Grief & Loss

When life has changed and you’re trying to find your way through it

Grief is a natural response to losing someone or something that mattered to us.

It can follow the death of someone we love, but grief isn't limited to bereavement. We can grieve the end of a relationship, changes in our health, infertility or pregnancy loss, the loss of a role or identity, a friendship, a home, or the life we thought we were going to have.

Some losses aren't always recognised as grief. Even leaving a home can mean saying goodbye to memories, identity and a chapter of your life. I explore this more in my blog, Leaving the Family Home: The Unspoken Grief.

There is no single way that grief is supposed to look.

You might experience:

• intense sadness or longing

• anger, guilt or regret

• numbness or feeling disconnected

• difficulty concentrating

• changes in sleep or appetite

• feeling overwhelmed by memories

• avoiding reminders because they feel too painful

• feeling okay one moment and devastated the next

• struggling when other people seem to have moved on

• wondering who you are now that something important has changed

Grief doesn't follow a straight line

Grief is often talked about as though we move through predictable stages and eventually arrive at acceptance.

In reality, it can be much less orderly.

You may feel like you're coping and then suddenly find yourself overwhelmed by a memory, anniversary, song or ordinary moment.

There isn't necessarily something wrong because grief returns.

We don't simply leave grief behind. We gradually learn how to carry what has changed.

Sometimes grief is complicated

Loss can bring up much more than sadness.

You might feel angry with the person who died. Relieved that suffering has ended. Guilty about things you did or didn't say. Confused by a relationship that was loving but also painful.

Sometimes a loss can also activate earlier losses, unresolved experiences or old fears of abandonment and disconnection.

More than one feeling can be true at the same time.

You don't have to “move on”

There can be pressure to recover, return to normal or stop talking about what happened.

But grief isn't something that needs to be rushed or fixed.

For many people, healing isn't about forgetting or detaching from what was lost. It is about finding a way to make space for the loss while gradually reconnecting with life around it.

How I can help

Therapy can provide a space where you don't have to protect other people from your grief or feel that you should be coping differently.

Together, we can make space for whatever is present such as sadness, anger, guilt, relief, longing, numbness or even feelings that are difficult to admit.

We can also explore what the loss has meant for you, how it may have changed your sense of yourself or your future, and what you need as you begin to find your way forward.

The aim isn't to make you forget what mattered.

It's to help you carry the loss without having to carry it alone.