For many people, bereavement is a journey during which they'll experience a variety of changing emotions, such as guilt, anger and depression. For some, the strength of these emotions and the speed at which they change can make them feel helpless and confused. If the bereavement is very recent, a person can feel incapable of any decision making. Other people find that concentrating on arrangements for a funeral or memorial service helps them to delay this. It's important close friends realise the bereaved person is not 'just coping' - the emotional rollercoaster will come, even if it's not as rough as it might have been. Once this intense phase has passed, there may still be a fair way to go on the journey. Again, this will happen in different ways at different times for different people. It's not unusual to feel aimless and unable to concentrate or sleep. Unsurprisingly, someone who's recently bereaved often doesn't feel like eating. For some, there will be an intense period of longing for things to return to the way they were. Others, in trying to get on with life and establish some new form of normality, may find themselves in situations where they momentarily manage to 'forget' about their grief, only to feel their heart sink as something reminds them - shopping for two, for instance. All these experiences can be worse if the relationship with the dead person was a difficult one that caused mixed emotions of love and resentment. In such cases, feelings of guilt may become overwhelming. The most important thing in this period is to have someone you can talk to about these emotions and experiences, since keeping things to yourself will often prolong the pain. The other important thing to remember is that the intense pain does pass. It's not so much a case of 'getting over it', it's more the realisation of how much the experience has changed you and your life - and learning to live with and accept those changes.
This article was last reviewed in September 2006.
First published in June 2000.
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