Grieving is a process, not a problem

Losing a family member is a singularly tragic event. At the same time, it can be an expected and normal thing.

As people, we are aware of our own risk of dying. We hear about the loss of other people all the time; people dying or being killed in any number of ways and situations.

If you pay attention to the news, you can hear about a new death almost constantly.

That is what I mean when I say that death is normal.

Even children learn about death as a kind of idea that they don’t fully understand but are aware of.

Despite its normalcy, when death comes close, it never loses its ability to shock us and bring us pain.

I think that is one of the most complicated issues surrounding any person’s own grief; the fact that it is so common, yet so hard.

Perhaps because it is so common there is a fairly widespread pressure to not let grief affect us for a very long time.

We think that we need to “get over it” as soon as possible.

Expectations of Grief

“We are defined in a large way by those around us, and when they go, we must then adjust our own identifies and self understanding.”

There is an expectation when dealing with grief and loss that a person is “doing well” if they are able to give the impression that they are not being affected emotionally by the loss they have suffered.

In our society, we have an understanding that while a person or family should mourn for a time, once that time is past, we would expect that grieving person to bounce back, to be like they were, to “go on living,” to use a common (if insensitive) phrase.

I think that is the wrong place to start thinking about grief, and it places unfair expectations on the person who is doing the grieving.

That kind of expectation treats grief like a doorway, or a really long obstacle course. All one needs to do is to get through it, and once you are on the other side, you’ll be good.

But grief is not a singular event that happens in your life and then is completed. It may start with an incident, an event, but the effect of that moment is long lasting.

The actual event of grief is a trauma.

If it is expected, that may make it easier to accept, but it is never “easy.”

Losing friends or family, even if they were suffering, still causes us to look at ourselves differently.

We are defined in a large way by those around us, and when they go, we must then adjust our own identifies and self understanding.

This is actually a large part of what we might call “grief work,” accepting the new situation and your new role and identity in it.

Time goes by, but that work is never done. A person may “bounce back,” to use a bad phrase, but the leg is still broken, and maybe it still hurts when it rains or after a long walk.

Maybe you get sad at a birthday or wedding that is missing someone important, even if a long amount of time has passed. Maybe you’re so sad you don’t even go to the birthday or wedding.

The impacts of grief are rediscovered all the time. There will always be a new thing, party, vacation, restaurant, that you experience, and suddenly you are reminded of who else you thought would be there, or a person that you would have called to share the experience with.

When that happens, when you have moments of remembering and feeling new waves of sadness, it does not mean that you have failed in your grieving, it just means that something intense has happened, and you are still affected by it.

How to Move Forward

I will also say that that “grief work” can be done intentionally.

Mourning may start out as something that happens to you, but over time and with support the balance shifts, and you start to mourn on purpose.

It becomes less of a trauma and more of a process that you gain every more control over.

This would be the second part of doing the grief work. If the first part is to understand yourself, the second is to do something about it.

This means we talk about honoring that person that was lost, and incorporating your own experiences of that person.

IT MEANS BRINGING VALUE TO YOUR OWN JOURNEY OF LIVING IN YOUR NEW REALITY.

This is especially true of deaths that were unexpected. Those are situations where meaning is needed. When it’s time for there to be meaning.

There is no time frame on grief. It is not a prescription for 7 days of rest and crying and food delivered by neighbors and friends, or 2 weeks/months/years of crying yourself to sleep at night.

It’s your new reality, a new life that you may not be sure about, but are still living in the middle of.

When to seek help for your Grief Symptoms

I hope I have made the case that grief is both something that you must adjust to, and something that you are involved in. It is a unique experience, in that there is no one way to grieve.

What this means is that you get to decide when you want to invite someone into the process.

You should seek help for your grief if you are having trouble doing any of the following:

If you are feeling overwhelmed from a recent death in your life
If you are not able to control your thoughts about that person
If you are not able to control your own feelings or emotions (including anger) following a loss
If you are feeling unsafe about yourself
If you feel like you want to start making adjustments to your new life, but don’t know how
If you are getting pressure from people around you to move on, and don’t know how to respond

When you can see that your experience of and reaction to losing someone is impacting your ability to function after a while is a great indication that you might need some extra support.

I’m keeping that vague because I really believe that it is different for different people.

You are the one that gets to decide when it’s time to seek help, but don’t wait. Just because grieving is normal, does not mean that you need to do it alone.

What to expect from getting counseling for your grief

When getting support for grief, you will focus on a number of things, but generally it is a gentle process that supports and accepts where you’re at in the moment.

You will learn to (slowly, if need be) accept how things are now.

For me as a therapist, this can involve listening to you talk about how things are different, and looking at the expectations you had with that person that are now not possible in the same way.

We will acknowledge all of the things that you are feeling - and grief brings up a lot of things.

The other part of this counseling is what many people call “honoring the memories” of the departed.

This is (like most things grief) a very individualized process, but the goal is to not only be at peace with this event in your life, but to also see it in the larger story that is your life.

WHAT DO YOU WANT THIS LOSS TO MEAN TO YOU?

Depending on where you are at in your process of mourning, that question may seem like either pure nonsense or an idea that you’d be interested in talking about.

Either way, you are good. You can heal, and you will keep going. The effects of this loss will not always hurt like it does now, but of course, take all the time you need.