HOW TO COPE WITH GRIEF

While everyone processes grief differently, clinical psychologist Linda Blair says there are ways to cope with loss:

•

The worst pain is anticipating how it’s going to feel to face up to your loss. Comfort yourself by knowing it won’t be as bad as worrying about how painful it will feel.

•

Accept the waves of grief as they hit you. Have friends you can call if you need to. You’ll probably feel better after a wave hits you, but if you don’t, talking it through is a way to move on.

•

You hear people talk about the five stages of grief and those are real, but they don’t happen to everyone or necessarily flow in the same order.

•

There’s nothing you can do to manage your grief. If you try to stop it you can develop an abnormal grief reaction: you may lose the ability to concentrate, wake up a lot in the night, or develop symptoms of OCD. These are signs of trying not to think about what happened. Sadly, you must.