Young woman being comforted by a friend.
Anxiety, Depression, Mental Health, Therapy
06/18/2024

Navigating Loss & Mourning: A Guide to Grief Support

by Jerry Kosmin

While it comes in many forms, grief is something everyone experiences during their lifetime. Having an understanding of grief and what it may look like makes it easier to support someone healing from loss and even help them receive professional grief support if needed.

In this blog, we will talk about the impact of grief and how to support those who are navigating the mourning process with the proper grief support.

The Impact of Grief on Mental Health

Grief is a natural reaction or emotional response to experiencing a loss. While it’s most often connected to the loss of a loved one, also known as bereavement, there are many sources of grief, including, but not limited to:

  • Death of a pet
  • Divorce or relationship breakup
  • Loss of health
  • Losing a job
  • Loss of financial stability
  • Miscarriage
  • Retirement
  • Diagnosis of a loved one’s serious illness
  • Loss of friendship

Generally speaking, grief involves strong feelings of sadness but can also lead to feelings of shock and numbness. It’s imperative to remember that every person is unique, and therefore, the process of grieving affects everyone differently.

In time, most people find that their feelings of grief become less intense, but they may always carry the loss with them. As someone is going through the grieving process, it can take a toll on their mental health and wellness. When this happens, they may begin to struggle with daily activities or functioning on their own.

Signs of Grief

As we mentioned above, everyone experiences grief differently, but there are still symptoms commonly associated with grieving. These vary from physical, behavioral, emotional, and social, but all are equally important for understanding grief support.

Physical Symptoms

  • Tightness in chest
  • Feeling weak
  • Lack of energy
  • Nausea
  • Restlessness
  • Tearfulness

Behavioral Symptoms

  • Forgetfulness
  • Confusion
  • Dreaming about the person who was lost
  • Absent-mindedness

Emotional Symptoms

  • Anger
  • Shock
  • Denial
  • Numbness
  • Loneliness
  • Relief
  • Apathy
  • Irritability
  • Guilt
  • Blame

Social Symptoms

  • Being unusually dependent on others
  • Withdrawing from friends and family
  • Relationship difficulties
  • Avoiding friends and family
  • Avoiding colleagues
  • Increased substance use
  • Lack of self-care or hygiene while still caring for others

These are only a few of the signs or symptoms someone may experience. Remember that there are many more ways in which grief can present itself.

Two people holding hands to comfort each other.

5 Grief Stages

Many people have heard of the five stages of grief, but they may not have a full understanding of what these stages mean in the grieving process.

  1. Denial. We may have difficulty believing the loss is real.
  2. Anger. We may direct anger towards someone (or ourselves) for not being able to prevent the loss from happening.
  3. Bargaining. We may imagine reaching an agreement to avoid dealing with the loss or regret of past actions that we believe (while not always true) could have stopped it.
  4. Depression. We may experience complex emotions related to depression including emotional detachment, hopelessness, etc.
  5. Acceptance. We may learn to embrace the reality of the loss and even celebrate what we had although the pain of loss is still present.

When learning about grief support, we become aware that grief isn’t a linear experience and there isn’t a right way to do it. Even though these stages are often used to explain the grieving process, they are not meant to be treated as steps or rules.

Types of Grief

A key factor in understanding the mourning process and how to find grief support is to be aware of the different types of grief. Below, we have provided the most common types of grief people experience after a loss.

Anticipatory Grief

When individuals are expecting the loss of someone close to them in the near future, they may begin to envision their lives without them. This is known as anticipatory grief and is most common in cases when someone an individual is close to is battling a terminal illness.

To try and prepare themselves for the impending loss, they may try to anticipate how they will feel and react when the loss occurs. In some senses, anticipatory grief is considered a positive experience since it allows individuals the chance to prepare for the loss and say goodbye.

However, sometimes anticipatory grief causes an individual to experience an overwhelming sense of loss and fear for the dying person, making the time leading up to their death even more difficult.

Collective Grief

When a tragedy affects an entire community or large group of people, it is known as collective grief. This is common during times of war, or after a natural disaster where there are long-lasting impacts. In other cases, collective grief has be seen after the death of a public figure, a terrorist attack, or a mass casualty.

Complicated Grief

As we mentioned above, there are five stages of grief that an individual experiences after a loss. Complicated grief occurs when an individual doesn’t process through each of these stages, leading to a prolonged and more intense feeling of loss.

Oftentimes, individuals who are struggling with complicated grief will have trouble functioning and may develop symptoms of depression and anxiety. As this is one of the most difficult grief types, and cannot be resolved on its own, these individuals will need help from a mental health professional to find the relief they deserve.

Cumulative Grief

Cumulative grief goes by many other names, including grief overload or bereavement overload. This happens if someone experiences a second loss shortly after, or before they’ve accepted a first loss.

Since it can be overwhelming and lead to extreme feelings of hopelessness, cumulative grief is difficult for individuals to process and recover from, especially on their own. Seeking help from a professional can be crucial to their recovery.

Young woman in an individual grief support therapy session.

Delayed Grief

This type of grief is identified when an individual has an intense reaction to a loss a very long time after it occurs. When experiencing delayed grief, individuals can continue to feel sorrow and longing for years because their emotional reaction didn’t happen when it should have. This is often due to disassociation.

Disassociation is a common coping mechanism people use when an experience is too painful to feel or fully acknowledge. During this time, their mind blocks the thoughts or feelings they associated with their loss because they weren’t ready to process or deal with them at the time.

Disenfranchised (Ambiguous) Grief

Also known as ambiguous grief, this happens if the loss someone is experiencing isn’t validated by others. Anytime an individual doesn’t feel seen or heard while they are grieving, it may result in disenfranchised grief.

For example, there are strong stigmas associated with death by suicide or overdoses, and as a result, a society or culture may not recognize these losses the same way they would others. Another example of this is when people don’t expect someone to be affected by the death or feel the person lost shouldn’t be grieved.

Distorted Grief

Sometimes, individuals have extreme reactions to a loss, leading to noticeable changes in their overall behavior, most notably self-destructive behavior. Anger, irritability, and lashing out towards themselves and others are also common signs someone is experiencing distorted grief.

It’s important to remember that while anger plays a key role in the five grief stages, individuals are meant to move past this emotion and eventually accept their loss. If they fail to do this, their anger and self-destructive behavior become a risk to their safety and the safety of others.

Inhibited Grief

If an individual doesn’t show any obvious or outward forms of their grief, they may be experiencing inhibited grief. This happens when they repress their emotions. Grief can be confusing for anyone, and many people have never been taught how to properly recognize or process feelings of loss.

Some individuals may not even realize that they are pushing these feelings aside and as a result, they begin to develop physical symptoms like upset stomach, insomnia, anxiety, or panic attacks.

As we mentioned before, healing from a loss takes time and what works for some people may not work for others. Getting grief support from a mental health professional is often one of the best ways to recover from a loss.

This could mean participating in therapy, grief counseling, joining a grief support group, or using other professional support resources. However, there are also things we can do ourselves to help us through this process. Below, we’ve provided some ways to navigate the mourning process.

At some point, everyone will experience a loss in their lifetime, and with that, they will also experience grief. It may come in many forms, and it’s not something we can avoid. The important thing to remember is that when it happens, there are people who can offer grief support and guide you through your recovery. If you’re not sure where to start, consider using the following grief and mental health support resources:

Young adult grief support group meeting.

Are you or someone you know struggling with grief and/or loss? Contact our team to see how Malvern Behavioral Health might be an effective treatment option for you.