Grief Is Debilitating

Grief is a universal human experience that we will all face at some point in our lifetimes, in some form or fashion. Understanding grief doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to go through, but it can normalize the process. Here are some important points to keep in mind when you’re grieving a loss.

The Stages are Not Linear

It appears that the 5 Stages of Grief are pretty universally known at this point. As a refresher, these are marked as Denial, Bargaining, Anger, Sadness, and Acceptance. You may find yourself experiencing multiple of these stages at the same time, skipping entire phases, or experiencing them completely out of order. This does not mean there’s something “wrong” with your processing—in fact, you can’t grieve “wrong” anyway. This is simply because emotions of this depth cannot possibly be put in neat little boxes. The 5 Stages of Grief are simply used as a very general outline for indicating a person’s potential experience.

Everyone Grieves Differently

This sounds cliché, but it’s true. Every single person experiencing a loss will need different things to begin to heal. Some people isolate and turn inward, needing time and space to “feel their feelings”. Others will tend to throw themselves into other outlets, pouring their energy into other interests and relationships. This variance is completely normal. 

As long as you aren’t doing any one thing for too terribly long, and as long as you aren’t completely self-destructing and ruining your life, there is truly nothing that alarming or unhealthy with whatever coping is necessary to more through these intense emotions. Healing and coping is a spectrum, and it’s important not to judge yourself too harshly for having a tough time. Piggybacking off of this idea— just because something may not seem “that big of a deal” to someone else, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be for you. All grief is valid.

Long Term Grief

You’ll eventually reach a point in which you feel that you’re completely over this. There are more and more good moments, which turn into good days, weeks, months, and even years. Then one day out of the blue, you may find yourself blindsided by the emotions and memories returning. These feelings can truly knock the breath out of you and make you feel like you’re right back to square one. This is not true! The resurfacing of grief does not invalidate all of the time spent without it. Such an intense experience takes however long it takes, even if it is largely dormant in your life. It’s important to never tell yourself or listen to anyone else who says that you should just be “over it”. You are not alone.