Anticipatory grief or anticipatory mourning can be common if you’re expecting the loss of someone close to you in the near future. To prepare for the impending loss, you might begin trying to envision life without them. It can be especially common in cases when someone you care for is facing a terminal illness.
During anticipatory grief, you might try to anticipate how you’ll be reacting and mourning once your friend or loved ones passes away. You might feel loss or even incredible fear or emotion for the dying person.
There are some positive sides to anticipatory grief, though. Many people feel like they were able to take the time they needed to say goodbye or to have tough conversations about forgiveness. Even just having the time and space to say “I love you” can be healthy. All of this can help in preparing for when you do begin the grieving process after you experienced a physical loss.
Grief in and of itself is normal. Any time you suffer a loss, it’s the most normal thing in the world to have feelings of grief. There is a huge range of emotions that you may experience during your grieving process. Some of these can be physical, while others may be behavioral, emotional, or social.
Complicated grief, also known as persistent complex bereavement disorder, results in feelings and emotions that are so painful, moving forward seems impossible. The pain is long-lasting, and there’s definitely no timeline that all grief follows. However, if you’ve been experiencing a deep sense of grief for longer than a year and you simply cannot see a way to regain the life you lived before your loss, you may have complicated grief.
Although normal grieving and complicated grieving both have similar symptoms and signs in the beginning phases, there’s a significant difference between the two. Normal grief will fade very gradually over time. The process to heal, and the feelings you’ll experience, are the same in both cases. But when your grief is categorized as normal, you’ll begin to notice that your days become more bearable and your symptoms lessen over time.
If you have complicated grief, you will not begin to feel better over time. Rather, your pain and symptoms will either stay the same or perhaps even worsen, despite more and more time passing.
It’s very important to point out, though, that there isn’t a standard timeframe for grief. There’s no “one way” that we go through the grieving process. Healing from any loss takes time, and you should be kind and patient with yourself (or someone you love) throughout the grieving period.
Complicated grief symptoms are often very similar to what someone would experience as they move through the process of normal grief but there are some significant differences. Remember, those who are experiencing normal grief will begin to feel relief from symptoms over time. Complicated grief symptoms, by contrast, are more intense, and are lasting or persistent.
Symptoms of complicated grief to be aware of include:
A complicated grief diagnosis can be made by a trained mental health professional or your doctor. You should seek help if you’re experiencing extreme grief and are having difficulty functioning. If you’ve been trying to move through your grief for longer than a year, it may be time to consider talking to someone.
If you’re feeling any of the following common symptoms, you should think about getting help:
There are a number of complications that can stem from a complicated grief diagnosis. Avoiding effective treatment means you may further suffer from complications, such as:
Delayed grief can happen if you’re experiencing incredibly stark feelings of sorrow and longing even if the loved one’s death occurred a very long time ago. It can be felt for years after a loss, and it essentially means that your emotional reaction didn’t happen when it should have. This might be due to disassociation, which is common when things are too painful for you to feel. To cope, your mind blocks many of the thoughts, emotions, and feelings associated with the loss until you’re ready to process and deal with them.
Grief can be disenfranchised whenever you feel that your loss isn’t validated by others. This can happen when a culture or society doesn’t recognize your loss. For example, there can be a strong stigma attached to death that results from an overdose or suicide, and your feelings of grief may be discounted.
Alternatively, perhaps the death was someone others think you shouldn’t or wouldn’t grieve for, say of a former spouse or a gang member, or even a same-sex partner. Any time a loss isn’t recognized, or you don’t feel seen or heard in how you’re feeling and grieving, the result may be disenfranchised grief.
Note that disenfranchised grief can also occur in cases when a loss isn’t due to actual death, but rather the result of a traumatic brain injury, substance abuse, or a mental health condition that alters a relationship significantly.
Secondary loss grief can occur when a loss affects several areas of your life. The end result can be that you actually experience a number of losses, all stemming from the original loss you experienced.
Secondary Loss Examples:
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