What is sadness?
Most of us experience sadness at some point in the course of our lives. Grief is an emotional reaction to loss or great change. We grieve because we take in the loss we suffered and try to understand and adapt to a new life situation. Grief helps us with this, but also serves as a signal to the outside world that we need comfort and support.
A grief reaction can be triggered in response to various types of losses, such as:
- fatality
- Separaciones
- Losing a job or unemployment
- Different forms of abuse
- Ogni o altri persone
- Children moving away from home
- Pets passing away
- To retire
- A future that didn't turn out as expected
How does grief feel?
Grieving is often a more comprehensive experience than just being sad. Grief manifests itself in different ways for different people and can include a range of emotions such as sadness, anger, guilt, shame, confusion and emptiness. Grief can also contain conflicting thoughts and feelings, for example, it is not uncommon to feel both sadness and relief when someone who suffered from a severe illness passes away. How grief feels is individual, and it's important to remember that there is no “right” way to grieve.
Being in a new life situation can be extremely stressful, while the world around you is living as usual. The gap here can be extremely large. It is not uncommon to experience in grief a mixture of physical, emotional, thought and behavioral reactions, such as:
- A feeling of being numb
- Mood Swings
- Concentration and memory difficulties
- Feelings of unreality
- Changing eating habits
- Lack of energy
- Feelings of emptiness, loneliness, meaninglessness
- Missing and longing
- Re-Experiences of What Happened
- Difficulty sleeping
- Self-incrimination and the Quandary of Conscience
- Anxiety and emotional vulnerability
- Irritability, anger, or aggressiveness
- Passivity
- Impaired immune system
- Fainting or feeling sick
- Social isolation
- Lack of initiative
- Weeping mildness
- Difficulty adapting to change
- Increased alcohol intake
How is grief processed?
It can be very demanding to take in the pain of a great loss. Sometimes the expression is used bereavement work. New research shows that there is no definite way to process grief. For a person, a solo time with his interest is necessary, but for another, conversations with friends can be necessary. You just have to approach grief in your own way. The important thing is to find what helps you move on from the loss.
Phases of grief
In the past, we talked more about the different phases of grief, such as the shock phase, the reaction phase, the processing phase and the new orientation phase. See,. It is common to first experience a state of shock when faced with a life-changing event. Some may feel like they are in a nightmare they hope to wake up from. In addition, over time, one can integrate the event into one's life. This does not mean that the pain has disappeared, but that you have reached a form of emotional acceptance and can begin to move forward in life.
Bubbles of grief
Instead of different phases, we can talk about different bubbles. You can move between a bubble of grief and a bubble where life feels like normal. When you're in the grief bubble, only the grief exists and the reality feels unreal. Sie in the second bubble you can see confusend a creëren a guilty conscience. It seems important that it is completely normal to help between bubbles, it is difficult. Amount of time one is in the various bubbles will change during the grieving process.
A grieving process takes a different amount of time for different individuals and for different losses. For some people, the grief can be intense and last for months or even years. Others can reach acceptance and relief relatively quickly. It is also normal for grief to return even though you feel that you have grieved clearly.
Coping with grief
From a psychological perspective, it is good to allow oneself to feel one's sadness and express the thoughts and feelings that arise. This can be done by writing down your feelings, and finding meaningful ways to remember what has been lost. På,, a a a a a a.
Grief Management Tools
You who are experiencing grief can do this:
- Allow yourself to feel your grief fully.
- Express what is going on inside you. Tell, write or paint.
- Seek support from friends and relatives.
- Take care of yourself with exercise, sleep and diet.
- Maintain, to the extent possible, your usual routines. It can be hard to understand in grief why we should even do anything. But routines become counterbalance to the confusion and a rest from the difficult.
- Seek the support of other mourners, for example via the church's grief group.
- If you need professional support, you can apply to a curator or deacon for support talks.
Grief combined with other mental illnesses
In grief, many other inconveniences can also be accommodated. People who grieve often experience symptoms of depression and anxiety during parts of the grieving process. If these symptoms are an origin of grief, there is no need for individual depression or anxiety treatment, as the symptoms are judged to subside once the grief has been processed. In cases where depression and anxiety were present even before a loss, grief can amplify these symptoms. It may then be a good idea to talk to a psychologist if you need a more extensive intervention, with treatment for depression and anxiety specifically. Some losses can leave deep wounds. In cases where the loss involves a traumatic event, such as an accident, one may develop PTSD symptoms, these cases one may need PTSD treatment.
Therapy for unprocessed grief
Grief is usually self-healing and it is not always that a theurapeutical contact is needed. However, in cases where grief is prolonged, complex or affects crucial parts of your life, or leads to depression or anxiety, it is important to seek professional support. Mindler's psychologists can help you with this.
