How to Know if You Need Help with Grief

How to Know if You Need Help
Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether a person needs additional help in dealing with grief issues. The following are some clues to look for in helping you to make the determination of whether you need additional help in grieving.
Postponing Grief
If you find yourself ignoring your grief thinking that it will go away, you may be having a complicated grief reaction.  Denial is normal early in grief, but long term denial is a sign that you may not be working through your grief.
Displacing Grief Emotions
Do you find yourself angry, bitter, and possibly even feeling hateful emotions?  If you are connecting these emotions to your grief that is normal, but if you are displacing these emotions on other family members or other things in your life this may be a sign that you need help in working through your grief.
Replacing Grief
Do you find yourself not wanting to leave work?  Are you drinking more?  Or are you looking to reinvest yourself in a new relationship?  You may be attempting to replace your grief, trying to displace those emotions so that you don’t have to feel them by filling them with other activities.
Feeling only physical symptoms of grief
Do you find yourself completely preoccupied by your health condition?  Do you find you have more physical ailments after the death of your loved one?  You may be trying to ignore your grief emotions and your grief is presenting itself in physical form.  You would do well to speak with a professional and begin working out your grief.
 
If you think that you or a loved one need help dealing with grief, please call or email:
Kam Flynn, MSW
Patient and Family Care Supervisor
540-463-1848
Kam.Flynn@RAHospice.org