The Reality of Grief in All Its Smudginess and How to Live With It (From Someone Who’s Been There)
As someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder (just a hunch, not an official diagnosis), an ever-unstable state of mind and mood isn’t new. Due to my suspected BPD, I felt prepared to deal with death and whatever sudden emotions dealing with death involved and would provoke.
Before I lost my mum to secondary breast cancer, in February 2020, I had spent many years struggling. Struggling with my identity, struggling with my moods, struggling to shrug off thoughts and desires of self-harm and suicide.
But BPD paired with grief and topped with a global pandemic might have been a bit too much.
Grief means a lot of different things for a lot of different people; this is just my experience and my understanding of grief. And in an attempt not to leave this piece too depressing, I’ve also included a few things that have helped me (and that might help you too).
What Is Grief?
According to a National Bereavement Alliance report in 2019, 72% of people have been bereaved in the last five years. Presumably, this figure has sky-rocketed during the past hellish year.
Bereaved families and friends of loved ones who have died often experience grief. But what is grief?
Grief is a response to loss.
In my case, this was the loss of a parent. However, a loss isn’t always in the form of bereavement. You can also grieve the loss of something important to you, for example, if you lose a job you loved.
Grieving isn’t an illness, instead, it’s considered a process. Despite the grieving process not being considered an illness, it can still impact a person’s daily life, including their mental and physical well-being, and their ability to function.
Grief has no timeline. Some people take several days, weeks, months, or even years to heal.
From my own experience, there’s no ‘normal’ when it comes to grief — there’s just what is and what you need to deal with (however best you can).
What Does Grief Feel Like?
There’s no simple explanation of what grief feels like. Grief feels differently for everybody and is unique to every relationship.
Grief, much like life, and death, is unforgiving and relentless. It makes no apologies for what it is. It’s just something that is there and although we aren’t taught how to navigate through the complicated and discombobulating maze, we are expected to find a way through.
There are some feelings/symptoms that you might be familiar with, or that you can expect to feel, including:
· Sadness
· Depression
· Anger
· Guilt
· Disbelief/denial
· Numbness/emptiness
· Overwhelmed
· Relief
· Fatigue
· Loss of appetite
· Loss of motivation
· Withdrawal/isolation
· Difficulty sleeping
My best attempt at explaining what grief feels like –
Loss is all-consuming. Grief is like an endless carousel. And time may numb it, but it also takes it all.
How Many Faces Does Grief Have?
How many faces does grief have? What an odd question, but bear with me.
Grief, on paper, is a process. And if you have the instructions, tools, and knowledge, then surely, it’s easy enough to navigate? But not necessarily.
Grief has many faces. It’s not linear, at all. You don’t just go through the alleged stages and then come out the other end all fine. It takes a lot of time to adjust to a life without your loved one.
As a writer, throughout my grieving process, I’ve trusted in a pen and paper to write down feelings, thoughts, and anything that is on my mind. Below are the faces of grief that I’ve met along the way:
The Unsightly Side of Grief
At its worst, grief’s tight embrace sucks the air clean out of your throat. It thumps at your chest and turns the emotional heartbreak into physical heartache.
In the day, it tightens your chest and makes you want to curl up into a useless, pathetic ball. In the night, it sits on top of you and stops you from falling asleep. When you eventually drift off, it stalks your dreams. Grief makes sure that your dreams feature loneliness, loss, and confusion.
In the worst days, there are seconds, minutes, or even hours where grief can consume you. You can lie perfectly still; limp and lifeless just staring into nothing. You can lie sobbing for hours, in fact, you so very often do, especially when looking through old photos.
People assume that anniversaries and birthdays are the hardest. These assumptions almost put more strain on you. But these days aren’t any harder.
Every day is hard. Every day you wake up and have to remind yourself that they aren’t coming back. It feels a little like all you’re doing is ticking off the days that go by without them.
The Kinder Side of Grief
Most days feel darker, there’s almost a haze over them. There are good days too. But up front, at the start of every good day, you have to accept that no matter how good a day can be, it won’t ever be as good as if the person you’re grieving for were still alive. It’s an unspoken price you pay.
In the good days of grief, you can easily get on with your day-to-day life. Your brain sometimes has to announce that carrying on is what the person you lost would have wanted. (You feel guilty deep down that life carries on, but you reluctantly know you need to go with it.)
In the good days, you will remember the memories and crack a smile. A tear may come to your eye, but it won’t fall, and neither will you.
On a good day, when you remember your loved one, you don’t have the nagging thought of ‘That was the last time we did that’, ‘You’ll never be able to do that with them again’, or ‘You won’t ever get to see, hold, or speak to them’.
Instead, you just smile and feel thankful that you got to have any time with them, but not just any time — the best of times.
Grief is Smudgy
Grief isn’t linear. The alleged stages of it are denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. That sounds all rosy because you’d think it’s a simple journey from A to B.
But you’d be mistaken. You can feel one, or several of those stages all at once. You can feel them in no particular order. You can feel only a few of them during your grief, or you can feel all of them, repeatedly.
People tell you whatever you feel is normal. It’s encouraged to allow yourself to feel however you need to. That’s because grief is smudgy. Anything goes and absolutely anything can smudge together.
Even the unsightly and the kind side of grief can smudge, merge, and form an alliance. They do this without any warning too.
I’ve found that you can be just getting on with your day, going about your business and all of a sudden, you’re floored by a tsunami of pain, a tidal wave of memories, or an unexpected bore of tears.
How to Cope with Grief
It seems like there are two options when it comes to grief, bereavement, and loss.
Option one: Fight against it. This feels like you’re suffocating; you gasp and wheeze for every single breath. But each gasp you take is just delaying the inevitable.
Option two: Go with it. Things are often easier if you just go with them. Going with grief means you’re in for a long-haul journey full of sharp bends, unexpected falls, and bittersweet memories.
I went for option two. One thing BPD has taught me is that it’s best to let my emotions, thoughts, fears, and even irrationalities, play out.
Often when processing emotions I like to take time away, but with several lockdown restrictions due to Covid-19 that hasn’t been possible this year. (I lie, my family and I were able to pop up to the Lake District for a week in September.)
But like so many others who have had to grieve during a global pandemic, it feels as though I haven’t been able to “grieve properly”. (I’m not too sure what that means, but I guess it means that everyday life isn’t thrown into turmoil at the same time that you’re grieving?)
Hope isn’t lost though, as even in a global pandemic there are actionable ways to cope with grief. These are a few things that have helped me:
1. Don’t Isolate Yourself
Yeah, this one hasn’t been particularly easy this year. But technology has certainly made it effortless to connect with and talk to your friends and family.
When you’re grieving, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be inclined to spend more time alone. You’ll have a lot of thoughts, feelings, fears, and uncertainties constantly running through your head. It’ll be a lot and you’ll need time to deal with it alone.
But the important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t be spending all of your time alone.
Speak to your family and friends on a regular basis, even if it’s about nothing in particular. You don’t always need to discuss your grief or your emotions, sometimes it’s nice just to kick back and to talk about things you enjoy.
2. Go Outside
Again, lockdown restrictions might have impacted your ability to go outside. But I’ve found keeping up with my daily walks and getting at least 10,000 steps has helped me a lot.
Finding purpose in life or reason in death is difficult. That’s why I’ve found that having this daily thing I need to achieve is useful (no matter what, I will achieve something). It also means I’m doing my exercise (which helps to combat feelings of depression) while emerging myself in nature (which can undoubtedly reduce emotional pain).
If you can, I recommend you go outside every day when you’re grieving. Enjoy a walk in your local park, wood, or even on the streets.
To further the therapeutic-ness of your time outside, try listening to the birds singing, watching the people pass by, or a personal favourite of mine, feed some animals (ducks, horses, alpacas, whatever animals are in your local area).
3. Take Breaks
I initially started my business before I moved back home to help out around the house and spend more time with my mum. Being self-employed means my boss is very understanding when it comes to my emotions and my need to take time off. My business may have suffered, but my mental health needs me to take frequent breaks.
Taking a break is key to dealing with grief. Most employers offer bereavement leave and are understanding when it comes to taking time away from work.
Some people feel it’s best to keep working and find that the distraction that work offers is good for them. Other people need to take a chunk of time off to process their grief and loss. And some people need to take regular breaks to prevent themselves from feeling too overwhelmed.
As I said, grief is different for everyone, so the number of breaks you need will be different from another person. But remember to take breaks when you need them.
And a few other things that have helped me are:
· Enjoying hobbies — writing (well, getting out my emotions on the page), reading about other people’s experiences with grief (so you know that you’re not alone), reading things unrelated to grief, baking, listening to music, watching films, etc.
· Looking after myself — I very often put others before myself. But to look after them, I need to look after myself. Self-care takes practice but eating healthily, exercising regularly, and keeping a routine are all good ways to look after yourself.
Make No Mistake, Grief is Hard
Whatever your grief journey looks like, there’ll be difficulties and setbacks along the way.
From my own experiences and understanding, the best way to live with grief is to allow yourself to feel whatever it is you need to.
And the best way to deal with life after loss is to avoid dwelling on the pain too much. Instead, focus on the person you love, the memories you created together and be thankful for the time you got to spend with them.
If you’re experiencing grief and are overwhelmed by it, or just want to talk to someone, there are many great organisations and charities you can talk to:
· Mind has many useful resources including their own bereavement services, advice, and contact details of other organisations.
· Cruse know about grief, they have lots of great info, a call-in helpline and an online chat available.
· And Grief Encounter is a charity focused on supporting bereaved children and young people.
Grief can make you feel alone. But you’re not alone. There are always people who want to help and want to lend an ear. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help if you need it.