12th December 2021
Whether someone close to you has recently died, or someone you know has had a bereavement, it can be hard to know what to feel. People experience a wide range of emotions when someone dies, and it is a tricky thing to navigate. A lot of the time, others will say the wrong thing, or make an assumption about how the bereaved person might be feeling. In this blog post, then, we will walk through the three main misconceptions people have about the grieving process.
People “Get Over” Losing Someone
It is often assumed that you will eventually “get over” the feeling of loss that follows when someone dies, but this is simply not true. Time does not heal everything, and it is understandable that some people never feel quite the same after losing someone deeply close to them, like a child, parent, or best friend. The grief never fully disappears. People think that grief slowly gets smaller over time. But in reality, grief stays the same size, and slowly life starts to grow bigger around it.
Grief Has a Fixed Timeline
Many people believe that grief is at its worst immediately after the death of a loved one, then slowly dies away and never reappears again. This is a very common misconception. Indeed, while some people do move past grief in a linear fashion, it can be very different for others. You may feel fine for months, or even years, before the pain of the loss resurfaces again. That process of grief popping up again after a long time is something I’ve seen often as a bereavement counsellor in Harrogate or online.
Talking About Grief Makes It Worse
Some may fear that talking about grief, about the person who has died, only serves to reopen old wounds and traumatise them all over again. As a result, people hold painful feelings inside, which is never a good thing to do: they get larger in your mind and start to breed a poison all of their own. While the act of talking about your grief may be painful, doing so in a safe, confidential place in the company of a professional allows you to address these feelings in a healthy way and, over time, reduce the impact they have on how you feel every day,
I understand that talking to friends and family about grief can sometimes be hard. Seeing a bereavement counsellor in Harrogate or online, on the other hand, gives you a no-pressure, non-judgemental space to talk through difficult feelings in your own time - and in a way that suits you. Feel free to get in touch with me at any time.