It may not be until after the funeral that you feel the full intensity of your grief. Everyone else may seem to have returned to normal, but your life is forever changed. It will take time to create a “new normal” for yourself.
The Funeral Can Be a Reminder of the Finality of Death
Until that moment, it may have felt like they were in a dream or living in denial. But seeing the body and attending the funeral can be a harsh reminder that the person is really gone. It can trigger feelings of sadness, anger, and despair.
The five stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – are often talked about as if they happen in order, moving from one stage to the other.
The death of a husband or wife is well recognized as an emotionally devastating event, being ranked on life event scales as the most stressful of all possible losses.
Closure and family support
Funerals allow grieving individuals to say their final goodbyes and commiserate with family members. People share stories, cry, comfort each other, offer support, etc. This community grieving process is an important step towards healing. It ensures individuals don't feel alone in their pain.
For most people their mourning period is a long process and it can take years. After about two years you are likely to know the places, events and occasions that trigger your emotions. As you start to know these, you will also learn what helps you to cope with them.
Suicide is a death like none other. Survivors of suicide can often experience different emotions that are unique to this kind of loss. This kind of death brings about so many unbearable feelings and emotions for the survivors.
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.
One of the hardest parts of grieving someone alive is that you are forced to accept a changed relationship that you do not want. It may be difficult for you to look on a loved one in a different life, but you may be able to experience a rewarding relationship with them in new ways than before.
➢ Grief is what we think and feel on the inside when someone we love dies. Examples include fear, loneliness, panic, pain, yearning, anxiety, emptiness etc. ➢ It is the internal meaning given to the experience of loss. ➢ Mourning is the outward expression of our grief; it is the expression of one's grief.
A Filipino superstition holds that you should not go straight home after a funeral. If you do, death may follow you. So stop off somewhere else first.
People react to grief in very different ways. Some people find they cry very frequently and may be overwhelmed by the strength of their emotions. Others may feel numb for some time, or feel unable to cry. Some people experience swings between extremes.
Grief is Hard on the Body
Just like we need sleep when recovering from illness, we need sleep when recovering from the physical and emotional strain associated with losing someone we love. A few reasons why you might experience difficulty sleeping while you are grieving: Intrusive thoughts. Stress, worries, anxiety.
Symptoms of grief feel continuous for a long time, and they get harder to cope with over time, rather than gradually easier. Intense and overwhelming feelings of grief are having an impact on your day-to-day living.
Bargaining is usually the third stage in grieving, and it is often the shortest. During this time, a person may try to find meaning in the loss and reach out to others to discuss it.
Anticipatory grief is the normal mourning process that occurs when your loved one is still living and you are expecting his or her death. This type of grief reaction commonly occurs when someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness or has been dealing with a chronic illness for a long period of time.
And we all need to be reminded that staying comfortable for too long, is slowly killing us. Life is outside of your comfort zone - not in an environment that is crushing your soul, or in the bottom of a bottle.
Different kinds of bereavement
In general, death of a child is the most difficult kind of loss, and bereaved family members are at elevated risk for depression and anxiety for close to a decade after the loss. In addition these parents are at risk for a range of physical illnesses.
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. Never surrender." ~ Tupac Shakur | SRTK.
In grief, we need the stillness of alone time to feel our feelings and think our thoughts. To slow down and turn inward, we must sometimes actively cultivate solitude. Being alone is not the curse we may have been making it out to be. It is actually a blessing.
Masked grief occurs when someone tries to suppress their feelings of grief and not deal with them or allow them to run their natural course. In the very early moments after a loss, our bodies and minds are clever in that the initial feelings of shock and denial are useful to us.