Grieving

When someone dies

When someone dies, we grieve the loss of the person. Even if the person was older and death was the natural end to their life, family and friends can experience grief and loss. Family members can feel strong emotions including sadness, distress, anger, anxiety, disbelief, panic and relief. Grief can also be felt physically as headaches, nausea, fatigue and restlessness.

If you have been caring for an older family member for some time, you may also feel some confusion about the loss of a caring role and guilt that you might be relieved that the caring responsibilities have ended.

Grief is personal

There is no timetable for grief. Everyone experiences the death and loss differently. Some people want to share their feelings while others don’t wish to talk about things. It may take some time to make sense of your feelings and some days it may be difficult to keep going with work and family matters. When you are grieving, it is easy to neglect your own needs so make sure you consciously take care of yourself.

As time passes following the death of the person you cared for, it’s normal for feelings of sadness, numbness, or anger to gradually ease. While the sadness of losing someone may never go away, over time it generally changes. There may be bad days still but there are days when you can see pleasure in activities and families and the future. If grief is continuing to severely disrupt your life talk to your GP or to someone from your health care team.

Watch psychologist and Bereavement Care Specialist, Chris Hall talk about grief, our different responses to loss and the importance of supporting the bereaved person.