Twelve years ago, on December 29, 2013, the life of Michael Schumacher, world icon of Formula 1, was turned upside down. The F1 champion was the victim of a terrible skiing accident that day during a family vacation in Savoie.
A long hospitalization… and since then silence
After a long coma and months of hospitalization between Grenoble and Lausanne, the pilot returned to his Swiss home in September 2014.
Since then, he has benefited from constant care provided by live-in nurses, far from prying eyes.
His wife, Corinna, fiercely guards his privacy, allowing only rare testimonies to leak out suggesting that the man the world knew has given way to a different presence.
Michael Schumacher: a life hidden from view
Since that day in December, Michael Schumacher has not made a public appearance. His career came to a screeching halt, leaving his fans in a state of unanswered suspense.
If his family remains extremely discreet, the few relatives authorized to visit him agree on one point: he is no longer the same.
This desire for media protection is explained by the burden of care, but also by the need for loved ones to adapt to a new reality, often difficult to name.
Understanding “white mourning”: when the other fades away
This feeling of losing someone who is still physically there has a name: white mourning. Although it can occur after head trauma, it mainly concerns families of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, etc.).
“Saying goodbye to someone… who is still here. This is what we call white mourning.”explains clinical psychologist Amélie Boukhobza.
For the expert, it is a mourning without ceremony or coffin. “The person is there, physically. She’s breathing, maybe she’s still smiling. But the essential is erased. The one we knew, loved… seems to dissolve little by little.”
A silent and taboo pain
For those around them, this process is of rare psychological violence because it breaks the bond of reciprocity. “There is no more sharing. There remains a past that we try to keep at arm’s length. A one-sided love, nourished only by memory“, explains Amélie Boukhobza.
This particular bereavement gives rise to contradictory feelings that caregivers do not always dare to express. “On the one hand, the constant fear that he will get lost. On the other, a thought that we immediately repress: that it should stop. Because it’s too hard. And immediately, the shame, the guilt.”
The most difficult thing remains the lack of social recognition of this suffering: “Because there is no official death, no recognition of grief… And yet, everything in oneself screams absence.”
How to deal with this present absence?
Today, the term white mourning is emerging to help millions of caregivers in France put their pain into words. To last over time, several steps are essential:
- Acknowledge your grief. Grant yourself the right to grieve, even if the person is alive;
- Come out of isolation. Do not remain alone in the face of this pain and share your experience with peers;
- Verbalize your emotions. Express anger or disappointment to a professional;
- Give yourself some respite. Accept one-off help or day hospitalization for your loved one in order to take care of themselves.
Putting a word on this silent suffering allows loved ones to no longer remain alone in the face of their present absence. If the white mourning does not disappear, it can be accompanied, recognized and alleviated, on condition of accepting that love continues, even when the other is no longer quite the same.