Remember that grief is a normal part of life. Everyone will grieve so be gentle and kind to yourself and others along the journey.
Emotional
- Sadness and crying
- Loneliness or anxiety
- Frustration and anger
- General sense of heaviness or emptiness
- Apathy, inertia or listlessness
- Shock and numbness
- Guilt over things you did or didn’t say
- Yearning and pining
- Relief
Mental
- Preoccupation with thoughts about loss
- Absent-minded: unable to concentrate
- Disbelief and denial
- Disconnected or lack of interest
- Worry
- Disorientation
- Inability to make decisions
- Sense of things not being real
Physical
- Lack of energy, fatigue
- Muscular pain or weakness
- Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
- Tightness in the throat or chest
- Dry mouth and difficulty swallowing
- Hollowness in the stomach or nausea
- Constipation, diarrhea or heartburn
- Irregular heartbeat
- Sensitivity to noise
- Changes to libido or menstrual cycle
Behavioral
- Loss of temporal awareness
- Restlessness or over activity
- Social withdrawal
- Lack of interest in current affairs
- Avoidance of reminders of how things used to be
- Appetite changes
- Sleep disturbance
- Crying sometimes uncontrollably
- Crying in unexpected circumstances
- Acting out of character
- Losing or misplacing things
- Absent-minded behavior
- Short term memory loss