How to deal with the grief of loss. The bitterness of loss. How to help a loved one cope with grief

A person, unfortunately, is not eternal - and even the best, most beloved people leave us sooner or later ... It is difficult to survive, the bitterness of loss for a while overshadows everything in the world for us - but, one way or another, life goes on and we need to find the strength to go on. How to do it - let's talk ...
No matter how bad and painful we feel, the process of mourning is necessary for us as a special work of the soul - the work of cleansing, growing up and accepting this world as it is. In order to do this work, we need to go through all the stages of grief to the end, accept it completely and drink this cup to the bottom. If we fail to follow this path correctly, if we get stuck at some points along the way, the process of mourning becomes pathological, and sometimes we cannot do without the help of a psychotherapist.

Where does this path begin?

Our first reaction to the death of a loved one is shock and numbness. “It can’t be” is the first thing that comes to almost everyone’s mind: we don’t want to and even physically “can’t” believe in what happened. Sometimes a person is in so much pain that all his reactions seem to be dulled, and outwardly it may even look like indifference: “I didn’t shed a tear.” However, this is usually just a protection of our psyche from too strong emotions that it is not ready to handle. Alas, some do not cope, they fail to go further, and they psychologically “petrify” forever, especially in the event of the loss of beloved people - children, spouses, parents, emotional attachment to which was extremely strong.
The numbness is replaced by the search stage: a person accepts the fact that the deceased is not around, but he does not believe that this is forever. The deceased seems to be chasing the mourner: on the street it seemed that he passed by, here someone laughed in the same way, something creaked in his room and on the back of the chair - his sweater ... Constantly haunted by the feeling that the one who died, actually located somewhere very close. Sometimes it begins to seem to a person that he is going crazy (and sometimes, alas, this happens in reality), especially if the grief in his life is very strong or simply the first, that is, he has not experienced anything like this before. This phase lasts from 9 to 40 days: believers believe that the soul of the deceased is on earth at this time and says goodbye to everything that was dear.
In the end, a person realizes the reality of loss, and a stage of acute grief sets in, when despair literally “covers” with his head and many frightening feelings and thoughts appear: about the meaninglessness of life, about his own guilt before the deceased, which now cannot be redeemed; about those words that have not been said, and about those promises that have not been fulfilled and can never be fulfilled ... The deceased seems to us better than we thought about him during his lifetime: everything good is remembered, everything bad is forced out of memory - the saying “Oh dead or good, or nothing" was not invented in vain ...
Sometimes at this stage, a grieving person almost completely withdraws into himself, withdraws, moves away from loved ones, sometimes identifies himself in some way with the deceased: he adopts his habits, gait, gestures. There may even be symptoms of diseases that the deceased suffered from: signs of sciatica, hypertension or migraine in a previously perfectly healthy person. Unfortunately, not everyone leaves this phase, remaining mentally forever closer to the deceased than to those who live nearby.

It's hard to go through all this, but it's important:

at the end of this stage, old emotional ties with the deceased are broken and new ones are born. Sooner or later, life gradually returns to its usual track, and the loss of a dear person ceases to be the most important event in life. Grief is now not painfully sharp and relentless, but as if it rolls in a wave in connection with certain events: here comes the first new year without a deceased; now his first birthday has passed - without him; here a document came in the mail in his name or an old acquaintance called from those who knew nothing about death ... Tears roll and a lump rises in the throat, but we are already resigned to the fact that what happened is a given, and that we should live on. The death anniversary is usually the end of this cycle.
The final stage is constructive, it adapts us to reality and reconciles with it. Grief is reborn into remembrance, into bright sadness and sadness for the departed. The person who left us no longer lives in our minds - but his image remains. This stage is extremely important: after all, you can survive all the previous ones, but block your memories and prevent the image of the deceased from entering your current life - then the work of grief will not be completed to the end and relief will not come.
So often in a family where a child has died, parents seem to “cross out” this terrible episode from life, forbidding themselves, relatives, and other children to return to those difficult events. This is a path to self-destruction for all members of such a family, since allowing the images of the departed to be near is very important. How important it is to keep the memory of everyone who was a part of our life, and the joy that these people in our life WAS ...

It is difficult to find words to comfort another person, and it seems completely impossible to find words of comfort for yourself. What to do when a loved one dies?

It’s hard to ask yourself this question, but if a loved one has left you forever, you can’t get away from finding the answer to it. Otherwise… What happens if a person cannot find the answer to this question? He seeks solace in alcohol, drugs, cigarettes. Or maybe he is not looking for consolation at all, but is trying to end his existence as soon as possible, killing the body with bad habits and constant self-torture.

Your loved one has died, but you are still alive

Do not bring yourself closer to the line when you will no longer be able to return to normal life, do not start drinking, smoking, or trying to commit suicide. Time will heal, if not all spiritual wounds, then many of them, and you will find the strength to live on. And now do not deprive yourself of this opportunity.

Don't stay away

No matter how sad and dreary you may be, still do not deny your duty to the deceased. Personally organize a funeral and commemoration, resolve other issues - but how could it be without this? If you yourself do not send a person to another world, even years later you will regret that you were left behind.

It's good to cry

Even if you are a man who has been taught since childhood to restrain negative emotions, do not be shy - cry, and you will feel a little, but still easier. Take a short vacation from work - you will not be refused. Just do not think that the boss let you go just because he cares about your working condition. But after all, he is also a person, and people tend to empathize. Cry, scream, don't hold back.

You can join a gym to hit a punching bag or do push-ups/pull-ups until you drop from exhaustion. After such a discharge, you will calm down faster.

Tomorrow will be easier than yesterday

Of course, you will not get rid of grief in one day, but over time, the pain will be forced out of the heart by good memories. Only you need to make sure that you have something good to remember, so try, if not to live the way you used to, then at least try. Feel free to share your feelings with relatives and friends - they will help you dull the bitterness of losing a loved one.

Get over your grief

After two weeks, you better start to actively engage in the life around you. Of course, you will still be overcome by sadness when you try to sleep. But many have gone through this, and you can handle it. But try to take all your free time with something interesting, exciting. Try to fulfill a dream that you had to postpone due to the death of a loved one. This will make you a little happier.

Write letters

What to do if you didn’t have time to say something to a dear person? Sit down at the table, take a pen and a piece of paper and start writing a letter to the departed if you are tormented by a feeling of understatement. Pour out your feelings on paper - it will endure everything.

The bitterness of loss torments a person for about two years, then turns into a state of quiet sadness, when sad memories come from time to time. But you can already start living a normal full life. The time will come when you realize that you need to look for another life partner. Be sure: your favorite guy (beloved girl) would not want you to spend your whole life alone.

Man, unfortunately, is not eternal - and even the best, most beloved people leave us sooner or later ... It is difficult to survive, the bitterness of loss temporarily overshadows everything in the world for us- but, one way or another, life goes on and we need to find the strength to go on.
How to do it - let's talk ...
No matter how bad and painful we are, the process of mourning is necessary for us as a special work of the soul- the work of cleansing, growing up and accepting this world as it is.

In order to do this work, we need to go through all the stages of grief to the end, accept it completely and drink this cup to the bottom. If we fail to follow this path correctly, if we get stuck at some points along the way, the process of mourning becomes pathological, and sometimes we cannot do without the help of a psychotherapist.

Where does this path begin?

Our first reaction to the death of a loved one is shock and numbness.
“It can’t be” is the first thing that comes to almost everyone’s mind: we don’t want to and even physically “can’t” believe in what happened.
Sometimes a person is in so much pain that all his reactions seem to be dulled, and outwardly it may even look like indifference: “I didn’t shed a tear.” However, this is usually just a protection of our psyche from too strong emotions that it is not ready to handle. Alas, some do not cope, they fail to go further, and they psychologically “petrify” forever, especially in the event of the loss of beloved people - children, spouses, parents, emotional attachment to which was extremely strong.

In place of numbness comes the stage of search: a person accepts the fact that the deceased is not around, but he does not believe that this is forever.
The deceased seems to be chasing the mourner: on the street it seemed that he passed by, here someone laughed in the same way, something creaked in his room and on the back of the chair - his sweater ... Constantly haunted by the feeling that the one who died, actually located somewhere very close.

Sometimes it begins to seem to a person that he is going crazy (and sometimes, alas, this happens in reality), especially if the grief in his life is very strong or simply the first, that is, he has not experienced anything like this before. This phase lasts from 9 to 40 days: believers believe that the soul of the deceased is on earth at this time and says goodbye to everything that was dear.

Eventually the person realizes the reality of the loss, and stage of acute grief when despair literally "covers" with the head and a lot of frightening feelings and thoughts appear: about the meaninglessness of life, about one's own guilt before the dead, which cannot be redeemed now; about those words that have not been said, and about those promises that have not been fulfilled and can never be fulfilled ...

The deceased seems to us better than we thought about him during his lifetime: everything good is remembered, everything bad is forced out of memory - the saying “About the dead is either good, or nothing” was not invented in vain ...

Sometimes at this stage, a grieving person almost completely withdraws into himself, withdraws, moves away from loved ones, sometimes identifies himself in some way with the deceased: he adopts his habits, gait, gestures. There may even be symptoms of diseases that the deceased suffered from: signs of sciatica, hypertension or migraine in a previously perfectly healthy person.

Unfortunately, not everyone leaves this phase, remaining mentally forever closer to the deceased than to those who live nearby. It's hard to go through all this, but it's important: at the end of this stage, old emotional ties with the deceased are broken and new ones are born..

Sooner or later, life gradually returns to its usual track, and the loss of a dear person ceases to be the most important event in life. Grief is no longer painfully sharp and relentless, but as if it rolls in a wave in connection with certain events: here comes the first new year without a deceased; now his first birthday has passed - without him; here a document arrived in his name by mail or an old acquaintance from those who knew nothing about death called ...

Tears roll and a lump rises in the throat, but we are already resigned to the fact that what happened is a given, and that we have to live on.

The death anniversary is usually the end of this cycle.

The final stage is constructive, it adapts us to reality and reconciles with it. Grief is reborn into remembrance, into bright sadness and sadness for the departed.. The person who left us no longer lives in our minds - but his image remains. This stage is extremely important: after all, you can survive all the previous ones, but block your memories and prevent the image of the deceased from entering your current life - then the work of grief will not be completed to the end and relief will not come.

So often in a family where a child has died, parents seem to “cross out” this terrible episode from life, forbidding themselves, relatives, and other children to return to those difficult events. This is a path to self-destruction for all members of such a family, since allowing the images of the departed to be near is very important. How important it is to keep the memory of everyone who was a part of our life, and the joy that these people in our life WAS ...


"Do not be afraid of God - be afraid of yourself. You yourself are the creator of your blessings and the cause of your disasters. Hell and paradise are in your own soul." Pierre Morechal

PRAYER will help you survive grief

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!!!

When you lose, you don't always find
And when you find it, you don't always lose it.
Common truths lied lies,
Adding days, life is eaten up.

There is no sense in the words true if,
There is no faith in them, but only sound.
Only when souls are invested in a song,
She will cure them of their pain.

Only when faith is not abstract,
And believing in good, you live by it.
Life will bring him back many times
And then what you sow, you reap.

After all, then the emptiness of loss,
In life will fill than.
A person must believe in himself
To be nobody in the world.

Lost...

Lost love. Lost.
It is not known who got it.
From such a loss it became "fun",
The hem twisted, played tricks ...

Restaurants, nightclubs…
Kissing lips without love...
Without love, they hugged you there.
The rooms were sometimes filmed…

How from the mountain you rolled to the abyss
And she only asked: “My God, forgive me!”
Only the heart sometimes sank:
"Well, why did you lose love?"

I lost you my love
I'm sorry for not saving
Love burns with fire - dear
I miss... I miss... I miss...

I remember you beloved
Those meetings under my window
And I live only in memory -
Happiness was one for two!

I loved your eyes
Then your kind smile,
Now I dream of one...
When I see your eyes and I drown!

I lost you my love!
I will never forget
Your sweet smile
Your brown eyes!

I lost myself, I'm confused
I got lost between good and evil.
I wrapped myself in a fog of illusions,
It vanished suddenly like smoke.

In everyday life, becoming everyday life,
In gray everyday life, it is clamped like a vise.
And they are to me, that ashy grayness,
They managed to make gray whiskey.

I do not want to change - as once,
They will break my world again.
I'm tired, I have the dullness of the sunset,
Dark scarlet, like my blood.

Behind the barn on a heap of manure
The stink of him, unable to kill,
A soft white rose bloomed
UncleanFrom the middle, must...

I lost my peace of sleep
Somewhere apparently dropped.
And without rest, night,
The hour has become not nice to me now.

The moon is bright in the sky
Shines, the more disturbing me.
Hammer pulse in the temples,
With the moon nearby, clouds mug.

Swings creak outside the window,
The shadow swings at them.
In the distance, a ridge of mountains and ate,
Gloomy, as in evil nightmares.

Shouted out a plaintive signal,
Passing truck.
Hooting train at the station
A scream answered him.

And then silence again
It's nighttime and you need to sleep.
And I'm somewhere peace of sleep
Lost, I can't sleep...

I lost the keys to the fairy tale
And I live, in me the fate of this niche.
Do not become a whole candle end,
And myself, do not rise above me.

Everything is a lie, everything was lying to me with words,
There are no miracles in the world.
I don't feel the floor under my feet
It became heavy, the weight of years lived.

I'm a hindrance - an object of irritation,
Like a stone in an old shoe.
From me - discomfort for movement,
Proku no one on Earth.

I used to run away to a fairy tale, but now,
Lost the keys to it somewhere.
And I can't open the door
I can not...