Ask any expert across the country — from a physician in Maine to a Redondo Beach personal injury attorney — and they’ll tell you that death can come without warning. It might be a car accident, accidental overdose, suicide, or even homicide. Whatever the cause, though, the fact is, you can’t always predict it, and when it does come, it usually has a tremendous emotional impact.
Grief is a natural response to losing a loved one, but it’s also a response that can cripple your day-to-day life. When the pain of grief is too strong, it might become disorienting, and disrupt your ability to deal with or concentrate on anything else. Thankfully, though, there are ways you can better cope should a sudden death affect your family. Here are some tips for understanding and dealing with the grief.
Understand That Grief Is Personal
If you’re beating yourself up for not behaving completely rationally because of grief — don’t. It’s important for you to come to terms with the fact that grief is an emotional process by nature, and can’t always be dealt with intellectually. As such, the way every person is affected by grief will vary.
There’s no “right” or “wrong” way to go about things, only strategies that may work for you and others that won’t. That being said, there are some generalities about grief that many people have in common, such as the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Even here, though, the amount of time that you spend in each stage can vary based upon your personal characteristics. What’s more, you may not experience those stages in any particular order, and some you might not experience at all. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some things that might help you progress through your own grief and come to terms with the pain you might feel.
Having Support Is Crucial
You might not be the sort of person that wants (or even needs) someone to be around at all times throughout the day. When you’re grieving, though, having access to some kind of support structure often helps.
Instead of isolating completely, try talking about your feelings with friends, family, a professional, or even a grief support group that will better understand the unique situation that you are dealing with.
While it might not immediately resolve your grief (and few things, if any, can), being able to speak, be heard, and have reliable people you can turn to is a big step in coping with, and perhaps even overcoming your grief.