In a raw and deeply personal account of life after loss, author Regina Collier challenges the clichés, expectations and uncomfortable silence that often surround grief
PERTH, Western Australia, Oct. 30, 2026 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — When Regina Collier lost her partner, Dean, in July 2022 following complications from a double-lung transplant, she expected grief to change her life. What she didn’t expect was how dramatically it would change the way other people interacted with her. In her new book, “I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving: A Widow’s Blunt Perspective on Society” (ISBN: 978-1834385839), released through Tellwell Publishing, Collier offers an unfiltered account of widowhood and the strange, painful, and sometimes infuriating ways society responds to people who are grieving.
Image caption: New Book “I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving” Takes a Blunt Look at How Society Treats the Bereaved.
This is not a book about “moving on.”
Instead, Collier writes from inside the confusion, anger, loneliness, dark humor and contradiction of grief, questioning why those who have experienced a devastating loss are so often expected to make their grief more comfortable for everyone around them.
The provocative title reflects one of Collier’s central experiences following Dean’s death: the feeling that grief had somehow made her socially untouchable.
People disappeared. Conversations changed. Others struggled with what to say. Some offered clichés or advice. Some tried to make things better when there was simply nothing to fix.
Collier began to wonder why grieving people are so often treated as though their pain is something others need to avoid, manage or solve.
“I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving” is her response.
Throughout the book, Collier introduces readers to what she calls “Grief Brain” – the disorienting mental and emotional state that can accompany profound loss. Her thoughts can be repetitive, contradictory, furious, funny, irrational and brutally candid, and she makes little attempt to sanitize them for the reader.
That is intentional.
Rather than writing about grief from the safety of hindsight, Collier allows readers to experience its messiness alongside her.
She confronts many of the familiar behaviors surrounding bereavement: telling someone what their deceased partner “would have wanted,” comparing one person’s loss to another, assuming enough time has passed for someone to be okay, trying to cheer them up, avoiding their anger, or simply disappearing when their grief becomes uncomfortable.
Behind that frustration, however, is also a love story.
Dean was not simply Collier’s partner. He was her best friend and part of the future she had imagined for herself. His death meant grieving not only the man she loved, but their routines, plans, sense of security and the expectation that they would grow old together.
Her four adult children, family dog Brutus and memories of her life with Dean become anchors as she attempts to understand who she is in a life that no longer looks anything like the one she expected.
Humor also remains present, sometimes appearing in the darkest moments, a reflection of both Collier’s personality and the relationship she shared with Dean.
At its heart, “I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving” asks readers to reconsider what support actually looks like after someone dies.
Collier does not offer a formula for making grief disappear. Her message is considerably simpler: listen. Ask grieving people what they need instead of assuming. Let them talk about the person they lost. Allow them to be angry, contradictory or sad without trying to repair them. And, perhaps most importantly, don’t disappear simply because their grief makes you uncomfortable.
For readers who have experienced profound loss, Collier hopes the book offers recognition in place of instruction, a reminder that grief does not need to look tidy, inspirational or socially acceptable to be real.
For everyone else, it offers a candid glimpse into what can happen after the funeral is over, the sympathy cards stop arriving and the grieving person is left to navigate a world that has already begun moving forward.
“I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving: A Widow’s Blunt Perspective on Society” by Regina Collier is available now through Amazon and all major online retailers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Regina Collier is the author of “I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving: A Widow’s Blunt Perspective” on Society, a candid account of grief, widowhood and life following the death of her partner, Dean. Drawing directly from her own experiences, Collier writes about grief without euphemism, challenging conventional expectations about how grieving people should behave and how those around them should respond.
SUMMARY:
Email Contact: Authorpress@tellwell.ca
Title: “I Don’t Have Leprosy, I’m Just Grieving: A Widow’s Blunt Perspective On Society”
Author: Regina Collier
Buy Link: https://amazon.com/dp/1834385830
Author website: https://reginacollierauthor.com/
Genre: Grief/Loss
Format: Paperback / Hardcover / eBook
ISBN: 9781834385839
Publication Date: August 26, 2026
IMAGE link for media: https://reginacollierauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/i-dont-have-leprosy-im-just-grieving-book-by-author-regina-collier-9.png
NEWS SOURCE: Tellwell Publishing
This press release was issued on behalf of the news source (Tellwell Publishing), who is solely responsible for its accuracy, by Send2Press Newswire.
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