How do you grieve?

I sit and think…cry…reflect. Listen to soothing music. Go to the ocean and get hit by the waves. It’s different for everyone. My best to you.

I usually cry a lot. I think I am awful when it comes to grief, I have a lot of trouble accepting someone is gone, especially if they were young, healthy, and it is sudden. When my grandma passed away, I was very close to her, I went through some of her things and took a bunch of old photos and made a scrapbook writing down all of my memories associated with the photos. Some I had never seen before, I was able to get info and stories from her daughters (my mom and aunt) I really enjoyed hearing the stories, helped us think about happy memories.

I guess for me, I like to recall memories, so being around other people who knew the person helps a lot.

I’m sorry, @hawaii_jake. I just let the emotions come and do what they do when they show up. If it means cry, then I cry, even if I have to excuse myself. It’s only natural to feel numb and sad after losing those you loved. It’s OK to feel the sadness. Don’t hang on to the emotions. People stuff down their feelings because they think they can’t handle the brunt of them, but they can; emotions are meant to move through you or else it’s just not good. You’ll be OK. Don’t worry about when, just know that you will feel OK.

I’m so sorry for your losses, Jake. For me, it’s a repetitive cycle:

Throw self on bed. Cry and scream and wail. Fall into an exhausted sleep. Pick self up, dust self off, and move forward. Repeat as necessary. It has taken me as long as two years to be able to think of someone I’ve lost and smile, rather than cry. {hugs}

My condolences. We each grieve in our own way; do it your way. It changes from hour to hour, from day to day, from year to year. It is part of the human condition. Don’t suppress anything.

@hawaii_jake I’m sorry. I felt very numb for a long time. It was a devestating time, but like @aprilsimnel I went with the flow. Let the feelings arise as and when they needed to. There’s no right way to feel. Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself time – it doesn’t matter how long. Don’t suppress any feelings. My best to you.

Sorry for your losses. My heart goes out to you

At first, I shut down/am numb and go on auto-pilot.

A few months later, I go over their death in my head many times and I sob, I yell, I sleep, I cover myself in a warm blanket or have a hot bath for comfort. And, I talk about them with family and loved ones. I take long walks and think about them. I hurt.

I’m sorry to hear about your pain and loss. I have fortunately never been in this situation before but I expect it just takes a lot of time and letting yourself feel sad and low and cry, sob it out..give yourself lots of love and surround yourself (when you feel like it) with people that love you and bring you joy xxx

I will grieve over my cat when I have to hand him over to the RSPCA because my stupid brother and his stupid wife.

I feel the pain and take some trips to nature and some out of the way places where I can really let loose with the tears and blubbering. I give myself permission to really let go for a while and make a kind of deal with myself that after the session I can come back again as needed but I have to live my life. I know it doesn’t feel like it but it will pass eventually just like a series of big waves crashing on the shore in a storm.

Quietly and privately.

You are sad; that is not necessarily depression. Feel the sad and sorrow, then force yourself to get back into your life.

It’s been almost seven months now, since my best friend killed himself, and I still couldn’t give you an answer. There are many nights where I still completely break down because I still try to think of scenarios to save him. It’s not healthy, but I don’t know how to stop those thoughts. A big part of me still can’t believe that there’s nothing I can do, that he’s actually gone and won’t ever be coming back.

After he died, I wrote letters to him, full of things that I wish I had said while he was still here. It helped, at first, but then I just got depressed that I didn’t say them while he was still around. I’ve constantly tried to think of things that will help, to let myself accept it, but so far, none of them have worked. This August on his birthday, me and another friend of mine are taking a trip to his favorite camping spot and I’m going to walk to where me and him laid down to look at the stars, and I’m going to lay down and look at the stars as if he’s right there with me. It’s bittersweet, because he asked on his last birthday, if I would go with him, and I couldn’t… And now that he’s gone, I can. It makes me feel guilty, but it also feels like “Godamnit, if this is all I can do for you now, I’m going to fucking do it!”.

Anyway, sorry, I don’t meant to go on and on. I don’t really think there is any specific way you’re supposed to grieve. You have to take it a day at a time, because that’s literally all you can do. Don’t stop yourself from feeling things, no matter if it’s agony, anger, or happiness when you think of nice memories. Let yourself go through the motions and try to cope the best you can. I know what you’re going through, and I’m extremely sorry that you have to experience this. I truly wish you luck and I hope you’re doing okay.

I talk to people who care enough to empathize and share. Just like you’re doing here.

Keep remembering them. Soon the fond memories with outweigh the sorrow. Keep remembering them at their best, and know they forgive you at your worst. No regrets. Just forgiveness and fond memories.

I like to do it the way of my forefathers – I wail and gnash my teeth and go on a wrathful rampage through a scrapyard with a hammer and hate, and keep at it, sometimes for months, until I literally get bored of feeling grief and sorrow. You know you’re doing it right when you feel nothing but boredom for the negative emotions and find yourself laughing at the stupid moments again.

@DrasticDreamer I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for the words, and I truly hope you have a magic time camping.

It varies a lot with my age and how close the departed person was to me.

My condolences @hawaii_jake. Grieving is very personal but Elzabeth Kunler-Ross’s book, ”On Death and Dying” is a classic that outlines the stages of grieving. If you are up to reading it, it may help you understand the storm of emotions involved. Call it Bibliotherapy (helping by recommending a book)!

What would they say to you if they could?? What would they want you to do with the time you have on this planet? Memorials have always been therapeutic for me. Burning wreaths set adrift on the water…plant a tree….volunteer at their charity! talk to them So sorry for your loss! Life does go on!

I sit and think.

Badly. Lot’s of alcohol and contemplation of suicide. I still am not convinced that life is worth living without that special lady, but I’m giving live the benefit of the doubt. There is now another young lady who badly needs my help, but I can never, never, ever let her occupy the place that my lady held. Such would be the behavior of an unfeeling scumbag.

I go with the emotions and don’t try to fight them.

Your friend too?? I’m so sorry, yet again. Time by the ocean…..and valium during the worst.
Hang in there. There will be brighter days…..It will pass in time…..quite awhile….

You grieve any way you want to and any way you have to. It is a very personal thing. I my experience, you can’t base your own grieving process on anyone else’s process or on any one else’s expectations of how grief is supposed to proceed. I think of it as kind of like tunneling through a mountain with a pick ax and with every inch of progress you make the tunnel, the rocks collapse behind you. Your only choices are to just sit there in that little whole in the dark, inside the mountain, or move forward. There is no way around; you just have to go through it. It can and does take time. It will get better with time. But I think it is important to find a way to protect yourself and to protect your grieving process. After my mother died; and that was the first time I experienced intense grief, the first time I had lost someone whom I really loved and who really mattered to me I started thinking that some of the old ways, some of the ways people dealt with death, with grieving in the past were actually pretty good ideas. Like wearing black. It let’s people know that you have lost someone, that you are grieving. Or hanging crepe from your house to let the world know that you have lost someone you love. I can’t tell you how many times after my mother died, that I wished for that kind of protection. We got a lot of take out in the days following her death and I can’t tell you how many times I had to bite my tongue. As in “Any other time in my life I would really appreciate your friendliness and your snappy patter but my mother died a week ago so I’m sorry I don’t feel like chatting, could I just get my fucking pizza?” If we still had the custom of wearing black when in mourning that all could have been avoided. Or having to answer to the door and there would be people trying to sell me new window, or siding, or a new roof and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. As much as I wanted to get the hell of my property because we are grieving the loss of our mother, I was too polite to do so. If I could have hung black crepe on the house, and if people knew what that meant that additional pain could have been avoided. Anyway, sorry this comment turned into more of a rant about my own grieving rather than yours. I hadn’t intended that. I am sorry for your losses and I am sorry that the only thing that could possibly make you feel any better is if those people didn’t die. You just have to do the best you can. There’s no way around grieving the loss of someone you loved. I’m sorry.

@lillycoyote Thank you. Simply, thank you.

Today is eight months since my lady’s passing. I can feel happiness every now and then, but feel guilty when I do.

@hawaii_jake I’m glad you were able to find something helpful in that rant, with all it’s typos, misspellings and grammatical gaffs. I really wish someone could wave a magic wand over you, over all of us who have either lost loved ones or will lose loved ones, and that is pretty much everyone; wave a magic wand over all of us that would make things better or that would at the very least provide a detailed set of instructions on how one gets through it and how one moves one, but that just isn’t going to happen. I’m no expert on grief but I have been through a few times and there are simply no easy answers as far as I know.

I’m sorry, too, for your loss. Work helped me, I’ve lost my parents, my brother, 2 good friends in the last 10 years and work helped the most. I’m a nurse so I had to put myself aside and help other people, which greatly helped me. But everyone is going to need something different. Don’t you worry about a time frame or how. You’ll get through it.

When my grandpa passed away 3 years ago April, I grieved with my family. He was elderly, but it wasn’t like he was sick for a while and then died. He got sick on a Monday and on Thursday we planned a funeral. I spent a lot of time with my family that week. We cried, laughed, looked at pictures and talked. We all held each other up. When it was time for us to all resume normal life and go to work, school, etc. I cried a lot. And every day the pain got a little less raw. I still cry at times, when I think about him. And I think that’s ok.

I’m sorry for your losses, Jake.

On my dad’s side of the family my grandpa died. We all knew this would happen. I never knew him that well. I felt couldn’t cry because I had school and I needed to be busy. I took a five day absence to travel from Las Vegas, Nevada to Walnut Creek, California. During the trip I listened to music, had conversations with my family, and stared at the window contemplating my own death. I spent the time studying at my one my rich relatives’ house. Grandpa didn’t expect to die just yet, at least that’s what I think, because maybe he thought he was too hearty for his diet of fried chicken to succumb to it. I made a joke about that just to break the ice – him enjoying all th chicken he wanted without guilt in his own personal heaven. At the funeral home I felt the regret and sorrow of everyone’s eulogies, especially my dad’s which was the most painful for me to endure. We took pictures out front, it was weird to me that everyone was cheerful after all that. But, I played along with it anyway shouting: Carpe diem! (Seize the day!), All life is fleeting!, We’re not getting any younger! Actually I was the one being weird, they were giving me looks, I didn’t notice. We stuffed our faces at a japanese buffet. I realized after finishing my dinner my sister was missing. I frantically looked around the restaurant and outside for her. She came back safely and was scolded for not asking permission to leave. I didn’t cry at all that week, not a single tear. Until I got back home and watched Where The Wild Things Are online. It had a teacher saying the sun would die someday to his students, and Max couldn’t make all the Wild Things happy. I cried when he had to leave them alone on the island again not knowing what to do.

I just told my whole experience of how I dealed with my grandpa’s death. From what I can list I grieved by:

Talking about my feelings to my family, kept in touch with my relatives, made myself busy working, thought about death, listen to some tunes, shared some laughs and memories, pleasured in eating to my heart’s content with friends, staying close together, and catharsis from watching a sad movie.

I learned that life doesn’t last forever, with all it’s pleasures and anxieties. So I made the best of it and should try everyday to do as many things that I enjoy with the ones I love.
Because, when my end comes, they’ll be there for me.

I know the feeling, you don’t ever really get over it. What gets me by is knowing that they are always with me in spirit and that I will be reunited with them again in the spirit world when my time is up. That is the only way I get by.