Understanding Grief
01 of 08"Shouldn't I be feeling better by now?"
Many grieving people ask this. Often because someone else has hinted that they should be.
Grief doesn't have a schedule. Some days you might feel almost okay. Others, it can hit as hard as the first day. Both are part of it.
There's no right way to feel
Grief can bring sadness and longing. It can also bring anger, guilt, regret, numbness, relief, disbelief or all of these in a single afternoon.
You might cry often, or not at all. You might want to talk about them constantly, or not be able to say their name. You might laugh at the funeral and fall apart months later. None of this means you're grieving wrong.
The Five Stages of Grief
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross first described these five stages in her work with people facing their own death. The names can help you recognise some of what you're feeling after a loss. Shock and numbness are common reactions too, especially when the loss is sudden.
Denial or disbelief. "This can't be real." You may know what happened and still expect to receive there call.
Anger. "How could this happen?" You may feel furious at the circumstances, at someone else, or even at them and question how unfair it all is.
Bargaining. "What if I'd done something differently?" or " I'd give anything to get them back. Your mind can go back over what happened, looking for a way it could have ended differently.
Depression or deep sadness. The weight of the loss can settle in. In this model, the word describes a grief response. A clinical diagnosis of depression is separate.
Acceptance. You begin to live with the reality of what happened. You can accept it and still wish with everything in you that it was different.
You might recognise several of these in one day, revisit them months later or never feel some of them at all. Grief has its own rhythm.
Grief brain
Grief can make it hard to think. You might forget appointments, lose your keys, read the same page three times or struggle to make simple decisions. It can feel frightening, but it is a common part of grieving, and it usually eases with time.
