In their first grief support sessions with me, my clients are often panicking that they’re doing grief wrong. Their shoulders are tight and their voices are heavy. They worry they’re depressed. Some even field off a suggestion (that would never come from me) when they pre-emptively declare, “And don’t say anything about pills. I don’t take antidepressants and I don’t want to.”
To this, my response is often a simple nod. “That’s okay. It’s not my job (or role) to tell you to take them or not.” My job, first and foremost, is to listen. To witness the stories of loss.
The Power of Grief Education
The other crucial aspect of grief work is grief education. Knowledge is power.
When my clients recognize that their grief experience is a perfectly natural response to heartbreaking loss, suddenly, the grief-based symptoms they were panicking about relax their chokehold.
This does not make it easier, but understanding how grief manifests through the body helps them normalize, validate, and honor the experience, helping them remove a little of their harsh judgements, or fears that they were perhaps clinically depressed.
I’m having [insert body-based symptom here]…is this normal in grief?
Grief can exhibit a lot of outward expressions of depression, which is why so many grievers begin to wonder if they’re depressed.
It doesn’t help that society likes to impose a timeline, beyond which if you continue to grieve, you “might be depressed.”
Below is a brief list (by no means a complete one) of ways grief might show up in the body:
Overwhelming sadness
The thing everyone associates with grief. It feels like you’re dying. Like you cannot possibly survive this intensity.
Meaninglessness/Emptiness, numbness
Or the opposite: an inability to cry. Feeling hurts and being in a numb shell is easier.
Exhaustion, fatigue
Grieving is hard work. Your body may ache. Basic chores are insurmountable, overwhelming. Motivation is gone.
Loss of interest in activities
Why would you want to do anything that once brought joy in the aftermath of your world shattering? Things feels empty now.
Sleeping for hours or not at all
Both are common responses to grief as the mind works overtime to make sense of this new reality.
Eating everything or not at all
Again, both responses are common. Neither is right or wrong.
When grief could be something more
I always like to frame my work with a few loose parameters. And so, here’s a few things to keep in mind when determining whether you’re wrestling with grief or something that might require additional care.
If clinical depression was something you had a known history with prior to your loss, then yes, depression could be weighing on your grief experience. AND just know, that because you once struggled with depression – or you’re navigating it alongside your grief – this does not mean your grief experience is explicitly tied to depression. All it means is this is a correlation we should be aware of.
If your grief is mixed with harmful behavior (to others, but mostly toward yourself) such as excessive drinking, self-harm, or serious thoughts of suicide, yes, this is also likely a sign that there is something happening that extends beyond grief. Or at the very least, that grief has activated these responses.
These are scenarios which require the support of a skilled mental health counselor. I am happy to provide grief support alongside competent clinical care, but my work is not a substitute for therapy.
The impact of grief education on the myth of “grieving wrong”
This is why it’s so important to understand what is a natural, normal response in grief: because, armed with this knowledge, we (especially as grief doulas and coaches) can hold space and support people in pain. And we can do it without wondering if this is beyond our scope.
And when grievers are given grief education – how it’s so very natural for the body to experience deep shock and lethargy as a result of their loss – I can see my clients’ entire demeanors shift. Their shoulders soften, they smile, and their voice changes. Their relief is palpable.
So, no, most likely you are not “grieving wrong.” In most cases, you are not even depressed. Instead, you’re bereaved. You’re shattered. You’re mourning the loss of a beloved.
And this deserves to be tended to and honored, not brushed away or dismissed with incorrect diagnoses or labels.
If you saw yourself in any of these words, or if you’d like to share your weird “grief symptom” and find out if it’s “normal,” (hint: it probably is) then consider booking a grief support session with me.
In our time together, we can dive deep into the somatic/body-based symptoms you’re carrying, and slowly dismantle any self-judgement or fear around this natural response to loss.
