Who Feels Grief?

Grief is a natural response to a major loss, though often deeply painful and can have a negative impact on your life. Any loss can cause varied levels of grief often when someone least expects it however, loss is widely varied and is often only perceived as death. Tugendhat (2005) argued that losses such as infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, adoption and divorce can cause grief in everyday life. Throughout our lives we all face loss in one way or another, whether it is being diagnosed with a terminal illness, loss of independence due to a serious accident or illness, gaining a criminal record (identity loss), losing our job, home or ending a relationship; we all experience loss

Looking at an anticipated death for example when someone is terminally ill planning can be made well in advance of the loss happening. We may then experience anticipatory grief. This type of grief gives the bereaved an opportunity to gain closure. The bereaved would still feel emotions of fear, anger, guilt, sadness, blame and possibly denial.

The life transition of death and dying is inevitably one with which we will all be faced; we will all experience the death of people we hold close throughout our lifetime. This paper will explore the different processes of grief including the bereavement, mourning, and sorrow individuals go through after losing someone to death. Bereavement is a period of adaptation following a life changing loss. This period encompasses mourning, which includes behaviors and rituals following a death, and the wide range of emotions that go with it. Sorrow is the state of ongoing sadness not overcome in the grieving process; though not pathological, persistent

Loss is a phenomenon that is experienced by all. Death is experienced by family members as a unique and elevated form of loss which is modulated by potent stages of grief. Inevitably, everyone will lose someone with whom they had a personal relationship and emotional connection and thus experience an aftermath that can generally be described as grief. Although bereavement, which is defined as a state of sorrow over the death or departure of a loved one, is a universal experience it varies widely across gender, age, and circumstance (definitions.net, 2015). Indeed the formalities and phases associated with bereavement have been recounted and theorized in literature for years. These philosophies are quite diverse but

Each year thousands of teenagers experience the death of someone they love. When a parent, sibling, friend, or relative dies, teens feel the overwhelming loss of someone who helped shape their -fragile self-identities. Caring adults, whether parents, teachers, counselors or friends, can help teens during this time. If adults are open, honest and loving, experiencing the loss of someone loved can be a chance for young people to learn about both the joy and pain that comes from caring deeply for others. There are many common reactions to trauma, grief, and bereavement among teens. First of all, shock and denial. Feeling numb, stunned and dazed are healthy and normal reactions. Often, it is difficult to “take in” information. The grieved may

Death is a universally experienced phenomenon. In the United States alone, over 2.6 million people die each year (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). For practitioners, it is of utmost importance to better understand the process of grief to develop better interventions for bereaved individuals.

Death and dying is a natural and unavoidable process that all living creatures will experience at some point in life, whether it is one’s own person death or the death of a close friend or family member. Along with the experience of death comes the process of grieving which is the dealing and coping with the loss of the loved one. Any living thing can grieve and relate to a loss, even children (Shortle, Young, & Williams, 1993). “Childhood grief and mourning of family and friends may have immediate and long-lasting consequences including depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, behavioral disturbances, and school underachievement” (Kaufman & Kaufman, 2006, p. 61). American children today grow up in cultures that attempt to avoid grief and

Grief will eventually affect everyone. It is a part of life that people like to avoid, but are never able to. Grief occurs when a person looses a loved one, an animal, if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness, going through a break up, or anything that makes a person feel a deep sorrow. In Chapter 13 of Medical Law and Ethics (pg. 337), The Five Stages of Dying or Grief is discussed. In this Chapter, it breaks down the Five Stages of Grief a patient, caregiver, friend, or family member may go through.

First, let’s establish the language of suicide grief as it is unique from other grief. A suicide survivor is someone like me and the millions of others world wide who have lost a loved one to suicide. “To survive means to stay alive, endure, recover after an accident. We do not normally or immediately think of a survivor as someone whole lives after someone else dies” (Smith, 2013, 24). I think this distinction in the language and the meaning it carries with it, gives a different dimension to suicide grief that has always made me feel different from everyone else. I do not say, “I lost my father to cancer” or “my dad got hit by a car”. Even though everyone’s grief is unique, suicide grief is different. My father died, because he willed it so. In addition to all the feelings associated to grief, suicide has the added component of rejection: “he chose death over being with us”. Now that I have addressed the different language and meaning to grief from a suicide survivor’s standpoint, let’s move on.

With incurable diseases, grief typically has no resolution which leads to different types of behavior. In teens, there are two different types of grief. While one person might detach themselves from others and withdrawal from any social situations, decreasing their performance in academic and physical activity, another person, one who’ll dramatically express their feelings, will begin to make poor choices. This may include, pulling away from their family and friends to go party and do drugs. Grief is a feeling that comes along with the strain of relationships, rejection of loved ones, and the loss of a “normal” life, all things that can lead to severe depression. It has been found that people with an incurable illness have a significantly larger risk of both anxiety and depression. Depression is caused by health issues and stress, both things caused by the diagnosis of an incurable disease. A person may have extreme stress over things like medical bills including medication and supplies. The mental impacts that a

Death: How does it affect others? When reading the book Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger and The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, I have learned that death of loved ones can be heartbreaking, which can lead to a life of loneliness, despair, freedom, and feeling like all hope is lost. Death could occur at any time, any place, anywhere. It is something that will happen to all of us one day, and can change the lives of our loved ones in the blink of an eye. “Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all” (Seneca).

Grief is keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; and sharp sorrow. Grief is something that can take a massive toll on one’s mental health and actions. It can change a person’s thinking and what they do. In “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare, grief is shown in many ways but with each person who is grieving they begin to act differently than they normally would.

In their book titled Living Through Loss: Interventions Across the Life Span, Hooyman and Kramer (2010) provide useful information on adolescents that is crucial to understand their grieving patterns. The authors analyze grief and loss in every developmental stage of our lives, and go in depth into each stage. Hooyman and Kramer find the developmental considerations of adolescents crucial in understanding their grief. Essentially, taking into consideration that

I am going to talk about grief in childhood. When a child experience grief it could be express in many ways, they could be clam and not crying, they could be upset, angry, quiet, shock or unsure what just took place. Each stage of development is going to handle thing in a different way, as you grow and move to different stages in development the level you on get more complex your knowledge expand and you able to understand things better and what is taking place. During childhood grief could be present to a child and they could experience this type of trauma in their life, “Childhood traumatic grief refers to a condition in which characteristic trauma-related symptoms interfere with children's ability to adequately mourn the loss of a loved one” (Journals.sagepub.com, 2017) . Sometime it could be hard for a child to express how they feel they could be bottle it up and one day it could expolision. Grief could have an negative affect on child when they are going through childhood, it could affect them emotionally, physically and mental

Death is a part of existence everyone has to face it one day. You can’t escape it, and you can’t go back in time. One thing you can do, before you meet your maker, or whoever you believe in. Is live life to the fullest, and appreciate everyone and everything. My first involvement with death was when the hermit crabs, I took care of with my sister, had died. I wasn’t sure whether I should be sad or not, I was only four years old and she was eight, but I cried for the hermit crabs because, I didn’t understand why they died. I later learned it was from malnourishment. Bereavement brings sadness, but it can also bring people together. I learned that at a young age.