Why Complicated Grief Gets Complicated! by Mimi Rothschild

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In our culture, the response to sadness is frequently inspired by well-wishers who want us to feel better, saying things like "time heals everything" and "maybe you just need to divert yourself till you feel better."

The majority of us have experienced the heartbreak of losing a loved one. We initially fear that we won't live since the agony is so severe. It feels difficult to live without the person we've lost. We feel various powerful emotions, including grief, anguish, rage, and guilt. Bereavement sentiments normally begin to fade with time. We acknowledge the loss's truth and permit ourselves to experience its grief. Without the missing individual, we learn to cope with our new world.

But occasionally, the grieving individual discovers that their grief does not pass with time. Their loss continues to influence their capacity to operate and accept it. We classify it as complicated grief. People in such situations want grief counseling and reputable websites that provide them with the greatest grief coaches to assist them in getting over such misery. (M. Katherine Shear, 2012)

Let's look at the differences contributing to how difficult grieving becomes over time. We'll also examine the signs, causes, and remedies of complex grieving.

What makes grieving challenging?

Some people's grief-related sentiments are crippling and don't improve with time. You struggle to move past the loss and resume living your own life because the difficult, sad, and unpleasant feelings are so intense and long-lasting.

Each person needs a different amount of time to process their loss. In extreme circumstances, the physical and mental suffering is so severe and overpowering that grief may seem to last an eternity. Is it, however, pathological? (Mayo Clinic, 2017)

Everyone experiences grief differently. The COVID-19 epidemic caused a significant loss, according to Naomi Simon, a professor of psychiatry at NYU, who also noted that "bedside goodbyes and social assistance were off the table." It is challenging to go on if you can't accept that the loss is permanent. According to Dr. Simon, "prolonged grieving typically comes with an incapacity to adapt to the loss." "You repeatedly wake up feeling like your loss is spanking new." ("Anxiety, Stress & Prolonged Grief Program Research," n.d.)

Complicacies prevent adjusting to the loss.

You can experience grief in several ways. Body and mind are both impacted by it. Suicidal ideation and high blood pressure, for instance, may be brought on by it. There are several important arguments against diagnosing grieving as a mental condition, despite the advantages of a reimbursable diagnosis. Nearly everyone experiences disturbing ideas about how events may have been different after a loved one passes away. People experiencing complex loss tend to get preoccupied with these ideas. People dealing with difficult loss frequently believe that preventing emotional triggers is the only way to control suffering. They make an effort to achieve this by avoiding cues about the loss. Acute grieving usually results in intense, uncontrolled emotions, and handling them differs from doing so at other times in our lives (Nakajima, 2018). Grief coaches are dedicated to teaching mental health professionals worldwide to give complex grief treatment (CGT), time-limited, focused psychotherapy, and in-depth grief counseling to suffering.

References

• Anxiety, Stress & Prolonged Grief Program Research. (n.d.). Retrieved from NYU Langone Health website: https://med.nyu.edu/departments-institutes/psychiatry/research/anxiety-stress-prolonged-grief-program

• M. Katherine Shear. (2012). Grief and mourning went awry: pathway and course of complicated grief. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 14(2), 119. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3384440/

• Mayo Clinic. (2017). Complicated grief - Symptoms and causes. Retrieved from Mayo Clinic website: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374

• Nakajima, S. (2018). Complicated grief: recent developments in diagnostic criteria and treatment. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373(1754), 20170273. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0273