Let's talk about grief

Grief is a natural response to loss. It underpins so many of our experiences and is universal. Our grief is unique. We all have our individual way of grieving and we do this in our own time.  There is no grief exactly the same and every loss will affect us differently. 

We can feel less alone when we hear others talk about their grief. Some aspects may be common to many of us and we may hear someone describing how they are feeling and think, “I too have felt that”. However, only we will know our own grief. There are no set rules as to how we will experience the natural response of grieving. 

Normalising some of what we are going through by recognising this common ground can give us reassurance and help build self-compassion. It is, however, the layers of difference that punctuate what is similar that give grief its own unique trajectory with every loss we endure. We cannot make any assumptions about a person’s grief and grieving process, and only they themselves will fully understand what it means to them to grieve. 

The myth of 'getting over grief'

The myth of ‘getting over grief’ or ‘having closure’ is widespread in society. Our grieving process can indeed move and change as we move forward in time and we can regain a meaningful and purposeful life, but our grief doesn’t permanently disappear. It becomes part of us and we can learn to integrate and carry our grief as time goes by. Time does not heal, but in time, our grief can find a resting place within us. 

Metaphorically, like carrying a backpack with a heavy stone in it, we can train our muscles to gain strength and carry the backpack much more easily. However, the stone will remain the same weight, and we carry our grief for the rest of our lives. Some days our muscles will feel the weight of the stone more than others, and in some cases, the weight of the stone may still feel heavy many years later. 

With those who we have loved, our love will remain and the continuing non-physical relationship will endure the course of time. We can continue the bonds in our own way, a way that has meaning for us and that helps us feel the connection in our hearts and minds. This may take time as we need time and space to process the painful feelings that we may be experiencing with our loss. 

Grief may remain quiet, and then triggered by something like a certain smell, a significant anniversary or a memory flooding back, we may experience the voice of our grief rising and taking over us like a wave hijacking our body. 

It is never too late to grieve. The grief may surface many years later if that is the right time for a person to begin to process the pain they feel. 

The five stages of grief

When Dr Elisabeth Kubler- Ross theorised the five stages of grief, she never intended for it to become the model for grief following a death. It has, however, become the go-to model for many people. The five stages model originated from Dr Kubler-Ross’s work with terminally ill patients coping with death and dying after a terminal diagnosis.  The patients often went through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance when they were coming to terms with their diagnosis. 

To prescribe a set way of moving forward in our grieving means to deny difference and uniqueness. The linear track of the five stages from denial to acceptance ignores the reality that grief is a messy, chaotic process, changing from day to day, hour by hour in some cases, more like a scribble on a page than a smooth curve.  

Grief has no timeframe, and there is no set formula to cope as we learn to carry and integrate our grief. “Am I doing this right?” can be a question that surfaces when a grieving person feels they have missed a stage or feels they have returned to a stage they have already visited. This is not to say that the feelings mentioned in the five stages model are not valid.  Denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance can all be part of grief, but there is no set sequence working towards an endpoint, and grief can encompass so much more than these five stages.

It may surprise some that grief may encompass feeling happy or other more uplifting feelings. In time, we may get to a place in ourselves where we can remember with joy as we connect with our treasured memories. For some, it can feel hard to give ourselves permission to laugh, smile and be upbeat. There is no right or wrong way to grieve and there are no good or bad feelings, all feelings are acceptable parts of our grief. 

Coping with grief

To cope with grief we need to grieve. Without leaning into our grief, our grieving process may become stuck. Like a train derailed on its journey, the pain we feel is prolonged until we can find a way to return to the track and stop the wheels of our train from spinning. We may need support from an empathetic friend or a trained therapist to assist us to move forward when our train cannot find a way of getting back on track. 

Grief is a natural human response, it is not pathological, the impact is just part of the path of every bereaved person’s grief.

To understand grief is to know that there is no one manifestation. Physically, grief can present as aches and pains, often in the chest area, many describing the feeling of a heavy weight pressing down. Grief can manifest as poor appetite, headaches, poor sleep, anxiety and panic, clumsiness, compromised immunity and being more prone to illness. 

Emotionally grief can manifest as sadness, yearning, searching for our loved one, despair, confusion, disbelief, hopelessness, vulnerability, anger, powerlessness, numbness, resentment, guilt, ambivalence, relief, joy and happiness. 

The psychological impact of grief can be confusion, disorientation, rumination, repetitive thoughts, feeling like we are going ‘mad’, difficulty concentrating, cognitive changes, struggles with planning, identity challenges and triggering of an existential crisis. Loss of faith or an increase in faith can occur as we try to make sense of what has happened, and we can question the meaning of life and why we are here. Friendships can change or be lost and we can feel different in familiar situations. We may be traumatised, in fight, flight or freeze, or we may feel lonely or isolated as our social life changes as we adjust to cope with how we are feeling.

These are by no means all the manifestations of grief. We all grieve differently and for some, the societal assumption that grief is mainly sadness may not feel authentic. People may feel many different things within their grief and people have different ways of coping with this. Grieving processes may be instrumental or intuitive. 

Kenneth Doka suggests that the instrumental griever copes by being more practical, keeping busy and getting on with things, and the intuitive griever leans into the emotions of grief, turning away from the call of life whilst they process the feelings they experience with loss. It can sometimes feel difficult for an intuitive griever to watch a family member grieve in an instrumental style. They may not understand that getting on with life and keeping busy is also way of coping with grief. They may be deep in the emotions of grief and see the busyness as not expressing the loss of their loved one. Equally, the instrumental griever may find the intuitive grieving style difficult to be around as the person leans into their emotions. 

From a neuroscientific perspective, grieving is a learning process. Our brain works like a prediction machine and it will pre-empt situations with solutions based on what we usually do. It takes time for the brain to realise that the predictions it has made now need to be adjusted. This may manifest in different ways, for example, we may still expect our person to walk through the door or we may pick up the phone to call them when something happens.

It takes time for the brain to adapt to the loss and the new reality of our person's absence. The behaviour that occurs in this period of time when our brain is adapting can drive thoughts like “Am I going mad?” or can contribute to worry that there is something going wrong with brain function. It can be reassuring to know that in time, our brain adapts and learns a new way. Repeated signals that errors in predictions have occurred are registered and eventually predictions will be changed.  

Over time we accept that our people are not returning as reality sets in. This can be a painful process as we realise that life will not be the same again.

Final thoughts

Grief is our own unique experience. It has been said that it is as individual as our own fingerprint. Our outcomes are better when we can feel the connection with others in our support network or in our community. 

It has been said that the antidote to grief is love, and when we can experience the support of others around us, we can learn to navigate the different life that we have been thrown into. It may not be the life we had before, and it wasn’t a life we chose, but in time, it can be a hopeful and meaningful life. This does not mean we are ‘moving on’, it just means that in time, we may find a resting place for our grief within us and we can move forwards carrying our grief and growing around it.

If grief is like a waterfall, we cannot go back up the waterfall once we have fallen down it. We may experience being in the turmoil of a whirlpool once we fall, but in time we can learn to swim in the waters and navigate the different course of our river of life.