What
Is Grief?
It is an intense set of emotions due to loss of a loved one, divorce, a move, life transition, disabling injury with financial loss, retirement or loss of a pet. Often friends do not know how to help you grieve. Trying to cheer you up, they might say or do things that actually add to your burden. That is why seeking professional help will give you a safe trusted place to share what you really feel instead of avoiding the subject or pretending you are fine.
What is Bereavement?
It is the sense of emptiness and longing that accompanies your loss.
What is Complicated Grief?
It is when you experience multiple losses as well as when your feelings are more intense, severe and takes longer duration than normal grief.
Myths about Grief
- You should be over grief in few weeks.
It is not about time but rather your actions during this time.
- Crying is a sign of weakness.
Crying is a normal human reaction.
- Grief only disrupts your emotions.
It can affect you in every way. You can lose trust, sense of safety, sense of control or even faith.
- Grief is letting go and forgetting your loved one.
Grieving in a healthy way does not mean letting go but learning to love in
Separation, you create a new normal in your relationship with the
Deceased loved one. Yes, you get to keep your relationship but it will look different. Together I will help you figure this out.
- Expecting to be your old self again.
You will not go back to your old self. Your identity changes with loss and you grow.
- It is best to go around grief, avoid it instead of going through it.
Facing pain, sharing it with a trusted profession or support system and not tip toeing around it, is the core of healing and grief work.
- You can predict grief progress.
No one can, everyone grieves differently.
- Grief and mourning are the same.
Grief is the internal experience, mourning is how you share it with others, the external expression.
Complications
Grief not healed might lead to long lasting negative consequences, emotionally, physically and mentally. This can affect your daily functioning, relationships and quality of life.
How can I help YOU
Experiencing grief my-self I will be able to comfort you and allow you to be honest to yourself expressing how you feel as well as identifying which stage are you at.
- Educate you about grief and grief work.
- Working on emotional health and thought patterns
- Myth breaking
- Persistence and how to do it
- Counseling you about a self-care plan for depression and anxiety.
- Offering you a space to remember your loved one without being judged or rushed to get over it
Diagnostic Suggestions
Ruling out or diagnosing: major Depressive Disorder, Bereavement, Adjustment disorder with depressed mood, Adjustment disorder with disturbance of conduct and Dysthymic Disorder.
Symptoms
- Negative thoughts dominated by loss coupled with poor concentration, tearful spells, and confusion about the future.
- Depression and discouragement.
- Strong emotional response exhibited when loses are discussed.
- Lack of appetite, weight loss and or insomnia as well as other depression signs that occurred since the loss.
- Feeling of guilt that not enough was done for the lost significant other, or an unreasonable belief of having contributed to the death of the significant other.
- Avoidance of talking on anything more than a superficial level about the loss.
- Loss of positive support system/ network due to a geographic move.
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, it is normal and it can be addressed.
Treatment
- Actively will build the level of trust with you to be able to express your thoughts and feelings and help you identify them.
- Using empathy and compassion support and encourage you to tell in detail the story of your loss.
- Elaborate in writing what really happened.
- Will introduce some books to help you understand more what you are going through and be more aware of your subconscious.
- Identify the stages of grief you have been experiencing.
- Addressing how avoiding has negatively impacted life.
- If you have used substance to numb your pain and how it added to the avoidance of feeling the loss.
- Acknowledge the dependency of lost loved one and begin to refocus
- Life on independent actions to meet your emotional needs.
- Verbalizing and resolving feelings of anger or guilt that block the grieving process.
- Identifying feelings of regret due to actions with the deceased.
- Reframing statement about being responsible for the loss.
- Express thoughts and feelings about the deceased that were not shared when the deceased was alive.
- Identifying the positive traits of the loved one and the relationship and how these things may be remembered and honored.
These are some of the work that will be done in session to help you go through the grieving process and heal your grief.