Grief: Love With No Place To Go
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Updated April 29, 2024
By Margie Avezuela Perez
Losing a loved one can be one of the most difficult and painful experiences in life. Not only can death bring about feelings of grief but receiving a diagnosis of a progressive disease like Alzheimer’s Disease or ALS can lead to feelings of anticipatory grief.
Anticipatory grief is sadness and having feelings of loss before the actual death of the loved one occurs. Anticipatory grief also refers to grief over loss of a way of life, a job or good health. Grief is normal and can be expected after loss.
Grief was traditionally thought to go through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. This is the model proposed by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the 1960s. However, we now know that grief does not follow a set progression and can be messy. Sometimes individuals are in one stage and go back to another stage. Grief is not linear.
When grief does not subside after an extensive period of time and impairs an individual’s daily functioning it can manifest as Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD). Some signs that you may be suffering from PGD are numbness, inability to perform at work or school, longing and/or rumination with thoughts and memories of the individual who died. When self-care and support from family and friends do not help enough, now is the time to seek professional help. Oftentimes, speaking to a licensed therapist can be most helpful in managing feelings of grief.
