What is the Difference Between Grief and Traumatic Grief?
Grief is a normal and natural response to loss, and it is something that everyone experiences at some point in their lives. Traumatic grief, however, is a more intense form of grief that can be caused by a traumatic event or experience. While both forms of grief involve feelings of sadness, pain, anger, and anxiety, there are some key differences between them. In this blog post, we will explore the differences between grief and traumatic grief in order to better understand how they affect us.
What is Grief?
Grief is an emotional response to a significant loss or change in our lives. It can be caused by the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or any other major life event. Grief involves intense feelings of sadness and pain as well as physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, stomach aches, and difficulty sleeping. It can also cause us to feel overwhelmed, isolated, angry, guilty, and forgetful, and disconnected from our usual activities.
What is Traumatic Grief?
Traumatic grief is an intense form of grief that can be caused by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as war or natural disaster. It can also be caused by sudden death like suicide, car accidents, or homocide. Traumatic grief can also be caused by unexpected non-death losses such as job loss or betrayal. The shock, guilt, fear, helplessness and despair is much more intense and can be debilitating in traumatic grief. Along with the usual physical, mental and emotional expressions of grief, a sense of safety has to be immediately recovered due to the shattering of personal stability from this unexpected loss. Often there is a stigma assigned to traumatic loss which further exacerbates the intense feelings and thoughts around the loss.
Both regular and traumatic grief does not follow any particular pattern or timeline. Instead it often involves more unpredictable emotions such as intense guilt and fear which can lead to difficulty processing the loss. Additionally, traumatic events may cause us to become overwhelmed with emotions which can lead to avoidance behaviours such as avoiding reminders of the trauma or avoiding talking about it altogether.
How Can We Cope With Grief And Traumatic Grief?
Coping with both regular grief and traumatic grief requires time and patience in order to process our emotions and adjusting our daily life to the absence of this person. It’s important to remember that everyone grieves differently so there’s no “right” way to cope with either type of grief—it’s all about finding what works best for you individually based on your needs at the time. Granting yourself patience and compassion is a key mindset when grieving.
Some coping strategies for both types of grief include: talking about your feelings with family members or friends; engaging in self-care activities such as exercise; journaling; seeking professional help if needed; focusing on positive memories; engaging in creative activities; spending time outdoors; practicing mindfulness techniques; volunteering; attending support groups; reaching out for help when needed; taking breaks from difficult conversations/situations when needed; and setting realistic goals for yourself. Grief groups can be very helpful in breaking feelings of isolation and overwhelm. Whether online or in person, finding others with the same experience reduces the loneliness and overwhelm of any grief.
While both regular grieving and traumatic grieving involve intense emotions surrounding a significant loss or change in our lives, coping with either type of grieving requires patience and understandingbeing. Some important practices help ride the waves of grief: being kind to yourself during this difficult time; allowing yourself time to grieve without feeling guilty about it; accepting that healing takes time but you will get through this difficult period in your life. Seeking professional help if needed really can normalize the grief response by giving information about grief and helping process these intense emotions. Grief is truly a practice of being human.
Yours in living and loss,
Brenda