As we become accustomed to living with COVID-19, wearing face masks, getting vaccinations – we soon forget to talk about what’s important. Whether that’s our worries for the future, the anxiety we face going back to work or school, or even just being. Every morning, the news highlighted the impact of the new virus on our nation, every day there was a new number, a new person who had passed from the strain. In England alone, 165,534 people have died from Coronavirus. An individual may just be a number on the news. But that’s 165,534 potential mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and grandparents.
Grief, as a definition by Google, is ‘the response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed.’ However, grief is an individual experience – everyone experiences it in different forms, at different times in their lives after a loved one passes. Each person has an emotional attachment to their loved one that is different from the next but when most people think of grief, I guarantee you think of the physical symptoms of grief such as crying.
Physical symptoms of grief are quite common. Crying is the self-soothing response to grief, the release of emotional hurt and pressure that one faces. Consequently, crying isn’t just the only physical symptom of grief. As our body releases a significant amount of stress hormones, people can even, unfortunately, cause physical pain such as headaches and back pain. Physical symptoms of grief can even include exhaustion and fatigue, chest pain, and digestive problems.
Through experiencing grief, our mind races through the motions. The emotional toll can sadly end up with individual’s suffering from depression and anxiety and even certain disorders such as prolonged grief disorder (symptoms f grief that last more than six months after the loss of a loved one, which tends to affect women more) and complicated grief disorder (when an individual experiences the same emotional trauma that happened nearer to the loss and how they cannot resume their own daily lives). Emotional symptoms of grief vary but common ones include greater irritability and moodiness, feeling numb, and resentment. As well as, becoming detached from others and being distracted from daily life due to grief.
Although grief is described as the ‘response’, it doesn’t mention a time scale. This is the most important thing to remember. Grief doesn’t just happen for an hour, day, week, or month. The want and need to bring back a loved one spans for years, it’s the ongoing desire to give love to someone who is no longer here anymore. Even if it’s just as simple as wanting to hold their hand, have one last conversation, hug them or just be with them or 5 times. It may seem as if everything stops, but the love that you want to give doesn’t and this is why the comparison of grief to waves seems so fitting. Taken from the loss foundation, the loss we experience comes in waves because at first it may feel like we’re drowning but over time, we learn coping habits to deal with the pain and are afloat. Just like the waves, at times we may crash a bit deeper and get upset but other times, we’ll have a lifejacket of family, friends, and memories that help lift us. It might sound cliché but I think this describes grief perfectly.
As someone who has experienced grief personally, it isn’t just a response to loss. It’s the process of learning how to cope and just exist after someone passes. It is not a simple reaction to death – it’s more complicated. I like to think of defining grief as how the strength of two people’s love is defined.
Article by Young Reporter Beth
First published in Grimsby Telegraph December 2021