Understanding Grief

Feelings of loss and grief occur after losing someone or something that you care about.  Grief covers a range of issues.  It may be the death of a person, a pet, or the loss of a relationship, a job, your health, your possessions, lifestyle, identity, security, or your home. When we lose someone or something that is important to us, it can take time to adjust and to learn to live our life without that person, thing or way of life.

Grief has seven recognised stages.  As with the effects of trauma, it is wise to interpret the stages loosely, and expect individual variation. There is no neat progression from one stage to the next. In reality, there is much looping backwards and forwards, or stages can hit at the same time, or occur out of order.

So why bother with stages at all? Because they are a good general guide of what you may expect.

Well-wishers who have not experienced this loss, will not understand, and may reflect that 'by this time' you should be over it or you should have rejoined the land of the living. In reality, you are acting normally. It is they who just don't 'get it'.