Everyone’s experience of Grief or Loss is unique

You might experience all kinds of difficult and at times overwhelming emotions, and you might sometimes wonder if the sadness will ever end. This is a normal reaction to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve but it can help to allow yourself to grieve, share your grief, and let others support you. 

In time you will learn to live with your loss, heal and move forward in new and different ways. 

What is Grief? 

Grief is the term used to describe what we feel and how we respond to the loss of someone close to us. Our experience of grief will be determined by a variety of factors including the relationship we had with the person, our personality style, our coping mechanisms, our support network, our previous experience of loss and our cultural and spiritual beliefs.

Grief is an important process that eventually allows us to come to accept loss in our lives. It is important that we allow ourselves time to grieve following loss so that we can move forward. Identifying how we feel and acknowledging our emotional responses, while painful, is extremely important in being able to come to terms with our loss. It is important to adopt healthy strategies to cope and seek support when struggling to manage the range of emotions experienced when grieving. 

Common experiences when grieving: 

• not feeling yourself 
• changes in sleeping and eating patterns 
• physical pain 
• difficulty concentrating and remembering things 
• preoccupation with the deceased or the circumstances of their death 
• apathy or lack of enjoyment in normal activities 
• withdrawal from others 
• conflict in personal relationships 
• thoughts of suicide or self-harm 
• reliance on negative coping strategies including alcohol and drugs.

Typical Reactions to Loss: 

The following are some of the emotions you may experience whilst grieving. You will not necessarily experience all of these emotions and you may find that you experience waves of emotion that come and go at various times. The first few days following the death of a loved one will be particularly intense.

Common Emotional Responses: 

• emptiness or feeling numb and devoid of emotion 

• disbelief that the person has died 

• confusion 

• intense sorrow and sadness 

• yearning or longing for the deceased 

• anger at ourselves or others including the person who died 

• relief 

• guilt or shame 

• exhaustion 

• loneliness and isolation 

• feeling that life is meaningless without the deceased 

• overwhelmed at having to cope 

• anxiety about the future 

• moments of happiness. 

If your grief persists for an extended period and prevents you from returning to normal activities, it is important to seek professional advice. 

While grieving is a normal process, depression is a mental illness which can be effectively managed with the right care. The sudden loss of a loved one can be a potential trigger for suicidal thoughts and feelings. It is important to be aware of this and to seek help if this happens

Through the process of grief, however, you begin to create new experiences and habits that work around your loss. You slowly begin to experience a greater sense of hope, focusing more on the future rather than the loss itself. In time memories begin to become something to enjoy, rather than triggering sadness

• Grieving people want to be heard, not fixed –

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