties are self-esteem, identity rebuilding, and life transitions, with particular depth in midlife shifts and LGBTQ+ affirming care. Where Lisa's work often centers on identity shaped by culture and family history, Robin's work centers on identity that shifts because life itself has changed.
Robin's clients are often people who have spent years showing up for everyone else: building a career, raising a family, holding responsibilities that matter, and doing it well enough that from the outside, nothing looks wrong. But something has shifted. The roles they have carried for so long do not fit quite the same way anymore. This is its own form of traumatic grief, especially when the shift was triggered by something sudden, like a divorce, an empty nest arriving faster than expected, a health scare, or a loss that reorganized an entire family structure overnight.
This kind of grief rarely gets acknowledged as grief. There is no ritual for mourning the version of yourself who used to know exactly who she was in her family, her marriage, or her career. Robin's work creates space for exactly that. Rather than treating the disorientation as a problem to fix quickly, she helps clients recognize it as a genuine loss worth grieving, while also building toward whoever they are becoming next. As she puts it, this is a space where you finally get to show up for you, after years of showing up for everyone else.
Why these two specialties belong in the same conversation about grief
Lisa and Robin's work looks different on the surface. One centers on culture, family history, and identities that were never fully seen. The other centers on midlife transitions and roles that quietly stopped fitting. But both are answering the same underlying question: who am I, now that the story I was living inside of has changed. That question is at the heart of a huge amount of traumatic grief that never gets labeled as grief, because it did not arrive through a death.
If you have been telling yourself that what you are feeling does not count as real grief because nobody died, it is worth reconsidering that. Losing the version of yourself that made sense inside an old identity, an old role, or an old family dynamic is a real loss. It deserves real grieving, and real support.
What sessions with Lisa or Robin actually look like
With Lisa, sessions typically begin with understanding the full shape of what you are carrying, including any patterns that may trace back further than your own life. EMDR is often part of the work when trauma has left the nervous system stuck in old reactions, whether that trauma is a single event or a slower accumulation of experiences tied to identity and belonging. The pace is collaborative, and there is no requirement to have your identity, your family history, or your grief fully sorted out before starting.
With Robin, sessions tend to start with naming what has actually shifted, often for the first time out loud. Many clients arrive having minimized the transition they are in, telling themselves it should not be this hard, or that other people have it worse. Robin's work helps clients take the shift seriously, grieve what has genuinely been lost, and start rebuilding a sense of identity and self-esteem that reflects who they are now, not who they used to have to be.
What to expect from your first sessions
Neither Lisa nor Robin will ask you to arrive with a tidy explanation of what you are going through. If your grief feels layered, confusing, or hard to separate from anxiety, family dynamics, or a life transition that is still unfolding, that is a completely normal starting point. The first sessions are about understanding your story at your own pace and figuring out, together, what kind of support will actually help.
FAQ: Identity-related grief and loss therapy at gokc
Can grief really be about identity instead of a death?
Yes. Grief responds to loss, and losing a role, a relationship to your culture or family, or a version of yourself is a genuine loss, even without a death involved.
How do I know whether Lisa or Robin is the better fit?
As a general guide, Lisa's work fits well if your grief is tied to cultural identity, intergenerational family patterns, or trauma alongside LGBTQ+ or intersectional identity. Robin's work fits well if your grief is tied to a life transition, a shifting role, or a midlife identity shift. If you are not sure, our team page and Therapist Match Maker can help you decide, or you can ask during a free consultation.
Where do Lisa and Robin see clients?
Lisa sees clients in person at our Brookside office, Tuesday through Saturday, and via telehealth across Missouri and Kansas. Robin also sees clients in person at our Brookside office, as well as virtually across Missouri and Kansas.
Do I need a formal trauma diagnosis to start?
No. Both Lisa and Robin work with clients who are simply aware that something feels unresolved, without needing a diagnosis to justify seeking support.
Closing out this series
Across these three posts, we have looked at traumatic grief from a few different angles: the anxiety and identity disruption it can cause, the way it sometimes gets numbed instead of felt, and the quieter grief of losing a version of yourself that no longer fits. If any part of this series described your own experience, that is worth taking seriously. Grief that goes unnamed does not go away. It waits.
Lisa and Robin are both currently accepting new clients. If you are ready to talk to someone who will take your grief seriously, whatever form it has taken, we would be glad to hear from you.
gokc Healing Center provides trauma-informed grief, identity, and life-transition counseling to clients throughout the Kansas City metro, including Brookside, Waldo, and Prairie Village, as well as via telehealth across Missouri and Kansas. Read more about our approach on our homepage, meet our full team on the team page, or revisit Part 1 (Kate Schroeder) and Part 2 (Rose Cadden) of this series.
