ZINE EXTRACTS

Actually not that basic. Grief is a normal and natural response to loss, but it’s hard to define as it shows up differently for everyone and changes over time. There is no ‘right’ way to grieve and there is no time frame.

We tend to think grief means sadness and missing a person, and while this might be true, it’s often more complex and can lead to a whole array of feelings such as anxiety, anger, numbness and guilt.

Our bodies also respond to loss, feeling exausted or acting in ways we might not understand. We might find ourselves experiencing nausea, digestive issues, changes to our sleeping pattern, or aches and pains. 

Grief can impact other areas of our life too, like our daily routines, our relationships, our self-esteem, our finances, and our perspective of the world. Many people feel that ‘everything changes’ after they experience a significant bereavement.

Some people think of grief as our extended relationship with the person - love in new form.

Some people experience the most intense, raw waves of grief when the loss is fresh, but for many it ebbs and flows, and sometimes hits us months or years down the line. Many of us go through phases of blocking our grief out. Maybe life is too busy, or the pain is too great, or we don’t have the tools or support to process it.

New waves of grief might be triggered by occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and cultural holidays. Or we might feel triggered by simple smells or sounds, by reading about loss in the news, or experiencing a second loss.

Grief can even resurface at happy moments, and as we enter new phases of our life, like leaving home, graduating, getting a new job, or falling in love. These are all reminders that the person is no longer here and we are moving forward with our lives, prompting us to process the grief all over again. It can trigger feelings of guilt and sorrow, and an uncertainty of how to exist in the world when so much has changed.

Sometimes the waves of grief seem completely random.

We’re used to hearing all the good things about those who are no longer with us, but it’s okay to acknowledge that people and relationships are complicated. This doesn’t go away when someone dies.

We may feel that the person we lost hurt us, or never supported us like we needed them to. Or maybe we hurt them. Your final conversation may have been filled with insults or accusations, or perhaps you hardly spoke at all.

Or maybe you’re grieving something that other people don’t acknowledge. ‘Disenfranchised grief’ refers to losses that are less recognised in our society, such as grieving after an abortion, grieving a pet, or grieving someone that people don’t consider as important in your life. Another example is grieving a same-sex partner if you aren’t publicly out.

Experiencing loss can throw our systems into a state of fear, always anticipating the next bad thing that might happen. We might panic when the phone rings, feel paranoid when we hear a siren, or interpret every small symptom as a sign that something is seriously wrong. Often people who have lost someone worry about dying themselves, or losing other people that they love.

Or it might be more subtle, subconsciously impacting the decisions we make for our future, because we have an underlying feeling that something will go wrong. It can, for example, prevent us from enjoying the moment, making plans, feeling confident, and opening ourselves up in relationships.

This fear of loss says things like “of course the worst will happen”, "what's the point" and "it's much safer not to..."

^{© Copyright Anna May, The Student Grief Network & The New Normal}