Five Truths About Grief and Mourning that May Change Your Life

Truth 1: There is a Difference Between Grieving and Mourning

The two are often incorrectly interchanged, but both are important to dealing with loss. Grief is the collection of emotions felt after a loss. It includes denial, shock, pain, confusion, and isolation. These feelings help us process loss. Grief is normal after the death of a loved one, loss of a home to fire, or for people you do not know, such as soldiers killed in Iraq.

No one needs to agree that you have experienced loss for you to feel grief. For instance, a woman who feels pain from the death of her physically abusive ex-husband may get no sympathy from her friends and family, but her pain is as real to her as if they were happily married.

Mourning is the outward manifestation of grief. It differs by religion, culture, gender, age, and other variables. Crying is an example of mourning.

Grieving and mourning are as natural as eating and breathing. Avoiding them to avoid the pain complicates healing and delays opportunities to enjoy life.

TRUTH 2: My Pain Ain't Like Your Pain

"No" is a complete sentence and an appropriate response when someone asks, "Are you feeling better yet?" This usually means "I think you should be over this by now, don't you?" Grief can last two weeks, two years, or two decades. The length of time grief is suffered depends on the type of loss, relationship with the deceased, and coping mechanisms. Poor coping skills are learned, or result from the absence of coping skills. There is no a-typical grief and everyone deals with it differently, and in their own time.

TRUTH 3: Grief is Dynamic

Grief changes over time. Pain from grief is always present with certain losses. Years after a mother loses her child she will periodically feel sadness, pain and will mourn for her child. As we go through the phases of grief we begin to accept the loss and make a new life in a world without our loved one. Grief may make you cry some days, and laugh on others while dealing with it over time. Holidays, anniversaries, and birthdays will still cause sadness, and the intensity of pain will fluctuate.

TRUTH 4: Unresolved Grief and Mental Illness

Unresolved grief is a major cause of mental illness. Avoiding grief snowballs into anger, depression, and anxiety. These conditions manifest as stomach, back, and shoulder aches, too much or too little sleep, alcoholism, and drug dependency.

It is not always obvious that grief is the root cause of bigger problems such as drug use. An outpatient counseling program in Massachusetts searched for a way to decrease the drug relapse rates amongst clients sent out for drug counseling. Counselors noticed a pattern amongst relapsing clients, and began sending clients to grief counseling before drug counseling. They realized their clients were using drugs to escape the pain of unresolved grief. When they stopped using drugs the pain from grief came crashing in and they sank back into drug use to escape. Grief counseling killed the root cause of their drug use. The program's drug relapse rate virtually disappeared.

TRUTH 5: Counseling is Based on Your Needs

Counseling is one way to cope with grief. Especially for people who feel alone. The goal of counseling is to figure out, based on your needs, a method of coping and moving beyond grief. Grief is a part of life we cannot escape, but coping strategies can be learned.

Support groups are an option if individual counseling is not for you. Local hospices and hospitals offer grief support groups, and keep a current listing of active groups. Our virtual age has spawned many online support groups that meet twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in the privacy of your home.

If you are unsure about where to begin searching for guidance talk to your doctor, or begin your search at www.webmd.com. They have tips for coping, and a listing of therapists.