Finding a Way to Get Your Life Back on Track
Grief goes hand in hand with loss, and loss comes in different shapes and sizes. Some losses are minor, slight setbacks that you quickly overcome, while other losses feel huge and are utterly overwhelming.
Loss comes knocking at your door when a parent dies, when a close friend passes away or a spouse departs from your life, whether through death or divorce.
Parents experience tremendous grief when they lose a child. Such loss can occur through a miscarriage, when life has barely started. Or, it can happen unexpectedly through an accident. Or, you may even be warned it is coming through the diagnosis of a terminal illness, but even so, knowing an illness is terminal doesn’t necessarily make it easier to deal with.
Not all losses are directly related to other people. Losing a job when your career meant “everything” could also feel devastating.
Whatever the form, you feel challenged when emptiness fills your heart because something or someone you cared about is gone.
Grief and Loss Are Unique to the Individual
While everyone experiences loss at some point in time, people are unique in how they relate to it. They are unique in how it manifests through their reactions and emotions.
The five stages of grief (Kubler-Ross) — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — don’t necessarily roll out in this exact sequence for everyone.
Psychologists are finding that some people don’t experience every stage. A person may skip stages or only experience one stage. In some cases, the individual may experience a stage that isn’t one of the five stages at all.
The fact is this — people are unique individuals and so are their life’s experiences. Everyone has a journey to make and challenges to face.
If you’re experiencing a loss and are struggling to get over it, our therapists at Affordable Therapy Los Angeles would like to help. We have a number of techniques and approaches that have enabled others to feel relief and get on with their lives.