Unresolved or Complicated Grief
Have you been bereaved over a year and are you still feeling that nothing seems a little lighter?
Are you still overwhelmed by grief to such an extent that your behaviour is diminishing your life? Are you still feeling acute grief every day? Do you seem unable to make any recovery and have fallen into a chronic depression which does not seem like mourning but long term apathy?
If so, you might be suffering from complicated grief or unresolved grief.
It is worth saying that most people who suffer a bereavement do grieve and mourn and find some recovery in life. However, there are some who are so carefully defended against the fear of depression that they avoid grieving. Others can complicate their own recovery by using alcohol or drugs which inhibit some of the processes of mourning. Some people emotionally withdraw as a means of self-protection. Others fall into depression which, unlike in normal grief, never seems to lift.
This is called complicated or unresolved grief. One of the difficulties with complicated grief is that people suffering from it often do not know how to ask for help, or in what way they might need help. As is often the way, those who most need help are unlikely to seek it out for a wide variety of reasons past and present.
However, if you feel that any of the above describes you, be brave and consider how you might seek out some help to engage in the mourning process and find a path to recovery.
Unresolved grief is most likely to happen if one or more of the following is part of your story.
- A complicated relationship with the deceased which was already filled with conflict or sadness before the death and left you with a lack of fulfilment.
- If there is another life crisis which occurs concurrently with the death of a loved one.
- A series of close deaths in a short period of time can cause a bereavement overload and prevent normal grieving.
- Little support from family or your social network at the time of a traumatic or unexpected death or after the funeral.
- A refusal to allow any offers of help into your life and a sense of isolation which may be partly self-created.
- If the death reminds you of deaths from the past or triggers memories of relationships from the past which caused trauma then this can also cause unresolved grief.
Do not be afraid to seek help for any of the above.
Find help to make the loss real and the facts around it part of your story. This can help you to move away from denial and anger into the mourning process and deal with the reality of the emotional impact of the loss on yourself.
Find help to understand the jumbled up emotions within you. They may be so raw that you might be putting them aside and living in an emotionless state which does not allow you to grieve.
Find help to think through how to live without the one you love in your life. You may well feel mindless and need another human being to think with you about how to create a space which reflects the new reality.
Find help to make some space in which to grieve. Time to grieve, not just physical time, but the emotional space to allow yourself to mourn is vital.
Do not be afraid to explore past deaths. Why have particular memories of death come back and seem to be haunting you so many years later? There may well be an emotional link, and seeking to understand it can help with the recovery of the present death on your mind as well.
All the above are very hard to do alone. You may well need some a little help or you might need much more help depending how you feel and how unresolved your grief has become. It is really important to free yourself to seek the help you need.
No one can do these things alone.
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