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Common Reactions to Grief

One of many disturbing aspects of grieving is experiencing a variety of unexpected or seemingly uncontrollable emotions and/or physical sensations. Often individuals who mourn feel that are "going crazy" or are somehow abnormal in how they are responding to their loss. It is important for the bereaved to have others validate or normalize these reactions to grief. The following list includes many of the normal responses to the death of a loved one:

  • Spontaneous crying, at times when there is no apparent trigger. Individuals sometimes are frightened by the unpredictability of tears.
  • Mood swings, where a person's feelings change very quickly
    • Feelings may range from intense sadness to guilt to anger to numbness
    • Some of the guilt may be related to feeling angry with the person who has died for leaving
  • Disbelief and denial of the loss
    • Awakening and experiencing the person who died to be alive
    • Hearing his or her voice or briefly seeing his or her face or sensing his or her presence.
  • Difficulty with concentration and memory. The bereaved person may:
    • Not be able to concentrate on reading material
    • Lose his or her train of thought in the middle of a sentence
    • Walk into a room and forget why
    • Lose things or forget appointments
    • This response often seems surprising to grieving persons
  • Physical reactions may include:
    • Tightness in the throat or heaviness in the chest
    • An empty or nauseated feeling in the stomach
    • Lack of desire to eat
    • Difficulty sleeping, or awakening very early without being able to go back to sleep
    • Dreams about the loved one
    • Lack of energy, fatigue
  • An intense preoccupation with the life of the person who has died
    • The need to talk about the loved one and the story of his or her illness and death
    • Assuming the person's mannerisms or traits
  • Feeling of awkwardness with others
    • Not knowing what to say in response to "How are you?"
    • Feeling uncertain as to whether others are interested in the person's grief
    • Feeling isolated and uncomfortable in social situations where everyone is expected to be happy and celebrating
  • Needing to review the last days, months, or years of the life of the person who has died, to try to determine if things should have been done or said differently; trying to understand the "whys" or "should haves" and feeling some guilt at not having done more 

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