Dealing with grief

I have recently returned from a funeral of a beloved family member in Ireland.

Dealing with death is difficult and does not follow a logical pattern. I can, however, offer some information that I hope might help someone in this situation.

Most of us have heard of The Grief Cycle. While parts of this are accurate, no one person will experience grief in the same way and certainly not in a tidy logical sequence.

It’s very hard to put grief into words.

Sadly, bereaved people sometimes find that friends, family and colleagues are uncomfortable around them when they need their support most, simply because they don’t know what to say.

In my opinion, the best way to support someone grieving is to honour their way of dealing with it, without judgement, trying to distract them or cheering them up.

You can offer help, but make it specific and practical, such as cooking them a meal, doing the shopping, giving them a hug, going for a walk, or making them a hot drink.

Most of all, you can listen if they want to speak and if they want to be alone, let them be. It’s often necessary for people to process their emotions.

The bereaved person just wants to know you are there for them and respect what they are going through. Please don’t say “I know how you feel”, because you don’t. Everyone’s grief experience is unique. If you don’t know what to say, just tell them you are here for them and whatever they need.

Recovery from grief means allowing yourself to go through the process, experience the emotions and be supported in your pain and be allowed to express it in any way that feels natural. Grief can look ugly and scary, but that is never a negative reflection of the person experiencing it. Some will be angry and irritable, and they might even be rude or rejecting, but that will pass and you should not take it personally. It’s not about you.

I have had very different experiences of grief. When my mother died after a long time of touch and go in the hospital, and many traumatic decisions that I had to make about her treatment, I lost it at the funeral, but afterwards tried to emotionally escape what I was feeling.

I pushed the emotions down, and they were complicated emotions because we had had a difficult relationship, as a result, I avoided the grief cycle so psychologically it became unfinished business and started to affect me years later.

Suppressed emotion has a habit of biting back unexpectedly.

Learning from how not to deal with grief, I now know that it is OK to hurt, cry, howl, go somewhere remote and scream, or sit with whatever comes up.

It’s horrible, never easy and some of the thoughts and feelings are very strange and unsettling. But, there are small positives like realising the importance of family and the support you can give each other in different ways.

Grief comes and goes, like waves and tides. You may look and feel like you are coping, and then suddenly the pain hits again. It’s hard, but you must ride the wave, make allowances for yourself and most of all, allow yourself to be vulnerable with those you trust.

Whether death is expected, unexpected or happens over a long period of time, grief is complicated and it is difficult to know when you have reached acceptance.

Grief does not get smaller, but we can grow around it.

Be kind to yourself, and invest more time in self-care, preferably physically based, to ground you. When you grieve you tend to live in your head and ignore what your body is trying to tell you.

Be aware of how your body feels and remember that self-care is more important than work or other commitments. The world won’t end if you take a break. You might be pleasantly surprised by the support network you have around you.

Stick an imaginary out-of-order sign on your head and sleep, rest, get out in nature, remember the good times and talk with people you trust when you are ready. Taking a week or two off after a bereavement is a sensible thing to do if you can.

You can’t expect to totally ‘get over’ a death, a measure of sadness will always be there and that is normal and healthy. Don’t hold yourself to any imaginary standards of coping and get rid of ‘shoulds’, ‘musts’ and ‘oughts’.

But if you find that your life effectively stops for a long period of time, you have depressive symptoms that persist, you are numbing out with drugs, food or drink, or just cannot do the things you normally do, you may need some therapeutic help to nudge you along in processing the pain. Again, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you are really struggling, do reach out.

There are some great organisations specialising in bereavement care, you can find the links here.

If you would like to share your experiences of grief and how you coped, I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below. And if you are really struggling and need to talk, get in touch.