There's a version of your son, your daughter, your brother that no longer exists. You remember them. You have photos. You can describe exactly who they were before. That person is gone — and nobody will let you mourn them because they're still breathing. Rob and Michele Reiner lived inside that contradiction for seventeen years. The Nick they raised disappeared slowly — replaced by someone they couldn't reach, couldn't trust, and eventually feared. There was no funeral. No moment where the loss became official. Just an endless middle where hope and grief traded places until neither felt survivable. They made a movie with Nick in 2015 about recovery. Press tours. Public healing. He wasn't sober for any of it. The redemption was a performance the Reiners believed was real. When the truth surfaced, the wound reopened — worse than before, because they'd let themselves hope. That's how ambiguous loss works. Every glimpse of the person you remember sharpens the absence when they vanish again. Hope becomes the cruelest part of the cycle because it refuses to let you settle into the grief. And the lies you build around it aren't weakness. "This time is different." "Nobody understands them like I do." "If I stop trying, I failed." These are survival mechanisms — the only frameworks your brain can construct when the truth is unsurvivable. Rob said he was petrified of Nick. He brought him to a Christmas party anyway because he couldn't leave him alone. That's a man who saw reality and couldn't act on it — because acting meant releasing the last thread connecting him to a son who no longer existed. You weren't foolish for believing the lies. You were surviving with the only tools you had. The grief you carry for someone who's still alive is real. Their absence deserves to be mourned. Consider this your permission. And forgive yourself for every story you told to keep breathing.

#RobReiner #NickReiner #MicheleSingerReiner #TrueCrime #AmbiguousLoss #GrievingTheLiving #AddictionFamily #InvisibleGrief #Denial #HiddenKillers

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