Grief & Bereavement: Navigating Loss & Finding Support

Key takeaways

Grief is not a problem to be solved or a phase to get through—it's the natural response to losing someone or something that mattered
There's no right way to grieve, no correct timeline, and no stage you should be at by now
Grief affects everything: your emotions, your body, your thinking, your relationships, your sense of meaning
Some grief gets complicated or stuck, and that's not a failure—it often reflects the nature of the loss or what came before it
Counselling offers a space to feel what you're feeling without being rushed, fixed, or told how you should be coping

Grief doesn't need an introduction. You already know what it feels like.

What often surprises people is how many different shapes it takes. It's not only the tears and the heaviness, though it's certainly those. It's the strange guilt of laughing at something three days after a funeral. The fog that makes you forget your own postcode. The flash of anger at someone who asks how you are. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix.

I've worked with people who lost a parent thirty years ago and still carry it. People who are grieving someone who's still alive—through dementia, through estrangement, through the slow disappearance that illness brings. People who feel they shouldn't be this affected, because the world doesn't recognise their loss as significant enough.

All of it is real grief. This guide is about making sense of what you're going through.

What grief actually is

Grief is the natural emotional response to losing someone or something that mattered deeply to you. It is not a mental illness or a problem to be solved—it is the process of adjusting to a world that has fundamentally changed, even when part of you hasn't caught up to that reality yet.

We usually think of grief as following death, but grief accompanies all kinds of loss. The end of a marriage. The loss of your health or independence. Leaving a home or community. Losing a job that was part of your identity. Watching someone you love change through dementia. Losing a future you'd imagined—children you won't have, a retirement that won't happen the way you planned.

All of these are real losses. All of them deserve to be grieved.

Grief is also not one thing. It's a shifting mixture of emotions, physical sensations, thoughts, and behaviours that rarely stays still for long. You might feel devastated in the morning and oddly fine by afternoon. You might go weeks feeling like you're coping and then be knocked sideways by a song or a smell. This unpredictability is normal, even when it doesn't feel like it.

There's no right way to do this

You've probably heard about the "stages of grief"—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. These concepts come from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's work with dying patients, and while they can be helpful as a vocabulary for grief experiences, they've been widely misunderstood.

Grief isn't a linear progression. You don't move neatly through stages and come out the other side. You might feel acceptance one day and raw, fresh denial the next—even years after the loss. You might never feel some of the "stages" at all. None of this means you're doing it wrong.

There's also no timeline. Some people feel significantly better after months. Others carry heavy grief for years. Both are normal. The idea that you should be "over it" by now—whatever "it" is and however long it's been—isn't based on how grief actually works. It's based on other people's discomfort with your pain.

Grief looks different for everyone. Some people cry constantly. Others feel numb or oddly detached. Some need to talk about their loss; others need silence. Some find comfort in being busy; others can barely function. Some want company; others want to be alone. There's no correct response, only your response.

And grief is rarely simple emotionally. You can feel relief and guilt at the same time—relief that suffering has ended, guilt about the relief. You can love someone and be angry at them. You can be grateful for what you had and devastated by what you've lost. These aren't contradictions; they're what it's like to be human in the face of loss.

How grief moves through you

Grief doesn't stay in your head. It lives in your whole being—your body, your emotions, your thoughts, your behaviour, your sense of meaning. Understanding this can help make sense of experiences that might otherwise feel alarming or strange.

In your body

Grief is exhausting in a physical way that can catch you off guard. You might feel fatigue that sleep doesn't fix, as though your body is running a program in the background that takes up all your resources. Sleep itself often becomes difficult—too much, too little, broken, filled with dreams.

Your appetite might disappear or become erratic. You might feel physical aches with no clear cause—heaviness in your chest, tension in your shoulders, a hollowness in your stomach. Some people experience lowered immunity and get sick more often. Some feel disconnected from their body entirely, as though they're watching themselves from a distance.

All of this is your body processing something enormous. Grief is physical. It lives in your chest, your shoulders, your stomach. The tiredness isn't laziness. The brain fog isn't you losing your mind. Your body is doing heavy work.

In your emotions

The emotional landscape of grief is vast and unpredictable. Sadness and longing are often central—a yearning for someone who isn't there, an ache that doesn't have a clear location. But grief also brings anger, sometimes at unexpected targets: at the person who died, at doctors, at yourself, at people who still have what you've lost.

Guilt is common too. I should have done more. I should have said something. I shouldn't feel relieved. I shouldn't be laughing when they're gone. Grief and guilt often travel together, even when—especially when—you did nothing wrong.

And sometimes there's just... nothing. A flatness where feelings should be. That can be frightening in its own way. But numbness is usually protection—your mind keeping the volume down because turning it up would be too much right now.

In your thinking

Grief affects cognition in ways that can be frightening if you're not expecting them. You might struggle to concentrate, find yourself forgetting things, or feel mentally foggy in a way that's hard to describe. You might be preoccupied with the loss, replaying memories or conversations, searching for meaning or answers.

Some people experience their loved one's presence—hearing their voice, sensing them nearby, catching a glimpse that turns out to be someone else. These experiences are common and don't mean you're losing your mind. They're part of how the brain processes absence.

In your behaviour

You might withdraw from others, even people you usually want to see. Or you might need company constantly, unable to tolerate being alone with your thoughts. You might avoid places and things that remind you of your loss, or seek them out compulsively. You might find yourself going through the motions of life while feeling disconnected from all of it.

Some people throw themselves into activity—staying busy as a way of outrunning the pain. Others can barely get out of bed. Some veer between the two. All of these are ways of coping with something that has no good solution.

In your sense of meaning

Loss often raises the big questions. Why did this happen? What's the point of anything? How do I go on? What do I believe now? You might find yourself questioning things you used to take for granted—about life, about death, about fairness, about faith.

This isn't a sign that something is wrong with you. When the world breaks open, it makes sense to look for new ways of understanding it.

When grief gets complicated

For most people, grief—while never fully disappearing—gradually becomes more manageable. The acute pain softens. You learn to carry the loss rather than being carried by it. Time doesn't heal, exactly, but it does change the shape of things.

But sometimes grief gets stuck. The pain stays as raw as the early days, even after months or years. You're unable to accept that the loss really happened. Life feels meaningless without what you've lost. You can't engage with normal activities or relationships. It feels like a part of you is missing, not just someone or something external.

This is sometimes called prolonged grief disorder or complicated grief. It's not a weakness or a failure to cope properly—it often reflects something about the nature of the loss itself.

Complicated grief is more likely when:

The death was sudden, traumatic, or violent
The relationship was complicated—intense, conflicted, or unresolved
You've experienced multiple losses in a short time
You lack support, or your grief feels unacknowledged by others
You have a history of loss, trauma, or mental health difficulties

If your grief feels stuck in a way that isn't shifting with time, something specific may be keeping it locked in place. In my experience, that's rarely about the person's resilience or character—it's usually about the nature of the loss itself, or what the loss has triggered from further back. Either way, it's something that can be worked with.

The grief that isn't acknowledged

Disenfranchised grief is grief that isn't fully recognised, validated, or supported by the people and society around you. It is one of the most isolating forms of grief because you may feel unable to openly mourn your loss or seek the support you need. The term was coined by Kenneth Doka in 1989, and it describes losses that fall outside what society considers "legitimate" grief.

This can include many different kinds of loss:

Losses that are invisible to others. The loss of a pregnancy, at any stage—something that may be invisible to others but is devastatingly real to you. The loss of a pet who was a genuine companion and source of comfort. The death of an ex-partner, when your grief doesn't fit neatly into a category that others understand. Infertility and the loss of the family you imagined having. Losses complicated by stigma. The loss of someone to suicide, which carries its own weight of stigma, guilt, and unanswerable questions. The death of someone through addiction, where grief is complicated by anger, frustration, and a sense of preventability. The loss of a relationship to abuse, where you may grieve the person you thought they were or the life you hoped for. Losses that happen while someone is still alive. Anticipatory grief—the grief you feel while someone is still here but no longer really present—through dementia, through progressive illness, through estrangement. The loss of the parent you needed but never had, which you can only fully mourn once they're gone. The loss of your own health, independence, or former identity.

Why disenfranchised grief is so painful

When grief isn't acknowledged, it doesn't disappear—it goes underground. You may feel:

Isolated in your pain, unable to talk about it because others minimise it or don't understand
Guilty for grieving, as though you don't have the "right" to feel this way
Confused about your own experience, wondering if what you're feeling is proportionate or even valid
Unable to access support, because the usual rituals and structures of mourning (funerals, sympathy cards, bereavement leave) don't apply to your loss

The absence of social permission to grieve can be as painful as the loss itself. In counselling, there is no hierarchy of loss. Whatever you've lost, and however you're feeling about it, your grief is welcome here.

Taking care of yourself through this

There's no formula for grieving well. But some things tend to help, even when they're hard to do.

Let yourself grieve. There's no shortcut around grief—only through it. The feelings you avoid don't disappear; they wait. Giving yourself permission to feel whatever arises, without judging it or rushing it, creates space for grief to move.
Accept that this takes time. Healing isn't linear. You'll have better days and worse days, and the worse days don't mean you've gone backwards. Grief has its own rhythm, and it doesn't care about your calendar.
Take care of your body. Eat something. Sleep when you can. Move a little, if you're able. Grief is physically depleting, and your body needs support even when taking care of it feels pointless.
Stay connected, on your own terms. Even when you want to withdraw, some thread of connection usually helps. Let trusted people know what you need—whether that's company or space, talking or silence. People often want to help but don't know how.
Lower your expectations. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to move on according to anyone else's timeline. Do what you can; let the rest wait. This is not the time for self-improvement projects.
Create rituals if they help. Ways of remembering and honouring what you've lost can be comforting—lighting a candle, visiting a place, marking anniversaries. These don't have to be elaborate or conventional. They just have to mean something to you.

How counselling can help

What I've found, working with bereaved clients over the years, is that most people don't need advice about grief. They don't need the five stages explained. They don't need to be told it gets easier.

What they need is somewhere to bring it. All of it. The rage and the guilt and the numbness and the days when they laugh and then feel terrible for laughing. Without worrying about upsetting anyone. Without performing recovery.

That's what I offer. A space where your grief can be exactly what it is.

Sometimes that means sitting with sadness that has no resolution. Sometimes it means working through unfinished business—things left unsaid, a relationship that was complicated, feelings you didn't expect and don't know what to do with. Sometimes it means getting angry at someone you also love deeply. That's allowed here.

And sometimes grief is genuinely stuck. It hasn't softened with time. The pain is as raw as it was at the start. When that happens, there's often something specific keeping it locked in place—trauma around the death, something unresolved from before the loss, or the kind of complicated grief that needs more than time alone can give. We can work with that too.

The goal isn't "moving on"—a phrase that makes most grieving people wince. It's learning to carry the loss as part of your life, rather than being crushed under it.

A final thought

There's nothing I can write here that makes grief easier. I know that.

But I can tell you that having somewhere to bring it—all of it, including the parts you're protecting other people from—makes a difference. Not because talking fixes anything. But because grief carried entirely alone is heavier than it needs to be.

If you'd like that space, I'm here.

About the author

Nadia Wilkinson is a BACP registered counsellor (Member No. 394901) and HCPC registered Educational Psychologist specialising in supporting adults with grief, life transitions, anxiety, and emotional wellbeing. She offers online counselling across the UK.

References:

Cruse Bereavement Support: cruse.org.uk
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On Death and Dying
Worden, J.W. (2018). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy (5th ed.)
Stroebe, M. & Schut, H. (1999). "The Dual Process Model of Coping with Bereavement" — Death Studies