Grief & Mental Health
By Molly Telford, LCSW
The husband looked at me with deep pain behind his eyes, searching mine, pleading for an answer, for hope. “When will she get better?” he asked. I hesitated. I didn’t know the answer. I knew that she may never be the person she once was how could she be? I didn’t know how to verbalize to him that this will change a person. Their outlook. Their relationships. Their everything. I took a deep breath, choosing my words very carefully.
This was a couple that had landed in my office after experiencing a late-term loss of their baby girl. They were far into their third trimester and were elated as they waited to become first-time parents. She was sobbing next to him and, by her own report, hadn’t stopped since their little girl had died. The husband was desperate for me to tell him how long his wife would grieve like this and would their life ever feel “normal” again.
Grief is not just loss through death. We have all experienced some type of grief before. We experience grief when we have deep sorrow in response to any loss. The one certainty in grief is that it is uncertain! There is no timeline. There is no prescription to cure it. It is messy and unpredictable. It is gut-wrenching. It is unique to each person. The ramifications can be endless, and avoidance of the grieving process will increase the ramifications.
Processing through and allowing yourself to feel the feelings associated with loss as they surface is how one works through the grief in a healthy way. Grief can last a lifetime; however, the acute feelings of loss will lessen over time. Many apply Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s stages of death and dying when working through grief. It is important to note that those stages were written to apply to the process of people going through terminal illnesses themselves and their responses to their own death and dying. They were not meant to be applied to the bereaved in response to the loss of a loved one.
Grief can undoubtedly take a toll on one’s mental health. If grief affects someone for too long, they can begin to experience symptoms such as depression and anxiety.
Some of those symptoms are
*depressed mood
*diminished interest or pleasure in all or most all activities
*insomnia or hypersomnia
*fatigue or loss of energy
*feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
*diminished ability to think or concentrate, indecisiveness
*recurrent thoughts of death
*excessive anxiety
*worry, and difficulty controlling the worry.
The couple that sat on my couch over three years ago is doing well. I still see them from time to time, and their grief has lessened on a day-to-day basis. They will never forget their baby girl. She has a place in their lives that is inexplicable to many, understandable to a few, and truly life-altering on an individual level.
*This list is not exhaustive and if you feel some of these symptoms, please see your doctor or mental health professional.
