When someone takes their own life, your whole world can feel shaken. Grief can hit you suddenly or slowly, and your emotions may change constantly over the next few days, weeks or months. One thing is certain – everyone will have a different experience.
Grief is a healthy response to your loss but at times can feel overwhelming. Your experience of grief will be different depending on how close you were to the person you lost, how important they were in your life, how long you knew them, and how they died.
Following are some common responses from dealing with grief:
- Our bodies may react: soreness, headaches, exhaustion, muscle aches and tightness, tears that seem to never stop, nausea, pain, numbness.
- Our minds may feel confused: closed, unable to think straight, distracted, unable to focus, fearful of our own or others safety.
- Vivid dreams: some distressing and some comforting. We pined and dreamt about bringing back the person we’ve lost.
- Many of us found it hard to make simple decisions, to concentrate or to remember day to day things.