How to Deal with Grief
Experiencing Grief
Grief is inevitable. It can follow the death of a loved one, for example, or appear after a divorce, a terminal illness, loss of a home, or other catastrophes.
Everyone experiences sad events throughout their lifetimes, and everyone experiences grief in their own special way. What’s more, very few people are taught how to deal with grief in a healthy way, so most of us stumble through the darkness in hopes of finding our way out.
Grief Affects Health
Unfortunately, dealing with grief poorly – or not dealing with it at all – can lead to a number of emotional and physical symptoms that can sap your energy or even interfere with your everyday life. The symptoms of grief can affect your entire being, including your heart, mind and body. Left unaddressed, grief can cause health problems.
The symptoms of grief decrease over time for most people, according to the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Feelings of intense grief persist for a small group of people, though, and this intense, prolonged grief can affect their daily life. In fact, the APA has recently added prolonged grief disorder to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).
How to Manage Grief in a Healthy Way
What is Grief?
Grief is a natural response to loss, but it isn’t always easy to recognize or accept that you are grieving. Most of us associate grief with the loss of a loved one, but you can experience grief with any event that disrupts your life.
Recognize the Symptoms of Grief
Sometimes it is easy to identify grief, but other times grief is not obvious. Grief can feel constant or it can come in waves, often washing over you without warning and at unexpected times. In some cases, grief causes mixed emotions, such as sadness when a person dies combined with relief that they are no longer in pain. At other times, grief can cause you to feel detached from your emotions, as if you are on auto-pilot and are watching it all unfold from afar.
You may experience emotional or physical symptoms of grief – grief can also trigger certain behavioral changes. The degree to which you experience these symptoms or changes depends largely on the severity of your loss, the support you receive from others, and your ability to deal with grief in a healthy manner.
Emotional Symptoms
You can expect to experience a variety of emotions, including:
Sadness – perhaps the most common emotion associated with grief
Denial – continuing to live as if everything were normal
Disbelief – not acknowledging the loss
Confusion – being unable to follow a conversation, stick to a plan, or make decisions
Shock – feeling disconnected
Yearning – wishing you could be with your spouse after their death or a divorce, or yearning for a house or job that you no longer have
Anger – you may feel angry towards anyone you perceive as causing your loss
Guilt – you may feel guilty about the way you treated the person while they are alive, or that you are relieved that you no longer have to provide exhausting, around-the-clock care, or for enjoying life for a moment
Physical Symptoms
The stress of grief can take a major toll on your body by overworking your nervous system and weakening your immune system. Stress can trigger the “fight or flight” mechanism and even lock your brain in a permanent stress response. These effects of grief can cause a number of physical symptoms, such as:
Tiredness or fatigue
Sleep disturbances, such as insomnia, sleeping too much, or nightmares
Changes in appetite
Fight or flight response, which causes increased heart rate, fast breathing, and sweating
Identify the Type of Grief You Are Experiencing
Anticipatory Grief
You might experience anticipatory grief before you experience the actual loss. You might begin grieving when you learn that you or a loved one has a terminal illness, for example. Sometimes anticipatory grief is beneficial in that it can prepare you for the loss, but you should not allow anticipatory grief from enjoying whatever time you do have.
Abbreviated Grief
Abbreviated grief is a short period of grieving; it often follows anticipatory grief. Grieving for a short time does not mean you didn’t care about the person or thing you lost – we are all on different timelines when it comes to dealing with grief.
Delayed Grief
Grief often develops immediately after a loss, but delayed grief can appear days, weeks, or even months later. Delayed grief may be the result of the shock of the loss; you might also experience delayed grief if you are too busy handling the practical matters associated with the loss, such as arranging for a funeral or finding another job.
Inhibited Grief
Many of us have never been taught how to recognize or process the confusing emotions we experience while we’re grieving, so we tend to “push down” our feelings without realizing it. Inhibiting your emotions instead of recognizing and dealing with them can cause physical symptoms, such as stomach upset, insomnia, anxiety, or panic attacks.
Cumulative Grief
Suffering multiple losses simultaneously or within a short amount of time can cause cumulative grief. You might experience cumulative grief after losing several family members in a car accident, for example, or going through a divorce after suffering the loss of a child. Dealing with cumulative grief can complex and difficult in unexpected ways.
Collective Grief
Groups of people and entire communities can grieve after experiencing major events, such as school shootings, pandemics, wars, and natural disasters, which change “normal” life within that community.
Take Good Care of Yourself
Eat healthy food, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. Avoid drinking alcohol, smoking, and other behaviors that can put your health and well-being at risk.
Stages of Grief
People often experience grief in stages. In order to manage grief, it’s important to identify which stage of grief you may be in. Not everyone goes through every stage or goes through each stage in the same order. These stages include:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Avoid Making Major Decisions, If Possible
Grief can cloud your thinking, so try to delay making any major decisions while you are grieving. If not, talking through decisions with a trusted family member, friend, or counselor can help you think clearly.
Speak with a Counselor
A grief counselor can help you identify your symptoms of grief, and help you navigate your journey through grief. Also known as bereavement counselors, grief counselors provide therapy designed to help you through the stages of grief and to deal with the range of emotions you may feel.
Read Books on Grief
The more you know about grief, the better equipped you’ll be to deal with it. Reading books on grief or books about other people’s experiences with grief may help you feel less alone in your journey. Look for books written by grief specialists and by people who have experienced grief.
Join a Grief Support Group
Loneliness is a natural and normal part of the grieving experience, but it can also be one of the most challenging aspects of grief. The death of a loved one can leave a hole that nobody or nothing else can fill. Sometimes it can feel like no one else could ever understand what you are going through. What’s worse is that the loneliness of grief can actually cause greater isolation and separation from others.
Joining a grief support group can help you feel like there is at least one person out there who understands – in fact, you might find several people in the group who have suffered the same type of loss that you experienced.
Being a part of a grief support group can also provide you with an opportunity to help others, and feeling useful is an important step towards recovering from grief.
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