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. After such a significant loss, life may never seem quite the same again.
But in time, you can ease your sorrow, start to look to the future, and eventually come to terms with your loss. 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. Inevitably, the grieving process takes time. Some people start to feel better in weeks or months. For others, the grieving process is measured in years. 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. Fact: Feeling sad, frightened, or lonely is a normal reaction to loss. Showing your true feelings can help them and you.
They may simply have other ways of showing it. Fact: There is no specific time frame for grieving. How long it takes differs from person to person. 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. While grieving a loss is an inevitable part of life, there are ways to help cope with the pain, come to terms with your grief, and eventually, find a way to pick up the pieces and move on with your life.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not have to go through each stage in order to heal. In fact, some people resolve their grief without going through any of these stages.
They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives. 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. 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. 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. 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.
A significant loss can trigger a host of worries and fears. 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.
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. We often think of grief as a strictly emotional process, but grief often involves physical problems, including:.
However, there are types of grief that fall outside the expected symptoms and reactions described above. These include:. 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 can occur when your loss is devalued, stigmatized, or cannot be openly mourned. 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 neighbor, for example.
Good friends, family members, or a personal counselor can all be helpful in doing this vital work. You can also do a good deal to help yourself. Active, healthy grieving requires balance—balancing the time you spend directly working on your grief with the time you spend coping with your day-to-day life; balancing the amount of time you spend with others with the time you spend alone; balancing seeking help from others with caring for yourself.
Focusing too strongly on any single side of these pairings is getting off-track. Here are some things others have found useful in their healthy grieving. Choose the ones that fit for you, or make up your own methods of self-care.
Remember that grieving is an active process, it takes energy that will likely have to be temporarily withdrawn from the usual pursuits of your life. Treat yourself with the same care, tolerance, and affection you would extend to a valued friend in a similar situation.
For more information on the grieving process and how to help yourself or someone in grief, here are a few excellent resources:. Log-in to the new Student Portal to see your upcoming appointments, fill out forms, sign up for text reminders, and update your personal information like your name and pronouns! If you are experiencing a psychological crisis outside our working hours and cannot wait until we are open, please call the My SSP at It focuses on managing distressing emotions and encouraging actions to help a person experience pleasure, joy, and a sense of community.
For an end-of-life patient, anticipatory grief therapy may improve quality of life before death and may alleviate depression. Many insurance plans cover a percentage of therapy costs retroactively via claims forms. Call the number on your insurance card to ask about policies. Online therapy platforms connect you with licensed providers, which can include psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers and licensed professional counselors.
Discover our top picks and the best online therapy to fit your needs and preferences here. Familial Cancer. Annals of Palliative Medicine. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing.
Anticipatory grief in new family caregivers of persons with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders. Anticipatory grief of spousal and adult children caregivers of people with dementia. BMC Palliative Care. Coelho Ade B. Qualitative Health Research. Do we need to change our understanding of anticipatory grief in caregivers? A systematic review of caregiver studies during end-of-life caregiving and bereavement.
Clinical Psychology Review. Mystakidou K. Demographic and clinical predictors of preparatory grief in a sample of advanced cancer patients. Toyama H, Honda A. Global Qualitative Nursing Research. Mariyana R, Betriana F. Journal of Pediatric Nursing. Getting Ready and Then Keeping Quiet? The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. Horgan O, MacLachlan M. Psychosocial adjustment to lower-limb amputation: a review. Disability and Rehabilitation. Psychological Adaptation to Amputation: An Overview.
Cordaro M. Journal of Mental Health Counseling. Primary Care of the Premature Infant. Reynolds L, Botha D. Anticipatory grief: Its nature, impact, and reasons for contradictory findings.
Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Health. Long-term prevalence and predictors of prolonged grief disorder amongst bereaved cancer caregivers: A cohort study. Periyakoil VS. Differentiating grief and depression in patients who are seriously ill. American Family Physician.
Malkinson, R. Research on Social Work Practice. A pilot study on the effectiveness of anticipatory grief therapy for elderly facing the end of life. Journal of Palliative Care.
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