Good Grief!

Introduction:

          Imagine a world where when we love someone or something, it never waivers from what it was before it was gone. We tend to operate as if this is true,but it is sadly incorrect. Loss is inevitable in life, and handling loss is a dynamic that is painful and heavily misunderstood. No two people grieve alike, and no individual grieves loss the same way from differing circumstances. No wonder we do this badly!

The actual stages of grief are easy as pie to find defined. This article is not about that! This is about grieving details that I hope will really help you in life. We all have to deal with loss. We know our start date and we will definately have a stop date. We don't know that stop date, and in this is where loss makes us deal with life in uncharted waters.

Grieving is not just about actual deaths; it is often because of life experiences where we feel a deep loss. This blog article is intended to help both those who have lost something or someone important to them, as well as shed light on how to handle friends and family in their losses (Cacciatore, J. 2021).

    Who grieves and why:

     When a death occurs and it is a loved one, we expect to have grief. Loved ones include family, friends and pets we hold dear to our hearts. Even if death is expected, like in terminal cancer, it is still a tremendous loss, and the living are left to sort through feelings and emotions.

    There are other life losses that typically can cause one to feel overwhelmed. If we, or another, have a diagnosis that points to a disease or condition, grieving will begin with the news. Dealing with ourselves or another’s illnesses changes so much in the dynamics of relationships. The loss of good health is an arena where one must cope with the news. (Mughal S, Azhar Y, Mahon MM, 2022). Another serious area that causes grieving is when we experience a divorce, breakup (even in business) and the end of romantic relationships. There are other types of loss that can hit a person full on. Loss of friendship(s), jobs, or moving may cause the need for grieving. Especially when the loss includes major changes in our day-to-day life (Cleveland Clinic, 2023). Humans must embrace change, but change, in and of itself, is likely to cause a feeling of loss, especially when tied to control over or with us. 

    Apart from our individual, personal losses, there are major events that cause people to grieve. Natural disasters, wars, pandemics, school shootings, and any other interruptions to our lives that affect us, as well as many others, will make many people mourn. Basically, any major traumatic event will cause grief (Evans-Page,2024). 

    Some losses in our lives might include financial instability, losing a home, retirement and even miscarriages. If change took place and we lost something in that process, we are likely to experience grief. What we do with grief is where importance lives.

Types we know and do not know

          The types of grief one might experience are Basic Loss, Anticipatory, Abbreviated, Delayed, Inhibited, Cumulative, Collective and Ambiguous Grief. Let’s break these down:

Basic Loss Grief:  This involves the death of a loved one, a family member or a friend. This is the type of grief we are most used to experiencing in life. The causes are simple to see and understand. The stages of grief can happen in any order and can also be experienced several at a time.

Anticipatory Grief: Sometimes we know about bad news or circumstances that are up-coming. Even though the event hasn’t taken place, it is typical of us to think in advance and see terminal illnesses, divorces/separations, upcoming retirements or end of seasons of life events all can cause the feeling of impending doom, disappointment, worry about changes, and/or feelings of control loss. It is important to note that even when the future looks bright, we also may suffer some grieving putting the past to bed. Upcoming weddings, births, college graduations, performance awards – these all can cause us to grieve, which seems strange but is eerily true.

Collective Grief: When we are caught up in an unavoidable Cataclysmic event, such as tornadoes, floods, earthquakes; the people who gather afterwards are going to have Collective Grief. The group who survived or who are working to make things better tend to have guilt and grief for those less fortunate.

Secondary Grief – If we are experiencing the loss of something directly related to a primary loss (like losing a job) we might also lose friends from work.  Most don’t think about this, but it causes more grief than one might expect. Anything that ends can have associated Secondary Grief. As this type of grieving isn’t identified by most grief counselors, many experience this type of grief thinking their primary grieving is the cause. The advantage of separating primary from secondary grief will help the victim identify their feelings easier and more thoroughly.

Grief gets very complicated when you look at all the way a person could ache when life changes. So, how do you help friends who are grieving?

How to talk to someone who is grieving.

What do I say or not say? Remember these things – First, there is no way for another person to “fix” the grieving person. There is a real possibility that a person who appears to be over grieving will probably have, what is called, “grief bursts” still. This means that it might look like all is well, but a slight trigger will send the newly healing person into a bout of more crying.  Your friends and family need you to be a comfortable and confiding presence (Evans-Page, 2024). Generalized statements like, ‘How are you doing?” will cause the grieving person to feel even more misunderstood. The best approach is to offer practical and tangible help. One of the most important points here is that grieving comes from many circumstances or events. Try to be relaxed around the person and do not rush the process. Everyone takes differing timetables for healing well.  Relate to the person’s circumstance but don’t make it sound like a one-up man situation. Try not to over-relate your own experience to theirs.  Remember this: YOUR PAIN IS YOUR PAIN, MY PAIN IS MY PAIN. We only understand our pain fully.

Expectations on self when grieving – Here is a guide of things to avoid while grieving

DO NOT:

·        Do not Avoid pain but rather, embrace it so you can know it. It is hard to control anything you don’t understand well. Grieving helps you  - the biproduct of grief is understanding yourself and your goals better.

·        Do not Live in the past as if nothing happened or live there because it is very hard to accept that your history cannot be changed. Catch yourself in this by looking for thoughts that roll pervasively through your head. Are you re-living portions of the past? Has this been helpful or hurtful to your healing? That question is very important because living in the past means you are not taking in that you are alive and moving forward physically. Emotions can paralyze even the strongest of characters. This is where friends can really help! A person caught in an emotional turbine sometimes needs a friend to gently pull them from the turbine to understand themselves better.

·        Do not Refuse to make the necessary changes that will allow you to grow healthy, again. Much like living in the past, some people grieve in a way that leaves them observers of life instead of livers of life. Grief can be a factor that leaves a person unable to move forward at a decent speed. Do not dwell in self-pity (instead, feel pain but take healthy steps towards healing), lose respect for one’s own body, remain withdrawn or run away from the feelings, rely on alcohol or other drugs, maintain unrealistic expectations of what friends should offer in comfort, resent friends with intact families, expect yourself to “get over it”. Guilt over good days, cross bridges before you get to them instead of taking life one day at a time, condemn yourself, underestimate yourself, get involved in a serious relationship before you are ready, make any big decisions until clear of most of the grieving process.

·        A word about friends – Some grief makes the victims push friends and families away. Note when this is happening. Sometimes getting the other people who are being pushed away together can act as a front to guide the victim of grief to move forward. There is strength in numbers. An honest, quiet chat about this usually helps.

How to know if you are still grieving

    Emotional Symptoms: Persons exhibit a deep sadness which is accompanied by one of two things: 1) The death or event about grieving causes guilt and/or shame (Survivors guilt is a real thing!) or; The death or event about grieving is accompanied by unconsolable emotions. And it is very possible for both of those things to exist at once. Helping a person see that the deceased are no longer in *** (pain, discomfort, a state of anxiety, or whatever the deceased might have be escaping from his earthly body) can help put life back into better prospective. The word to the warning here is that PEOPLE grieve as individuals. There is no magic formula to help a grieving person know when they will feel even slightly better, again. Remember that if this is about a death of a person, most circumstances leave those who loved that person feeling guilty.

Furthermore, you may see competing feelings such as, “apathy, sadness, apathy and regret (Cacciatore, J.T., 2023)”.  And many of these emotions can be combined.

Physical Symptoms – Those grieving may feel many of these side-effects. And they may feel many at once!

These are: Fatigue, Headaches, Nausea, Restlessness, Upset stomach, heart palpitations, joint pain or weakness, tightness in your chest or throat, increased or decreased hunger/appetite, trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (Tyrrell, P., 2022). 

Behavioral Changes: For those who grieve, confusion, trouble thinking or making decisions is common. Because this is very true, it is important to get assistance in making major decisions about money, profession, schooling, purchasing big ticket items, travel and moves. Whoever is grieving needs help in this regard until the grieving process feels much better to the victim of grief. Many have a sinking feeling as though they’ve lost a sense of hope or direction. Along with this is a serious difficulty focusing on anything other than the loss.  A person who is super on top of their life may suddenly be unable to focus on tasks and thought. Many have difficulty remembering or keeping track of personal responsibilities. This is where a great friend can absolutely ease the pain of grieving and loss -  our loved ones help us in more ways than the way the relationship dynamic was before the loss.

This is not an easy navigation path – we need each other in difficult times. Sometimes we identify one or two friends as being “Our Tribe”. Let them know way before a loss that you will turn to them if grieving. We pre-plan funerals for the dead but we don’t plan survival for the living.

Complications of Grief

The older we get the more complex our lives look and feel. When grieving, this is also very true. Complicated Grief (which is an actual term) is sometimes also called Prolonged Grief. The symptoms of grief over a long period of time may be more prolonged due to several complicated circumstances. If a person loses a spouse to cancer after a long year of being a caretaker, the actual grief is complicated because it began with the terminal diagnosis, not the death. The actual death may be easier to navigate than the year of caregiving.  Likewise, if the survivor becomes terribly lonely, they might want a companion added to their life. Grieving continues until the person determines they really do not need to “replace” the recent death with another person, they will still grieve about the loneliness. My own father fell into this category, marrying in less than a year after my mother passed away. He just couldn’t be alone. He was still grieving when he got remarried.  If a person decides to date, purchase a pedigree dog, or take in foster children (really anything that means commitment and some financial obligation), a close person can help with decision-making. It is important to note that Complicated Grieving looks different for each person because the complex part isn’t easily dissected. A person in the stage of Complicated Grief (and not all grief ends up being complicated, by far) can have just as much of an outbreak of emotions as they did a few days after the event that caused the initial grief.

Complicated Grief can become more difficult because of things like this:

Anticipatory grief (Admin., 2022).  

Many times, in our lives we experience things we dread that we know are going to happen in the future. This preview of the future begins the process of grief (like the example of the man losing his wife). Often, the anticipated event isn’t understood well by the human brain. The pre-thoughts don’t match the actual “grief event” well. Things like a breakup, followed by an inevitable divorce fall into this category. In the same vein, things like graduating from college also has grief as a result. Grieving isn’t just for the bad things that happen to us – it is grieving for both bad and good things, keeping in mind that Change is one of the reasons we grieve.

Absent grief

Sometimes a person will not exhibit signs of grieving. A person who isn’t experiencing grief is probably either frozen in their own denial or they are sorting through thoughts alone, not letting others see the pain they are in.  

Ambiguous grief/loss

Ambiguous Grief refers to the loss of something that is not fully “gone” (like a mother giving a baby up for adoption. The life event or death may have some advantages as well as some disadvantages. When both are present, the person grieving may feel conflicted, misunderstood and confused as to how to navigate their life going forward.

Disenfranchised grief

Some people, when grieving, may sound and look like they are making too big of a deal about something or that they are way too sensitive/dramatic. If the victim of grief has a history of over-thinking, over-stressing, and dramatics, those around them may see the response to an event as inappropriate or unwarranted to the degree the victim is grieving. Some may think this results because someone has cried “wolf” too often in their past. Loss isn’t something to take mildly. We operate on a dynamic of being adults, and therefore able to handle changes in life. Depending on what the loss is to the person grieving, the outward signs of grief can look and feel like yet another overreaction. Try to think through this carefully.

Traumatic grief

The trauma one experiences in the grieving process varies from person-to-person as well as from situation-to-situation. Some losses are so terrible, it takes an extended period to work through the grief. Feelings may feel like the victim of grief has lost a key component to themselves. This includes people who may spend a long-time feeling trauma. Trauma adds up like onion layers. It is difficult to stop the trauma once started because it sometimes equates to a person being in denial and then back to the incident. Grief that interrupts life and makes it difficult to move forward is considered Traumatic Grief (N.A., 2023). Traumatic Grief can be present if the person has been in denial. The shock of coming out of denial to acceptance is going to cause Trauma to be built.

How can one best cope with grief?

      Coping isn’t meant to be comfortable. However, by carefully working through emotions as they occur will help keep the process honest and positive. These things help the most when just trying to cope:

      Self-care is very important. Staying clean, neat and organized helps a lot. Getting hair trimmed, buying a new shirt, getting a massage, listening to music that makes you calm OR dance all are things we can do to help feel better. Reaching out to friends, finding a therapist, making small goals all can surely help!

Support for someone grieving

How can you help? Be present. Offer to help (be specific –“ I’d like to bring you some dinner. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”) but be specific with your offers. The statement of, “If you need anything, let me know”, might make you feel better but the person who needs you doesn’t want to think about this. Let the person know you are open and able to listen and share. Don’t minimize loss to the person. You can never know their pain, exactly (Szuhany, K., 2023).

Outcomes of healthy grieving and non-healthy grieving

What does it look like to grieve in a healthy way? It is different for each person. The stages of grief are going to happen. Sometimes more than one stage of grief is present at one time. Healthy grieving helps a person determine how they move forward. Then they do move forward. The “new you” happens if the process of grieving is not rushed and not minimized. Every time we grieve, we change. Making those changes purposeful and positive – that is where the difficulty lies. With some help from outside of our own minds, we can make ourselves stronger and more able to set future goals and see them attained.

Out of the ashes rises the Phoenix! Let the majestic bird fly with wings outstretched.

References:

Admin (2022). A Discussion on Grief, Part 2: Talking to my friends about their loss. Christian Works. December 2022.  Retrieved on June 12, 2024 from  https://www.christian-works.org.  

 Cacciatore, J., Thieleman, K., Fretts, R., Jackson, L.B. What is good grief support? Exploring actor and actions in social support after traumatic grief. N.C.B.I. Retrieved on June 18, 2024 from  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8158955

Evans-Page (2024). What not to do when you

Re grieving. The Tides Foundations. Retrieved on June 13, 2024 from https://www.tidesprogram.org/portfolio/

Mughal S, Azhar Y, Mahon MM, et al. (2022). Grief Reactions.

N.A.  (2023). Grief.  Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved  on June 14, 2024 from https://www.my.clevelandclinic.org/health/disease

N.A.(2022). Discussion on Grief: Part 2. Talking to my friends about their loss. Christian Works. December 2022. Retrieved on June 12, 2024 from https://www.christian-works.org  

Szuhany KL, Malgaroli M, Miron CD, Simon NM. Prolonged grief disorder course, diagnostics and assessments. Retried on June 17, 2024 from https://www.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34690579/

Tyrrell P, Harberger S, Schoo C. (2022). Kubler-Ross stages of dying and subsequent models of grief.  StatPearls (Internet). Retrieved on June 18, 2024 from https://www.ncbi.nml.nih.gov/books/NBK507885/