Bereavement
If you have experienced the death of someone who was important to you, you might be finding it difficult to adjust to the changes happening in your life right now. Grief can shake everything up - your beliefs, your routines, and even your sense of normality.
Bereavement is the time we spend adjusting to loss. There is no right or wrong way to feel during the bereavement period - everyone copes in their own way.
Grief, although normal, can manifest in unexpected ways. Some people get angry, some people withdraw into themselves and some people become completely numb. Sometimes, grief can trigger mental health conditions, like depression.
Talking about the loss often allows a person to adjust to their new life with all its changes - good and bad. Keeping things bottled up or denying the sadness could prolong the pain. Any loss has to be acknowledged for us to move forward. Space to talk aims to help people find a place for their loss so they can carry on with life and eventually find acceptance.
What is bereavement?
When a loved one suddenly leaves your life, it's not a case of taking time out to recover. 'Recovery' suggests that you will emerge exactly the same as you were before. In reality, all of your experiences shape the person you are, and experiencing the death of someone you care about often has the biggest impact.
Bereavement is accepting what happened, learning to adjust to life without that person and finding a place to keep their memory alive while you try to get along as best you can.
The importance of mourning
Mourning is an important part of bereavement. Mourning involves rituals like funerals, wakes and anniversary celebrations, which help to add structure to an otherwise chaotic and confusing time. Mourning allows us to say goodbye. Seeing the body, watching the burial, or scattering the ashes is a way of affirming what has happened.
As hard as it is, sometimes we need to see evidence that a person really has died before we can truly enter into the grieving process.
If you’re worried about your child and how to help them navigate grief, please see our page on childhood bereavement for more information and resources.
The stages of bereavement
During bereavement, it is important to find ways to mourn our loss and express our grief. This can be a confusing time involving a lot of powerful emotions. These emotions can grow, fade and shift as we move across the different stages of bereavement.
Not everyone experiences the same stages of bereavement at the same time or in the same order, though most people generally go through the following four stages at some point:
-
accepting that your loss really happened
-
experiencing the pain that comes with grief
-
trying to adjust to life without the person who died
-
putting less energy into your grief, finding a new place to put it and moving on
Most people go through all of these stages, but not everyone moves between them smoothly. Sometimes, people get stuck on one stage and find it difficult to move on.
Bereavement counselling
Bereavement counselling is designed to help people move through the stages of bereavement and learn how to cope with the death of a loved one. Specifically, counselling for grief and bereavement can:
-
offer an understanding of the mourning process
-
explore areas that could potentially prevent you from moving on
-
help resolve areas of conflict still remaining
-
help you to adjust to a new sense of self
-
address possible issues of depression or suicidal thoughts
You will probably never stop missing the person you lost, but with enough time and the right support, a new life can be pieced together and purpose can be reclaimed.
Space to talk aims to get you to the point where you can function normally - however long it takes.
Coping with grief
Many people compare their grief to waves rolling onto a beach. Sometimes those waves are calm and gentle, and sometimes they are so big and powerful that they knock you off your feet completely. Sometimes, the wave of grief can be so powerful that it leads to:
-
not wanting or feeling able to get out of bed
-
neglecting yourself - not taking care of your hygiene or appearance
-
not eating properly
-
the feeling that you can't carry on living without the person you've lost
-
not feeling able to go to work
-
taking your feelings out on other people
All of these reactions are normal parts of bereavement - unless they go on for a very long time. If you feel like you are no longer coping with grief very well or are recognising the following behaviours, you may need some extra help:
-
you are beginning to drink a lot
-
you are tempted to or starting to take illegal drugs
-
you are having suicidal thoughts
-
you are acting recklessly
-
you are starting to behave violently