Grief Expectations

This is a well-known list of what you can expect from your grief. I keep a copy of this with me and read it occasionally. Not everyone will experience all of these things but I can honestly say I certainly have during my grief journey.

You can expect that:

• Your grief will take longer than most people think.
• Your grief will take more energy than you would have ever imagined.
• Your grief will involve many changes and be continually developing.
• Your grief will show itself in all spheres of your life.
• Your grief will depend upon how you perceive the loss.
• You will grieve for many things both symbolic and tangible, not just the death alone.
• You will grieve for what you have lost already and for what you have lost for the future.
• Your grief will entail mourning not only for the actual person you lost but also for all of the hopes, dreams, and unfulfilled expectations you held for and with that person, and for the needs that will go unmet because of the death.
• Your grief will involve a wide variety of feelings and reactions, not solely those that are generally thought of as grief, such as depression and sadness.
• You may have a combination of anger and depression, such as irritability, frustration, annoyance, or intolerance.
• You may have a lack of self-concern.
• You may experience grief spasms, acute upsurges of grief that occur suddenly with no warning.
• You will have trouble thinking (memory, organization and intellectual processing) and making decisions.
• You may feel like you are going crazy.
• You may be obsessed by the death and preoccupied with the deceased.
• You may begin to search for meaning and may question your religion and/or philosophy of life.
• You may find yourself acting socially in ways that are different from before.
• You may find yourself having a number of physical reactions.
• You may find that there are certain dates, events, and stimuli that bring upsurges in grief.
• Society will have unrealistic expectations about your mourning and may respond inappropriately to you.
• Certain experiences later in life may resurrect intense grief for you temporarily.

In summary, your grief will bring with it, depending upon the combination of factors above, an intense amount of emotion that will surprise you and those around you.