Bereavement is the experience of losing someone in your life. It can be losing a family member, a friend, a pet, or anyone else that is important to someone.
The biggest emotion that one feels when going through a time of bereavement is grief and under the umbrella of grief is a whole range of other emotions such as anger, sadness, and denial.
Bereavement is not the same for everyone, so the process of grieving will be different for everyone. You can feel grief for other things, too: the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, moving away, or someone else in your life going through something like a decline in mental health.
Sometimes death is sudden and unexpected, but other times people die slowly, and you watch the process of them fading. This can be really hard because you begin to grieve them while they are still there.
Sometimes people grieve when death is just a possibility and not even a certainty. Anticipatory grief is different than then grief that follows death, but it does have many of the same feelings and symptoms.
People spend a lot of time overwhelmed by anxiety and dread when experiencing anticipatory grief.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when dealing with this kind of grieving. First of all, you need to accept that it is normal.
You are losing something, and it is not wrong to grieve just because the person is still there. In the midst of it all, make sure to allow yourself to grieve. Second, take time to connect with others.
Whether you are talking to people in your family or going to support groups, it is extremely important to have people you can lean on and connect with both during the process and when it is over.
A secondary loss is anything lost because of a primary loss (the death of a person in your life.) Secondary losses can feel just as painful as the primary loss because it can feel like you are losing everything stable in your life, not just the one person.
Here are some of the most common forms of secondary loss:
Grief, loss and bereavement are events that affect everyone at some point in their lives, and we each deal with these feelings in different ways.
It is crucial to remember that these feelings are common and that there is no shame in experiencing the emotions or physical effects listed below.
If you having experienced any of the following, and you feel these symptoms are having a significant negative impact on your life, it is time to consider counselling:
If you are struggling with feelings associated with grief and bereavement, Rehab 4 Addiction can help you make sense of your internal confusion. If you are struggling with grief alone, bereavement counselling aims to validate your feelings and offer non-judgemental support.
The first step towards healing in the bereavement process is opening up and talking to someone else about your feelings, whether that’s a family member, a colleague, a friend, or a trained counsellor.
Below we have listed the most common and effective types of counselling and therapy for you to consider:
Cognitive-behavioural therapy is a form of talk therapy that will allow you to learn about what you are going through, have a safe space to vent and process, and learn valuable coping skills that will help you handle your grief.
This kind of therapy is very common and goof for people who are ready to take action to help themselves process loss and get better.
Mindfulness allows you to take the time to identify how you are feeling and then take steps to help yourself feel better. Learning mindfulness can help you move towards acceptance and live in the present.
When going through bereavement, look towards the future or the past can be painful, so learning how to live in the moment can be extremely beneficial.
No matter what kind of grief you are going through, attending group sessions with other people experiencing similar pain can be extremely beneficial.
Often when people are grieving, they feel extremely alone, so having a support system of people who understand is vital to their recovery process.
Complicated grief is when someone feels unable to bounce back. Of course, in the beginning, daily tasks will be hard for everyone, but with complicated grief, it does not get easier.
Usually, you can identify grief as complicated grief about six months after bereavement, but it is different for everyone. There are a few factors that go into complicated grief.
It could be due to a person’s personality type, their relationship with the person who died, how or when the person died, or existing mental health conditions.
It is common to feel an overwhelming amount of emotions when dealing with grief, all of which come and go in various phases or sparked by different events and triggers.
Below is a list of what is known as the seven stages of grief:
Just like any strong emotion, grief can create physical problems and symptoms in the human body. Here are some of the most common feelings:
When someone takes their own life, the grieving process for everyone left behind is different than it is for any other death. The symptoms may be different, but the degree and the process may be different.
Often people can feel angry at the person, extremely guilty, confused, and countless other overwhelming and conflicting emotions. When processing someone’s suicide, it is important to accept whatever emotion you feel.
It is also essential to have support from other people that have lost someone to suicide. You can consider going to a support group. Having people in your life who can relate to what you are experiencing can be extremely beneficial.
Losing a child can be especially difficult because no parent expects to outlive their child. It is a kind of grief that people do not expect ever to experience.
Losing a grandparent, a parent, or even a peer is more expected than losing a child. It is important to make sure to take care of yourself after losing a child.
Once again, support groups can be extremely beneficial as you will be able to make a support system out of people who can understand what you are going through.
When a spouse or partner dies, usually everything in your life seems to shift as there are lots of secondary losses.
It is important to give yourself time to grieve the primary and the secondary losses, but also remember that when you are ready to move on, there is nothing wrong with that.
You are not on a schedule, and there is nothing that you have to be feeling. Let your grieving process be your own.
There are a few things you can do to help yourself when seeking support. First, lean on friends and family in your life.
It is okay to depend on people right now, every if you have always seen yourself as strong and self-sufficient. Let people help you with whatever you need.
Second, lean on people outside of your friends and family. Go to support groups and talk to a counsellor. This can be a scary step, but the best thing is to force yourself to do it once, it will be a lot easier the second time.
At Rehab 4 Addiction, we offer high-quality bereavement treatment & counselling tailored to your individual needs.
To discover your road to recovery, call us today on 0800 140 4690 and start letting grief go.