Grief

Any loss can cause grief, including the loss of a relationship, your health, your job, or a cherished dream. Learn how to better cope with what you are feeling and process your emotions in ways that allow you to heal, and to find your feet again.

Grief is a natural response to loss. It is the emotional suffering you feel when you suffer a significant ‘loss,’ as when something or someone you love is taken away. Often, the pain of loss can feel overwhelming. You may experience all kinds of difficult and unexpected emotions, from shock or anger to disbelief, guilt, and profound sadness. The pain of grief can also disrupt your physical health, making it difficult to sleep, eat, or even think straight. These are normal reactions to loss and the more significant the loss, the more intense your grief will be.

Coping with the loss of someone or something important to you is one of life’s biggest challenges. You may associate grieving with the death of a loved one, which is often the cause of the most intense type of grief but any loss can cause grief, including:

Whatever your loss, it is personal to you, so do not feel ashamed about how you feel, or believe that it is somehow only appropriate to grieve for certain things. If the person, animal, relationship, or situation was significant to you, it is normal to grieve the loss you’re experiencing. Whatever the cause of your grief, though, there are healthy ways to cope with the pain that, in time, can ease your sadness and help you come to terms with your loss, find new meaning, and eventually move on with your life.

The Grieving Process

Grieving is a highly individual experience; there is no right or wrong way to grieve. How you grieve depends on many factors, including your personality and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and how significant the loss was to you.

The grieving process takes time. Healing happens gradually; it cannot be forced or hurried, and there is no “normal” timetable for grieving. Some people start to feel better in weeks or months. For others, the grieving process is measured in years. Whatever your grief experience, it is important to be patient with yourself and allow the process to naturally unfold.

Myths and Facts about Grief and Grieving

Myth: The pain will go away faster if you ignore it.       Fact: Trying to ignore your pain or keep it from surfacing will only make it worse in the long run. For real healing, it is necessary to face your grief and actively deal with it.

Myth: It is important to “be strong” in the face of loss.       Fact: Feeling sad, frightened, or lonely is a normal reaction to loss. Crying does not mean you are weak. You do not need to “protect” your family or friends by putting on a brave front. Showing your true feelings can help them and you.

Myth: If you do not cry, it means you are not truly sorry about the loss.       Fact: Crying is a normal response to sadness, but it is not the only one. Those who do not cry may feel the pain just as deeply as others. They may simply have other ways of showing it.

Myth: Grieving should last about a year.       Fact: There is no specific time frame for grieving. How long it takes differs from person to person.

Myth: Moving on with your life means forgetting about your loss.       Fact: Moving on means you have accepted your loss, but that is not the same as forgetting. You can move on with your life and keep the memory of someone or something you lost as an important part of you. In fact, as we move through life, these memories can become more and more integral to defining the people we are.

The COMMON stages of Grief:

• Denial: “This can’t be happening to me.”
• Anger: “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
• Bargaining: “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
• Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
• Acceptance: “I’m at peace with what happened.”

Not everyone who grieves goes through all of these stages and that is okay. Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go through each stage in order to heal.

Grief can be a roller coaster

Instead of a series of stages, we might also think of the grieving process as a roller coaster, full of ups and downs, highs and lows. Like many roller coasters, the ride tends to be rougher in the beginning, the lows may be deeper and longer.

The difficult periods should become less intense and shorter as time goes by, but it takes time to work through a loss. Even years after a loss, especially at special events such as a family wedding or the birth of a child, we may still experience a strong sense of grief.

Symptoms of Grief

While loss affects people in different ways, many of us experience the following symptoms when we’re grieving. Just remember that almost anything that you experience in the early stages of grief is normal, including feeling like you are going crazy, feeling like you are in a bad dream, or questioning your religious or spiritual beliefs.

The ‘different’ emotional symptoms of Grief

Shock and disbelief. Right after a loss, it can be hard to accept what happened. You may feel numb, have trouble believing that the loss really happened, or even deny the truth. If a pet or someone you love has died, for example, you may keep expecting them to show up, even though you know they are gone.

Sadness. Profound sadness is probably the most universally experienced symptom of grief. You may have feelings of emptiness, despair, yearning, or deep loneliness. You may also cry a lot or feel emotionally unstable.

Guilt. You may regret or feel guilty about things you did or didn’t say or do. You may also feel guilty about certain feelings (feeling relieved when a person died after a long, difficult illness, for example). You may even feel guilty for not doing more to prevent your loss, even if it was completely out of your hands.

Fear. A significant loss can trigger a host of worries and fears. If you have lost your partner, your job, or your home, for example, you may feel anxious, helpless, or insecure about the future. You may even have panic attacks. The death of a loved one can trigger fears about your own mortality, of facing life without that person, or the responsibilities you now face alone.

Anger. Even if the loss was nobody’s fault, you may feel angry and resentful. If you lost a loved one, you may be angry with yourself, God, the doctors, or even the person who died for abandoning you. You may feel the need to blame someone for the injustice that was done to you.

Physical symptoms of grief

We often think of grief as a strictly emotional process, but grief often involves physical problems, including:

• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Lowered immunity
• Weight loss or weight gain
• Aches and pains
• Insomnia

Types of Grief

Since the experience of grieving following the loss of someone or something important to you tends to be unique to you, it is difficult to label any type of grief as either “normal” or “abnormal”. However, there are types of grief that fall outside the expected symptoms and reactions described above. These include:

Anticipatory Grief

As the name suggests, anticipatory grief develops before a significant loss occurs rather than after. If a loved one is terminally ill, for example, you have an aging pet, or you know that your retirement or job loss is imminent you may start grieving your loss before it has fully unfolded.

Like conventional grief, anticipatory grief can involve a mix of confusing emotions, particularly anger. Some people even equate it to giving up hope and refuse to allow themselves to grieve before their loss has occurred. However, anticipatory grief can also give you chance to prepare for your loss, resolve any unfinished business, or say your goodbyes, for example.

Disenfranchised Grief

Disenfranchised grief can occur when your loss is devalued, stigmatized, or cannot be openly mourned. Some people may minimize the loss of a job, a pet, or a friendship, for example, as something that’s not worth grieving over. You may feel stigmatized if you suffered a miscarriage or lost a loved one to suicide.

Disenfranchised grief can also occur when your relationship to a deceased is not recognized. Some people may consider it inappropriate to grieve for a work colleague, classmate, or neighbour, for example. As a close friend or same-sex partner you may be denied the same sympathy and understanding as a blood relative. This can make it even more difficult to come to terms with your loss and navigate the grieving process.

Complicated Grief

The pain at a significant loss may never completely disappear, but it should ease up over time. When it does not and it keeps you from resuming your daily life and relationships it may be a sign of complicated grief.

Complicated grief usually arises from the death of a loved one where the loss has left you stuck in a state of bereavement. You may be unable to accept your loved one has gone, search for them in familiar places, experience intense longing, or even feel that life is not worth living.

If you are experiencing complicated grief and the pain from your loss remains unresolved, it is important to reach out for support and take the steps that will enable you to heal.