The most common reaction on hearing of the death of someone close to you is shock. Shock can affect you for a few days or a number of weeks. When you're experiencing it, you might feel: Sick.
As with grief after any bereavement, there will be no set timeline for how long your grief will last after your partner's death. You may find that you go through a range of different emotions, from anger and sadness, to regret and guilt. Or maybe you feel quite numb after the shock of your partner's death.
Shock is typically experienced as one of the first stages in the grief process, and eventually it wears off. For some, shock recedes very quickly. For others, shock lasts for hours or days. Everyone is different and there is no right or wrong way to experience shock.
Shock and Numbness: This phase immediately follows a loss to death. In order to emotionally survive the initial shock of the loss, the grieving person feels numb and shut down. Yearning and Searching: This phase is characterized by a variety of feelings, including sadness, anger, anxiety, and confusion.
You may feel numb, shocked, and fearful. You may feel guilty for being the one who is still alive. At some point, you may even feel angry at your spouse for leaving you. All of these feelings are normal.
Depression is usually the longest and most difficult stage of grief. Depression can be a long and difficult stage in the grieving process, but it's also when people feel their deepest sadness.
Loss of intimacy
Many people find the loss of a physical or sexual relationship hard to bear. It's understandable to miss the intimacy and closeness of your partner. Talking about this may feel particularly difficult or inappropriate but it can help to do so with someone you trust, or with us.
Shock feels like a numbness, a fog, a disbelief. It is the body's way of protecting us from early pain. It can last days or weeks with the bereaved either unable to cry or unable to stop crying. Both are natural reactions to grief.
To feel in control again, you have to start with the small things–make your bed, eat regularly, bathe. You have to take it a step at a time until you're back on your feet. You could also try grief counseling to counter the symptoms of shock after the death of a loved one.
It is normal to feel a sense of shock when someone close to you has died. Experiencing shock can mean you have a physical and emotional reaction. You may feel dizzy, nauseous, dazed, numb or empty. As part of feeling shocked you may not believe that the news is real.
Shock is a serious condition that occurs when your body doesn't get enough blood flow. Symptoms of shock include low blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, shallow breathing, anxiety and fatigue.
Most of the time, shock won't go away on its own, so it will linger until you receive medical help. If you don't urgently seek medical attention, you may end up hospitalized for weeks. Sadly, some people die from multiple organ failure. Continue reading to learn about the five major types of physical shock below.
Grief begins in the brain, but it affects the whole body. The moment we learn of our loss, our brain triggers the fight-or-flight response. This heightened state puts extra stress on our organs and bodily functions, and we would usually experience it for a few minutes to 48 hours.
Tips on what to say
Take your lead from them. They may want to talk to you in detail about what happened and how they feel, or they may not. If you knew the person who has died, it can mean a lot if you can share any happy stories or tell them about kind things you remember the person saying.
Scientists know that grief is not only psychological, it's also physical. They know that it causes the brain to send a cascade of stress hormones and other signals to the cardiovascular and immune systems that can ultimately change how those systems function.
“The imprint of trauma doesn't 'sit' in the verbal, understanding, part of the brain, but in much deeper regions- amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, brain stem – (similar to the grief response) which are only marginally affected by thinking and cognition.
Body Aches and Pains
Aches and pains are a common physical symptom of grief. Grief can cause back pain, joint pain, headaches, and stiffness. The pain is caused by the overwhelming amount of stress hormones being released during the grieving process. These effectively stun the muscles they contact.
A common theme among people who have lost their spouse is the debilitating effects of feeling entirely alone and incomplete. The sense of feeling like you have lost an essential part of yourself is both painful and disconcerting. The world suddenly looks like a different place, often odd and distanced.
Grief can alter your thoughts and emotional process, as well as your behaviors. Keep in mind that your personality develops based on both environmental and genetic factors, meaning that it is malleable and able to change due to circumstances and experiences.
Until the intensity of your grief subsides, you can't expect to be truly happy again. Work through your guilt, extreme pain, extreme sadness, intense anger, and every other feeling and emotion. Often, reaching out to a grief counselor gives you a structure for doing this work.
Complicated grief may be considered when the intensity of grief has not decreased in the months after your loved one's death. Some mental health professionals diagnose complicated grief when grieving continues to be intense, persistent and debilitating beyond 12 months.
Practice the three C's
As you build a plan, consider the “three Cs”: choose, connect, communicate. Choose: Choose what's best for you. Even during dark bouts of grief, you still possess the dignity of choice. “Grief often brings the sense of loss of control,” said Julie.