How to Cope with the Complications of Grief

Grief is a natural response, and it unfolds as a process we move through after losing someone or a pet we love. It can also follow the loss of a job or anything else that carried real meaning for us. Many people find their way through grief and build steady coping habits that return them to their everyday lives. For others, grief arrives with complications, and keeping coping skills close becomes the thing that stops those complications from taking over.

When you are grieving without the right coping tools, you become vulnerable to a range of problems that can stay with you for a long time. Spotting these ahead of time gives you a chance to lower your risk, because preparation is possible before the loss ever happens. Hold them in mind, and trust that grief, when it comes, is something you can move through while limiting the lasting damage.

Complications worth knowing about include depression, suicidal thoughts, and serious disruptions to sleep. Some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder, or begin leaning on nicotine, alcohol, or other drugs. Anxiety is common. So is struggling to finish ordinary daily tasks, friction in relationships, and trouble at work or in school. Prolonged grief can even raise the odds of a physical illness such as cancer, heart disease, or a similar chronic condition.

There is no schedule for grief and no standard reaction. People grieve their own way, over spans of time that differ from person to person. Those who grieve do tend to pass through the five recognized stages, though the sequence shifts from one person to the next. Some follow the stages in order; others experience them scrambled; and plenty of people never go through all five.

The stages people describe are denial, bargaining, acceptance, anger, and depression. Don't push yourself to rush any of them. Give yourself the time your healing actually needs.

There is a lot you can do to carry yourself through grieving, and you should reach for as many of these approaches as you need. Start with support, so there are people you can turn to when sadness, anger, or any other emotion needs somewhere to go.

Common sources of that support: talking with family and friends you trust; looking into local support groups built around grief; leaning on your faith and fellow congregants if you are religious; and speaking with a grief counselor or therapist.

Grief can swallow a person if you let it, and that is exactly what you have to guard against. Keep caring for yourself and tending to your own daily needs. Pay attention to what you eat and whether you move your body, take any medications you need, and let your feelings surface as they arrive. Don't hide what you are going through, and don't shrink it. Shoving grief aside only lets the situation worsen.

The opposite trap is real too: you cannot pour every ounce of attention into the grief itself. That balance is genuinely hard to find. With solid support around you and some honest awareness of how you are doing overall, you can reach the other side of it. Your grief belongs to you, but the weight of it is something others can help carry.

Everyone meets grief at some point, so there is no wrong moment to begin building your coping skills. You want them ready before something happens, so a loss doesn't catch you unprepared. Having those skills in place lowers your risk of the complications above, or at least softens them. And once you have them, you can turn them toward helping other people, easing a painful situation for everyone caught up in it.

Reference: http://www.hospicenet.org/html/grief_guide.html