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How to Cope with Grief and Loss

By May 29, 2017 2 Comments

 

HOW TO COPE WITH GRIEF AND LOSSOur counseling center, Lifeworks, employs excellent grief therapists to help cope with loss. Dealing with grief can be very difficult because it forces one to confront very painful emotions. Loss and grief can happen simultaneously or independent of one another. Grief is an inner sense of loss, sadness, and emptiness; mourning is a way to express those feelings. For many people acknowledging their feelings may be a difficult step to complete. If you don’t face your grief, your wounds might never quite go away. Accept that the pain you’re feeling is part of dealing with grief and moving toward a state of healing and acceptance.

Grief begins as a natural response to loss. Generally, more significant the loss, the more intense grief can be. Some examples of loss include:

  1. Relationship breakeup
  2. Health related problems
  3. Being fired, quitting, or retiring from your job
  4. Financial loss
  5. Death of a pet

Grieving is an individual experience; there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. How you grieve depends on many factors, including your temperament and coping style, your life experience, your faith, and how momentous the loss was to you. For some people, the healing process starts within weeks or months, for others, it can be a matter of days.

In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If your grief feels like too much to bear, or you feel stuck in any one of the stages before acceptance, it may be time to seek professional help. When grief is left untreated for prolonged periods of time, significant emotional damage, life-threatening health problems, and even suicide can be consequential outcomes.

Loss by death of a loved one is one of life’s most stressful events and can cause a major emotional crisis. After the death of someone you love, you experience bereavement: to be deprived by death. For most, a child’s death arouses an overwhelming sense of injustice for lost potential, unfulfilled dreams and senseless suffering. For a spouse, a spouse’s death is very traumatic, there is emotional shock, a potential financial crisis, and an adjustment in one’s personal and social life.

When an elderly person loses a spouse, it means losing a lifetime of shared experiences. And at this time, feelings of loneliness may be compounded by the death of close friends. Of those most difficult for some people, is a loss due to suicide. Those who survive the person who commits suicide, are left with a tremendous burden of guilt, anger, and shame. To avoid prolonged feelings of guilt, seeking counseling during the first weeks after the suicide is particularly beneficial and advisable.

Contact one of our grief counselors at Lifeworks if you:

  1. Feel as if life isn’t worth living,
  2. Are having suicidal ideations,
  3. Find yourself taking blame for the loss,
  4. Start feeling physical symptoms like numbness,
  5. Are having difficulty socializing or leaving your home,
  6. Or if you are unable to perform your normal daily activities.

Here at Lifeworks, we serve the community of Carrollton and Dallas, Texas. If you have suffered a loss and are coping with grief or have any questions, contact us today to schedule a consultation. At Lifeworks, we may have the grief therapist that will help you cope with your loss.

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Avatar for Adrienne Adrienne says:

    When I first received my diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I definitely grieved for the life I would no longer be able to live. It took me a good 6 months to a year to fully move through the grieving process.

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