Two natural emotional responses.
What is Grief?
How does it make us feel?
Grief is the natural emotional response a person experiences when they lose someone they love or lose someone close to them.
Grief can also start before someone has died and we can start grieving when a loved one is first diagnosed with a terminal illness. Grieving is a very normal part of life and there is no wrong or right way to grieve as everyone grieves differently.
There is no timeline for grief and there are an infinite range of emotions we may feel such as sadness, denial, anger, guilt, anxiety about the future, shock and disbelief, numbness and loneliness. For most people the main emotion a person feels when they lose someone close to them is at times an overwhelming sadness.
The important part in relation to grief is that it is a very normal response it is not a disorder or an illness it is a part of human life and there is no wrong or right way to grieve.
What is Bereavement?
How is it different to grief?
Bereavement is the period of mourning after the death of a loved one or someone close. Unlike Grief which is the emotional feelings mentally, physical, and socially, that we may feel Bereavement is the period after a loss during which grief is experienced and mourning occurs. Again there is no timeline for bereavement and every person deals with this differently but it is a very normal part of life.