Grief is often associated with the death of someone we love, but it can follow many different losses. Some remain an ongoing part of life, requiring us to adapt to their continuing presence. These can be understood as living losses: experiences we must learn to live alongside, rather than events that simply end.
Although grief is painful, it is also an adaptive process. It gives us an opportunity to rebuild our understanding of the world after a significant loss and to incorporate what has happened into our life story. Grieving, and learning to carry a loss, are not in themselves signs of illness or pathology.
What loss means
Loss happens when something changes and we recognise that life will not be quite the same again. We each carry an internal picture of the world: our beliefs, our expectations about how life should work, and our sense of who we are within it. A loss can shatter that picture.
Think of a piece of glass that has broken. Even if its pieces can be brought together again, it will no longer look exactly as it did before. Grief allows us to work through the emotions that accompany this altered reality, making room for a different understanding of life.
Any change takes us away from something familiar and towards something unknown. That movement can bring feelings of loss even when we have chosen the change ourselves, or consider it positive. Welcoming a new situation does not necessarily mean there is nothing about the old one to mourn.
Loss beyond bereavement
The death of someone we know is an obvious loss. Less tangible losses can include hope, aspirations for the future, a sense of status in the world, or beliefs that once helped us make sense of life. These experiences can be difficult to explain, particularly when there is no clearly recognised event to mark them.
There are often fewer social rituals for losses that do not involve death. Without acknowledgement or a meaningful way to mark what has changed, people may struggle to express and work through their emotions. Their grief may be disenfranchised: insufficiently recognised or given space by those around them.
Ambiguous loss describes situations in which someone's presence and absence overlap. A person may be physically there but emotionally or psychologically distant. This can happen when caring for someone with dementia or an addiction, or in relationships affected by emotional distancing or workaholism.
The reverse can also happen: someone is physically absent but remains strongly present emotionally or psychologically. Examples include a loved one who has left or is unavailable, a non-custodial parent's loss of a child, or the loss experienced by birth parents of an adopted child.
These situations lack clarity about exactly what has been lost. That uncertainty can create confusion and leave someone feeling stuck, or frozen, in grief. If friends and other people in their social network withdraw or do nothing, the absence of recognition and rituals can deepen their sense of isolation. Recognising different forms of loss, and helping people name them, can support the grieving process.
There is no single way to grieve
We are drawn towards attachment and connection, yet live in a world where things do not stay the same. Navigating that tension can be painful. Although grief is a shared human experience, there is no single normal way to grieve and no fixed timetable for it.
Some people need to talk about their feelings. Others keep busy or work through their emotions by doing something that helps them make sense of their changed world. People can respond differently without one approach being the standard against which all others should be measured.
Grief may involve anxiety, anger, deep sorrow, sadness, numbness or confusion. It can also have physical expressions, including difficulty sleeping, nausea, muscle aches and pains, and headaches. The experience is not confined to thoughts and emotions; it can be felt throughout the body.
Understanding the stages of grief
Integrating a loss can be slow and uneven. The stages commonly used to describe grief are not a compulsory sequence, and not everyone experiences them all. They offer ways of understanding some possible responses, rather than a schedule for how grief should unfold.
Shock and denial can involve difficulty accepting what has happened, or a refusal to take it in. When someone feels overwhelmed or distressed, they may not yet have the inner resources to face the situation fully. This response can sometimes be necessary while reality feels too much to bear.
Anger is understandable when our familiar world has been disrupted. Frustration may also sit above feelings of fear and loneliness. Anger can provide energy to keep going, but it can also affect us negatively. Finding ways to process it and direct it towards something meaningful and productive matters.
Bargaining is another way the mind may try to avoid a changed reality. It can involve negotiating with a higher power, feeling guilty, or repeatedly asking “what if?” Someone may feel responsible, imagining that if they had not said or done a particular thing, the outcome would have been different.
Acceptance, often described as the final stage, does not mean leaving the loss behind. It means being able to move forward while carrying it. The loss may take up less time and space, while remaining part of life in a way that can be managed and honoured.
Living with loss
Grief can leave people feeling profoundly alone, and there is no simple cure for that experience. Compassion can help make room for difficult feelings rather than push them away. Remembering that grief is part of being human, and allowing support from others, can help us find a way to reclaim life while acknowledging what has changed.