Grief & Bereavement

Grief usually follows the death of someone close, but loss takes other forms too: the end of a relationship, a diagnosis that changes what your life will look like, the loss of a job or a role that mattered to you. Whatever the loss, grief is the mind and body's way of adjusting to something that cannot be undone.

Grief Doesn't Follow a Timetable

There is no correct order of feelings, and no correct length of time. Some people are in obvious distress from the start; others feel strangely numb for weeks before anything hits. Anger, guilt, relief, disbelief, and ordinary sadness can all turn up, sometimes within the same day. None of this means you are grieving "wrong."

Some losses are unambiguous — bereavement, a permanent injury, a degenerative diagnosis. There is no going back, and the psychological task is coming to terms with that. This is rarely a quick or tidy process, and it is not meant to be — see Interventions for more on the difference between changing what can be changed and accepting what cannot.

What Gets in the Way

Two things in particular tend to keep people stuck:

• Isolation — through lack of support around you, or through feeling too ashamed or awkward to reach out and ask for it
• Being stuck — unable to move through the loss towards a new way of living, sometimes because moving on feels like a betrayal of what or who was lost

What Helps

• Talk about the person or the loss, rather than avoiding the subject to protect others
• Let yourself feel what comes up, without judging it as too much or not enough
• Stay connected — grief shared with others who understand tends to be more bearable than grief carried alone
• Look after the basics: sleep, food, and routine, even when none of it feels like it matters
• Contact with others who have faced a similar loss can help; local and national bereavement groups exist for exactly this

When to Seek Extra Support

Grief that stays this intense for a very long time, or that stops you functioning day to day, is sometimes called complicated or prolonged grief, and it can benefit from professional support in the same way any prolonged distress can. It is also common for grief and depression to overlap — seeDepression for more on recognising that, including what to do if you are having thoughts of suicide.