Award Program

The information that follows is what she handed me as soon as I sat down in her office.  When I read the information, I saw all the symptoms I had been experiencing. What I actually thought was "dying of grief" .... turned out to be a normal response to grief.

Normal Grief

FEELINGS
Sadness
Anger
Guilt and Self-Reproach
Anxiety
Fatigue
Loneliness
Helplessness
Shock
Yearning / Pining
Emancipation
Relief
Numbness

The following are the Tasks of Mourning ... the four steps to help get through the process .... the things we MUST do.  Some people may move through them much more quickly than others. Don't worry if it takes you longer.  We all deal with things in our own time .... in our own way.

1)  To accept the reality of loss.
2)  To experience the pain of grief.
3)  To adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing.
4)  To relocate the deceased emotionally so that one can move on with life.

I have chosen the approach here of dealing with grief from the aspect of death ....... but you can experience grief for other reasons as well. My daughter is a drug addict .... and I grieve over her quite a lot. She isn't dead .... but I grieve over what she could have had ... what she could have been. A lot of parents are dealing with this and we grieve over our living children who are addicted ... daily.

Some other areas of grieving are:

1)  Loss of a job.
2)  Loss of a romantic love.
3)  As we get older, we begin to grieve over knowing that we may soon lose our parents.
4)  Also, as we grow older, some people grieve over their own impending death.

There are many reasons why we experience grief. Learning to deal with grief is the next step. We must not let it consume us.