Grief support in midtown NYC. Blog by Dr. Jen Joseph, Therapist in Midtown NYC /
Losing a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences that you go through in life. The more you love and share your life with someone, the harder it is to say goodbye and mourn their death. In my experience as a therapist, I have found that many people feel unnecessarily alone during a time of grieving. Commonly, after a funeral, your friends’ and relatives’ care and attention can fade away. It typically takes about three years to begin to feel like yourself again after a major loss.
It takes courage to continue to open up to others when you are still hurting months or years after a significant loss.
Sometimes you may hear judgments from others that you should be grieving differently. You may even judge yourself and think that you should be moving on or letting go faster than you are able to. In spite of this pressure that you may feel, it is important to understand that we each grieve in different ways. We require different amounts of time to adjust to a significant loss.
When I lost my father, I found that giving myself permission to be as sad or angry as I needed to be and to cry as much as I wanted to, was the best way to cope. My therapist at the time explained to me that the only way to manage my grief was to allow myself to go through it and experience all of my feelings about it. My therapist also encouraged me to talk openly about my loss with other people. It ended up that talking and sharing my grief with others was very powerful. Talking about it allowed me to deepen my existing relationships with people and to develop newer heartfelt connections with others.
I have heard from many of my patients that they too found that talking with others helped them to feel less alone or overwhelmed in their grief. If you can learn to lean on others like your friends, members of a grief group, family members, and/or a therapist, you too may be able to gain deeper intimacy and connections with more people in your life.
A former client of mine who participated in a grief group said that after the loss of his wife, his participation in a group helped him turn his loss into an opportunity for personal growth and connection. He said that talking with others allowed him to open up in ways he had never been able to do before. He also discovered that as he opened up, he discovered many more people in his life truly cared about him than he had realized, and in a way that he had not anticipated.
Experiencing a major loss will change you. If you are interested and willing to open up to others, things that you never would have expected may happen to you. Like my former client, you may also be surprised to discover that you grow into someone who is much more open and receptive to receive love and care from others.
To find out more information or to work with Dr. Joseph, please email: dr.jenjoseph@gmail.com
