Life

Relationships and family advice: How to cope with a loss

Losing someone feels like a piece of your heart has just been torn out. You have so many memories with that person that you feel like you have also lost yourself.

Losing someone feels like a piece of your heart has just been torn out. You have so many emotions going through your head that you don’t know how to feel and cry for hours. It may distract you from the little things in life. You have made so many memories with that person and when they leave, it is also common to feel like you have also lost yourself. In this post, I will hopefully help you get through a loss of a loved one.

When you lose a loved one, it is very hard to think of the positive side. It is as if an electric shock has spread throughout your body and you have a hard time showing your feelings through it all. Through this difficult time, try to remind yourself of all the good times you had with that person. Think of the cherished memories and the relationship you have built. Remember that they still love you and they are watching you grow up and build your future.

I am able to relate to this pain because I lost my grandma about a month ago. Everyone knew she didn’t have long because she had a rare lung disease. About two years into the illness she moved to a hospice. Hospices are for people who have six or less months to live. When my grandma got moved into the hospice, the doctors said she had a maximum of two days left and that she wouldn’t make it through Wednesday night. Tuesday came along and they were right. She passed away Tuesday night three hours after I saw her. This took a huge impact in my life because she was the one of the people I could go to about anything I needed to talk about and get off my chest without her judging me and know I feel like I don”t have her anymore to go to and that hurts. My grandma meant the world to me because I have been through alot in the last couple years and she was always there for me and was the person that I could go to.

When you hear that a loved one has just it passed feels like your heart has just stopped or dropped to your feet–it hurts. This type of news can cause people to respond in two ways. Some people shut down in pain and let out their emotion, and some people use this time to reflect. I shut down for about a week, and I believe that it is okay to do that but after being in that sad place I decided to turn it around and reflect on the loss. The place where a lot of people struggle is they stay in that sad place. Take all the time you need to recover and know your loved one is always going to be there with you in your heart forever. When you lose someone you have built up sadness and maybe anger. Don’t keep those emotions in because it will just keep building up and one day you will break. When you let your emotions build up it can turn to a bad thing where you start to take that anger out on others or become depressed. Let all those emotions out. It might not feel like it helps but it does, crying and letting out your anger is okay.

When you have lost someone you will most likely lose sleep, which doesn’t help because you will become tired and that will make you feel even more down than you already are. You want to keep up with sleep and keep up with your everyday routine, because going through a traumatic incident like this makes you forget about everything around you. Try to keep your sleep schedule the same and your daily routine going.  

If you feel like you need someone to talk to that could give you suggestions and advice on what to do to get your mind off of it, you can talk to a counselors or psychologists.  They specialize in helping others to help and handle their anxiety or other feelings you have associated with the death of a loved one. When something so tragic happens, you  have to find time for yourself to heal because you have just gone through some trauma. Open up and talk about it when you are ready to. Don’t push yourself to talk to others about the loss without you not feeling comfortable about it. Personally, I didn’t go to counseling. I would talk to one of my most trusted friends and talk to her about how I am feeling and I would go on walks every night to get my mind off of everything and get some fresh air.

Grieving is a a five stage process that people usually experience in this order: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. So when you feel like you are going through a huge wave of multiple emotions, it’s okay because it just means you are going through the grieving process.

This is my advice article on how to cope with such a traumatic situation such as a loss of a loved one. I hope this will help many people in this position.

Relationships and Family Advice is an advice column, written by TriggerTigg3r. Need some advice? Ask by emailing 8fortymagazine@gmail.com. Your identity will always be kept confidential.

Cover photo by Flickr user x1klima

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