Los­ing a loved one un­ex­pect­ed­ly from a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent, through an act of vi­o­lence, or from COVID-19 is con­sid­ered a trau­ma­tiz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. No one can ever be pre­pared for such a loss. No amount of coun­selling, prayer, jus­tice or com­pas­sion can ever bring a loved one back.

When some­one pass­es on un­ex­pect­ed­ly, the lives of loved ones are abrupt­ly af­fect­ed, and their world is for­ev­er changed. The aware­ness that their dreams will nev­er be re­alised sinks in, and that grief lingers.

One may wish they could press pause on the griev­ing process dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son. I re­mem­ber wish­ing I could do just that dur­ing the first hol­i­day sea­son (and sev­er­al) fol­low­ing the painful loss of a loved one in my life.

I re­call be­ing con­flict­ed as there were times when I want­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the ex­cite­ment and joy but si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly ei­ther didn’t want to par­tic­i­pate at all or felt guilty for cel­e­brat­ing. That con­flict still ex­ists many years lat­er.

What I have come to re­alise is - grief is com­pli­cat­ed and unique for every­one. While ac­cept­ing loss be­comes eas­i­er over time, it is of­ten some­thing we car­ry with us for­ev­er.

There is no one way to grieve

From decades of re­search and in­ter­views, Psy­chol­o­gists and Grief Ther­a­pists have been able to iden­ti­fy some im­por­tant steps for heal­ing: -

- Sur­round your­self with sup­port­ive peo­ple

- Al­low your­self to cry

- Al­low your­self time to re­cov­er

- Be hon­est about your feel­ings

- Find a safe way to re­lease your anger

- Write down your feel­ings if that helps

- Ad­mit that you may need help

- Do not com­pare your grief with that of oth­ers, as every­one is unique

- Do not blame your­self

- Trea­sure your mem­o­ries and share them with oth­ers

It is im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that no two peo­ple grieve the same way, with the same in­ten­si­ty or for the same du­ra­tion.

The grief process

The grief process is of­ten char­ac­terised as work be­cause it is la­bo­ri­ous and dif­fi­cult. There is no timetable for this process. Los­ing a loved one caus­es sur­vivors to ad­just their lives in or­der to com­pen­sate and cope. Grief can be a long, painful process, but it can be man­aged with as­sis­tance from friends, fam­i­ly and/or out­side sup­port.

Grief may pro­voke in­tense stress re­ac­tions such as:

Emo­tion­al

- Shock, ter­ror guilt, grief spasms

- De­spair, numb­ness, help­less­ness

- Sad­ness, hy­per­sen­si­tiv­i­ty, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty

- Dis­so­ci­a­tion (ex­pe­ri­ences are “spacey,” or on “au­to­mat­ic pi­lot”)

- Over­whelm­ing sense of loss and sor­row, de­pres­sion

- Anger

Phys­i­cal

- Fa­tigue, lethar­gy, change in ap­petite

- Headaches, in­som­nia, sleep dis­tur­bance (night­mares)

- Hy­per­arousal / Hy­per­vig­i­lance (jumpi­ness)

- Mus­cle ten­sion, faint­ing, dizzi­ness

- In­creased heart rate or blood pres­sure

- Nau­sea, di­ar­rhoea, ab­dom­i­nal cramps

- De­creased li­bido

Spir­i­tu­al

- Faith in hu­man­i­ty may be shak­en

- Feel­ing dis­tant from God

- Sud­den­ly turn­ing to God

- Ques­tion­ing one’s ba­sic be­liefs

This list does not in­clude every sin­gle emo­tion, there cer­tain­ly are more. These are the more com­mon ex­pe­ri­ences doc­u­ment­ed.

Do not be em­bar­rassed or con­fused by these feel­ings. They are ALL nat­ur­al re­ac­tions to an un­nat­ur­al event.

Grief is al­ways evolv­ing and at times the feel­ings seem to be out of our con­trol. There­fore, the ‘pause’ but­ton does not ex­ist and it is chal­leng­ing to be in pain while there is so much joy all around you.

How­ev­er, there are things you can do to help al­le­vi­ate some of that con­flict you may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing. If you are griev­ing (or some­one you know is griev­ing) dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son, here are some help­ful tips to help get through this po­ten­tial­ly painful pe­ri­od of time.

How to of­fer help:

- Lis­ten – be a good lis­ten­er. Do not of­fer “psy­cho­log­i­cal” as­sess­ments.

- En­cour­age the sur­vivors to ex­press their feel­ings if they are feel­ing up to it.

- Be non-judg­men­tal – do not be shocked if sur­vivors ex­press anger and feel­ings of dis­trust.

- Help find re­sources – it may be help­ful for you to gath­er in­for­ma­tion about com­mu­ni­ty re­sources such as sup­port groups or ther­a­pists.

- Help out with dai­ly chores – peo­ple in grief may not have the en­er­gy or fo­cus to take care of dai­ly liv­ing tasks.

- Be wary of sui­ci­dal thoughts – it is im­por­tant for peo­ple who may be hav­ing sui­ci­dal im­puls­es to seek pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling with a ther­a­pist trained in trau­ma coun­selling. Do not tell the sur­vivors that you know how they feel.

- Let these sur­vivors heal at their own pace – do not rush them.

Tune in­to your grief emo­tions

As men­tioned above, grief does not take a back seat dur­ing the hol­i­days and can of­ten be mag­ni­fied. It’s im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge your feel­ings and not avoid them.

You may ex­pe­ri­ence both neg­a­tive and pos­i­tive feel­ings dur­ing the hol­i­days while griev­ing and that is okay. Be kind to your­self and re­mem­ber that all feel­ings can co­ex­ist. For ex­am­ple, I can miss that per­son and en­joy the hol­i­day at the same time.

It may be tempt­ing to numb out with un­healthy habits dur­ing the hol­i­days. An­tic­i­pat­ing the dif­fi­cult emo­tions and prepar­ing ahead of time will help pre­vent neg­a­tive con­se­quences from oc­cur­ring.

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flow­ing. Some­times the wa­ter is calm, and some­times it is over­whelm­ing. All we can do is learn to swim.” ~ Vic­ki Har­ri­son

For more men­tal health re­sources:

https://www.find­carett.com/

https://thep­sy­chol­o­gy­group.com/