4 Steps for Coping With Delayed Grief

People often talk about how difficult it is to get through the first few weeks of grief; however, sometimes grief hits much later than we would have expected. The first few weeks after losing someone usually pass in a blur of funeral preparation, paperwork, and administration tasks. Then everyone gets back to their routines and life carries on, and we begin to worry that we haven’t reacted as we should have.

Delayed grief can hit months or even years later, when, unexpectedly, the floodgates open and it feels as if they can’t be shut. While it is hard to navigate any grief, delayed grief is often confusing, frustrating, and scary, even though it is natural and common.

Emotions On Pause

Most people have heard of the five stages of grief, where the first stage is shock. While we do grieve in stages, grief is also often unpredictable, messy, and unique to each person. Still, almost everyone experiences shock when a loved one passes, even when you were anticipating it in some way. When death is sudden, gruesome, or violent, it’s common for people to experience an extended state of shock.

Some situations are too grim for us to process, and so our brain shields us from difficult emotions. The state of shock we experience after losing someone is kind of like airbags that get deployed in a car during a collision.

A shock response is our nervous system’s way of keeping us safe in grief. Shock is meant to only last a brief moment before we move on to process all of the difficult emotions of grief. However, sometimes, we get stuck in this safety mode, where it feels like all of our emotions are on pause.

This can be especially true for the oldest sibling or the responsible one in the family. They were always strong and held things together for the sake of their families. After losing a loved one, they try to be the anchor for everyone else, and often succeed. While they busy themselves with the administrative work of grief and make themselves available for all their living loved ones, their emotions are held at bay for days or even years.

For the people who still feel numb to their loved one’s passing, there may come a day when they are sorting through old things and find a memento that their dead loved one held onto. Or perhaps they hear a familiar song on the radio, or catch a scent in the air. There is often something that triggers a wave of memories and emotions. Years after the fateful day of their loved one’s passing, they are overcome with all of the things they hadn’t yet felt. Delayed grief finds them at an unexpected time.

What Delayed Grief Feels Like

Grief doesn’t always feel like a wave of emotions. Delayed grief most often appears as physical exhaustion. When a person’s nervous system has been in survival mode for so long, trying to keep them safe from overwhelming emotions, at some point, it simply gets tired.

In delayed grief, things like time management, planning, and chores suddenly become difficult or impossible. They might start spending more time in bed, and their sleep patterns change. They might start dreaming of the lost loved one more regularly and begin thinking of them more often than usual. All of these are signs that the airbags, which were keeping them safe from grief, have deflated, and it is time to confront the thoughts and feelings they avoided.

It is at this point that many people begin developing coping mechanisms. Some of these can be harmful to mental, physical, and emotional health. The problem is that no one can teach how to grieve. Grief never feels normal or natural.

At its most intense, grief is something that no one feels capable of dealing with. People use sedatives in the form of food, alcohol, substances, habits, or actual medicine to cope. These things often help us temporarily, but some can complicate things in the long run.

Coping with Delayed Grief

Grief is like being on a journey in a strange land for which you have no map. You must venture forward without knowing where you’re going or how long the journey is going to last. Delayed grief is even more disconcerting because, up until the point it is triggered, you felt like you were on familiar ground. Now, suddenly, you must find your way through exhaustion, emotional dysregulation, and loneliness.

While there can be no roadmap for delayed grief, there are some practical things that help people cope. Some of these things might be more effective for certain personality types than others, but all of them are worth trying. Over time, you will discover what works and what doesn’t.

Avoid unhealthy coping strategies

People who develop unhealthy coping strategies will eventually be affected by their habits. Establishing a healthy diet, regular sleep routine, and getting regular exercise can go a long way to helping regulate emotions. Besides this, it is advisable to consult a doctor to ensure that the right medication is taken for any ailments, and to reduce alcohol intake until grief feels more manageable.

Create a grief journal

Something that helps many people is creating a journal of their grief experience. You don’t have to be a writer or poet for this, and it can be as simple as logging daily moods or making a collection of memories of the loved one. A grief journal can be a helpful way of siphoning off overwhelming thoughts and emotions in delayed grief.

Give yourself time and space to grieve

Some people grow up policing their own emotions or having their emotions policed by others. Some people need to learn how emotions work and to allow themselves to feel them. This is especially true in delayed grief.

Connect with a therapist

When a person is sick, they may delay seeing a doctor or physician until they are at death’s door. The fix might have been quick and simple, and they might have spared themselves a lot of discomfort had they acted sooner. The same is true for people on an emotional level. A therapist or counselor is like a doctor for our souls, and we can all benefit from a bit of extra help, especially in grief.

There Is Hope

If you have lost a loved one, and you haven’t grieved for them, though a lot of time has passed, you are not abnormal, and you are not a bad person. Things only change when you reach out for help. If you are concerned that you still have not begun grieving them, now is the time to reach out.

You are not a bad person for not grieving, and you are also not beyond help. Grief does not have a map except for the one that people make for themselves as they navigate through it. May you find comfort and rest on your journey and know that you are not alone.

There are counselors and group therapy sessions for grieving people, regardless of how much time has passed since they lost their loved one. If you would like to find one of these counselors or groups, please consult our online catalog. You may also speak with our reception team, who can help connect you to a counselor or group therapy.