Loss Resources
Abandonment
Those who struggle with abandonment are afraid of being alone and may believe they are destined to be alone. Their unfulfilled relationships are often filled with insecurity and fear. Further, fear of abandonment often leads to actual abandonment through a self-fulfilling prophesy. Insecurity and self-doubt are often just symptoms of deeper-seated issues.
Adult Child Loss
Losing a child – at any age – defies nature. Parents should not bury their children. The sorrow and loss is unimaginable, shattering, and the grief all-encompassing. Every relationship changes, the family structure is forever altered, and the table is always missing one.
Baby Loss
Losing your baby is ridiculously hard and devastating. There is so much lost opportunity and pain and heartbreak.
Divorce
In America 45-50% of first marriages end in divorce and while divorce is a fairly common occurrence, it is almost never easy. Even if the divorce is one that both partners want and is best for all concerned, involves the death of a dream and a major life change.
Coping With The Loss Of A Child
It’s hard to imagine that the world hasn’t stopped. It’s hard to believe that everything keeps on going. When the horror of losing a child becomes a reality for you or someone that you love, you want to do something – anything – to help someone who has lost a baby, infant, or child.
Grief
Grief is a normal human response to the loss of something or something significant. Grief is a journey toward healing and recovering from this significant loss. Grief reactions may be felt in response to physical losses (the death of a loved one) or in response to symbolic or social losses (divorce, loss of job). Either type of grief reaction involves something being taken away.
Miscarriage
A miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks gestation. The majority of miscarriages occur within the first 13 week of pregnancy. Miscarriage is the most common form of pregnancy loss with as many as 15-25% of all clinically recognized pregnancies ending in miscarriage.
Parent Loss
Your mother or father has died. Whether you had a good, bad or indifferent relationship with the parent who died, your feelings for him or her were probably quite strong. At bottom, most of us love our parents deeply. And they love us with the most unconditional love that imperfect human beings can summons.
Partner Loss
Loss of a partner, spouse, or significant other is a painful thing to endure. The loss of a spouse can impact us profoundly at any times in our lives. On the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, loss of a spouse is rated as the most stressful event. Losing a lifetime companion when elderly can be devastating. The spouse who survives is also likely to be coping with the loss of friends and family members.
Pet Loss
For many of us, a pet is not “just a dog” or “just a cat,” but rather a beloved member of our family, bringing companionship, fun, and joy to our lives. A pet can add structure to your day, keep you active and social, help you to overcome setbacks and challenges in life, and even provide a sense of meaning or purpose. So, when a beloved pet dies, it’s normal to feel a painful sense of grief and loss.
Stillbirth
Stillbirth is defined as fetal death after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Stillbirths happen in approximately one in every 160 pregnancies, at seemingly random times. Stillbirth is used as a distinction between the miscarriage or live birth.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), also called “crib death” and “cot death,” is the unexplained death, usually during sleep, of a seemingly healthy baby less than a year old. SIDS is sometimes known as crib death because the infants often die in their cribs.
Suicide Prevention
Suicide is one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States, accounting for around 40,000 deaths per year and an estimated 1 million deaths worldwide. It leaves behind more unanswered questions than any other cause of death. Friends and family members are left in a wake of uncertainty, most never knowing what events led to their loved one’s death.
What is Loss?
Loss is the involuntary separation from something we have possessed and perhaps even treasured or someone we love and care about. Everyone experiences a loss at some point in their lives - whether it is major or minor. Loss is universal.
Loss involves emotional pain. Significant losses produce emotional upheaval. Loss requires change and uncertainty and adjustments to situations that are new, nor chosen, and uncertain.
There is no right or wrong way to feel after you experience a loss. Minor losses, such as the loss of an opportunity, may bring feelings of frustration, disappointment, or anger. Major losses can lead to similar feelings, overwhelming feelings, sadness, pain, or numbness.
You do not have to be "strong" after a loss to protect others around you. Expressing emotion is how the body and mind process and relieve the pressure of intense or overwhelming emotions. Crying or expressing other emotions does not make you less of a person. It is also not uncommon for people to feel numb. People who don't cry may still be feeling the effects of a loss. Everyone expresses their pain differently. No one can tell you how you should feel about something. Anyone who tries to tell you that how you are feeling is wrong is wrong.
A loss can be a real or perceived event.
Types of Losses:
There are many ways and many reasons that a person may feel a loss. It could be due to a seemingly obvious cause such as:
- A good friendship ending
- Suicide of a loved one
- Child loss
- Parent loss
- Death of someone you love
- End of a romantic relationship
- Very serious illness of someone close to you
- Death of a pet
However, there are also seemingly less obvious reasons a person may feel a loss:
- Illness: Losing physical or mental functioning can be difficult to adjust to. Many people feel a loss of sense of self, a loss of their health or capabilities, and a loss in power.
- Moving away: Losing your sense of home is a powerful feeling.
- Graduation: This is often accompanied by a sense of loss of good times, being young, having fun, or the end of a phase in your life.
- Job loss: Losing a job can lead to feelings of loss of self, loss of power, loss of pride, and loss of security.
- Losing your home: Losing your home to fire, flood, natural disaster, or financial woes can be devastating.
There are several types of losses:
- Sudden Losses are losses that happen due to accidents, crimes, or suicides and that do not give us any time to prepare. These type of losses often shake us to the core, making us question the stability of life. The loss can feel immediate, severe, and agonizing. It can be difficult to sort through many emotions and feelings at the same time, and it may take time and space to adjust to the loss
- Predictable Losses, like those due to terminal illness, allow for us to prepare for the loss. This type of loss also creates two layers of grief: anticipatory grief (the grief related to the anticipation of the loss) and the grief related to the loss itself.
One reason loss is so difficult is that it can be permanent. As humans, our lives are so fluid that the idea of permanence can be difficult to grasp. Further, if your life is structured around the person, object, or concept lost, it can be difficult to adjust to new patterns and routines.
How to Cope with Loss:
Grief is one of the most common reactions to a loss. There are typically five stages of grief:
- Denial and isolation - is generally the first type of loss felt, it occurs when a person(s) simply cannot wrap their mind around a situation of loss. It works by buffering the pain a loss can evoke."I just SAW him/her," "He/She can't be dead!" "I don't believe this."
- Anger - after the mask of denial and isolation wears off, a person begins to feel surreality of the loss wearing off, and the pain emerges. We aren't ready to accept this loss. This anger can involved the person who has been lost, the doctors, the staff of the hospital - anyone - to help lessen this chasm of sadness and despair.
- Bargaining is a normal reaction to the feeling of vulnerability and helplessness, in order to regain control. We'll pray to our God to change the inevitable, we'll offer ourselves up instead, we'll do anything to staunch the flow of pain. Guilt is often a side-effect of bargaining as we may feel that we did not do enough to/for/with/to stop the loss. You may feel these "if only" statements:
- If only we had gone to get medical attention sooner…
- If only we got a second opinion from another doctor…
- If only we had tried to be a better person toward them…
- Depression - there are generally two types of depression that follow the grieving process/ The first type of depression after loss has to do with the practical implications relating to the loss and is typically dominated by sadness and regret. Worries may include cost of the funeral, that we've spent less time helping others who depend upon us. Generally, if speaking about the deceased, we display these moments in front of others. Sometimes, this stage of grief and type of depression is healed over time by a helping hand or the love of another. The second type of depression is a bit harder to pin down as it is a private type of grief that one tends to go through on his or her own - it may involve the actual separation between the grieving and the deceased.
- Acceptance - unfortunately, not everyone can reach the true gift of acceptance. If the death was surprising, the living may only feel anger and depression and not obtain the peace of acceptance. Coping with loss is truly a deeply personal and singular experience — nobody can help you go through it or understand the emotions you’re feeling. The best thing you can do is to allow yourself to feel the grief as it comes over you, as resisting it may only serve to prevent full healing.
These stages may happen in any order, at any time, or not at all. Some people feel some but not all of the stages of grief. Because there is not a typical loss and each situation is different, it is hard to figure out what a "typical reaction" is. Some people feel:
- Shock and disbelief - difficulty accepting what happened, numbness.
- Sadness - one of the more common feelings experienced. This may also be emptiness, despair, loneliness, and crying.
- Guilt - things you said, shouldn't have said, or wanted to say, not preventing the death.
- Anger - feelings of anger and resentment.
- Physical symptoms - aches, pains, headaches, nausea, changes in sleep or weight.
Tips on Surviving a Loss:
- However you are feeling, it can be overwhelming and out of control. One way to manage intense emotions is to observe them, describe them, and label them. Sometimes putting a name to your emotion can help you express it. Also remember that we experience emotions like a wave - the emotion will build, crest, and recede.
- Talk to friends and family who love you and make you feel good about yourself. Lean on people who love you and care about you.
- Don't expect that you're going to "get over it." The only way to "get over" a loss is to go through the stages of grieving. There's no reason to try to be the strong one - just let yourself feel however you feel.
- Write about it. Sometimes the act of writing down how you're feeling can help solidify those feelings and help you to grieve your loss.
- Let yourself feel the loss. The only way to get through a loss is to go through the stages of grief. You can't bypass it, no matter how much you'd like to. Sit with your feelings and acknowledge them.
- Talk to a therapist or grief counselor - someone who is trained to help you get through your grief.
- Exercise - exercise releases endorphins, which are the "feel-good" hormones.
- Don't minimize your own loss. If it was a loss, it was a loss. Losses are meant to be grieved.
- Don't compare your loss to others' loss. It's apples and oranges. You feel a loss how you feel it, not how someone else feels it.
- Be sure to take care of yourself. Go through your daily hygiene routines, get up, and do something.
- IT'S OKAY TO BE SAD!
How to Support Those Who Have Gone Through a Loss:
- Listen non-judgmentally. Even if you don't understand why the person feels a certain way, just listen.
- Ask about the situation. Just because they're not talking about it, doesn't mean they don't want you to ask about it.
- Be there for them. Even if it means taking care of small chores or calling a couple times a week, letting them know they have someone who cares around can do wonders.
- Sit with them. Even if they don't want to talk about it, sometimes having someone nearby helps the person mourning the loss to know that they are not alone.
- Ask how they are feeling. Acknowledging that they suffered a loss and allowing them to express their feelings can go a long way.
- Remember their loss. Many people don't acknowledge a loss for fear that it might make the mourner feel badly, but remembering every year around the anniversary of the loss can make a huge difference.
- Let them feel their feelings. It's in our nature to want to fix problems and tell people how they can fix their loss. But loss and feelings don't work that way.
- Call them. Email them. Reach out to them. Keep reaching out, even if they don't respond.
- Don't minimize their feelings.
- Check in with the person on anniversaries, important dates, or around holidays. Often these are times when people reconnect with the pain of their loss
Resources for Loss:
Bereavement Support - is a UK based site that offers practical advice for those experiencing grief and loss.
GriefNet: Where Grace Happens - group of over fifty email lists for people who have gone through specific types of loss. Excellent resource for those grieving a loss
This page last audited 6/2018 BSH