What to Expect from Grief
Mary-Ann Bowman, PhD
- Expect grief to be a process that will last longer than you expect.
- Expect intense and changing emotions.
- Expect to feel physical effects of grief, including fatigue.
- Expect that you won’t feel like yourself for a long time.
- Expect to feel lonely.
- Expect that other people will soon go back to “normal” life, but that it will take you some time to find your “new normal”.
- Expect to feel afraid that more terrible things will happen in your life.
- Expect to feel as if nothing is important anymore.
- Expect that you will feel happiness again.
- Expect anger.
- Expect more tears than you thought possible.
- Expect that some people will seem nervous around you, and that some may even avoid you.
- Expect that everyday conversations will seem meaningless to you, and in fact, may make you angry.
- Expect the grief to soften with time.
- Expect your partner or spouse to grieve differently than you do.
- Expect to feel raw, wounded, and heartbroken.
- Expect that you will have little energy and less patience on some days.
- Expect guilt.
- Expect good days and bad days, and early in the grief you may have good hours and bad hours.
- Expect that people will not know what to say, and that some will say really stupid things.
- Expect to feel crazy at times (but you aren’t).
- Expect people to think you should be “over” your grief when you are right in the middle of it.
- Expect to need support to get through this.
- Expect that you will find things that make you smile again.
- Expect not to know what to expect.
