Losing a loved one can make life joyless and difficult. When you feel as though your expression of grief or your feelings are wrong, the difficulty and pain you experience are only compounded. If you're worried that your reaction to the death of a loved one is wrong in some way, you might be surprised at just how varied the grieving process is for different people.
Grief Has Symptoms Than Just Crying
Many people cry when they lose a loved one, and extended periods of frequent crying after a loss are considered a normal expression of grief, while perpetually holding back tears can make it difficult to recover from the sadness. However, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong if you don't cry when a loved one dies. People experience grief differently. Instead of crying, you might feel very tired, irritable, or confused. Dissociation, or the feeling that nothing is real, is also a common reaction to grief.
Losing someone can even cause you physical symptoms, like insomnia or oversleeping. If you cry often, your skin and mouth may become dry and easily irritated. Appetite fluctuations are common among those who grieve as well. To help combat these issues, formulate a routine for sleeping, eating, and getting plenty of water. You can help yourself stick to this routine by writing down your habits in a journal each day.
Grief Doesn't Always Have Stages
Emotionally, it's commonly assumed that you'll grief in five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While some people do experience these feelings in this order, it's an oversimplification to say that's how most people experience a loss.
As you recover, you may feel angry first, or depressed, and you might not go through some of the stages. When someone with a long history of severe illness dies, the loved ones may simply feel relieved that he or she is not in pain anymore. They may have already gone through some stages of grief while the person was still alive. This is normal, so don't worry if your feelings don't match up exactly with the theoretical grieving process.
A good way to cope with loss, no matter what feelings it evokes, is to practice mindfulness. When you are mindful of your emotions, you let them wash over you so you can understand what needs to happen for you to heal. If you aren't sure where to start, grief counselors and personal therapists can help you learn to process your emotions this way.
It's hard to keep going through the motions when you feel disabled by your grief, especially if it manifests in an unorthodox way. If you feel incapable of managing your sadness on your own, seek help from a grief counseling service like Park Center Inc, family, or friends. No one deserves to feel as though their emotions are wrong, and no one should have to deal with loss alone.
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