Learn about the causes of Bereavement & find a practitioner in Auckland, Hamilton, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin to help you overcome Bereavement within New Zealand.
Bereavement is the emotional pain and grief experienced as a result of a loss or death. Bereavement leaves a longing for the person or pet who has gone and affects our physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing. Adjustment to the loss can take many years with overriding feelings of pain and grief.
Causes of Bereavement
Bereavement is the term given to the loss of loved one through death.
On the death of friend, family member or pet, we enter a mourning
process that triggers feelings of anger, sadness and numbness. Physical
problems can also begin such as a loss of energy, poor appetite and
sleeping difficulties. When bereaved, a person will grieve and there
are various stages of grief experienced over weeks, months or even
years.
The grieving process is the body's way of coping and
accepting loss enabling you to carry on with your own life. If a person
doesn't grieve properly after the death, or within a short space of
time afterwards, feelings remain bottled up leading to emotional,
physical and psychological problems later.
Grief is a painful process that needs to be experienced in order to help emotional and physical wellbeing in the future.
Symptoms of Bereavement
The symptoms of bereavement are typically experienced during the
different stages of grief after the death of a loved one. The stages of
grief, although not distinct, do have an overlapping period between
each one. Grief and its associated symptoms are explained below:
Shock / Emotionally numb
This
is usually the first stage of grief after a bereavement and is an
initial reaction to loss. Feeling shocked and emotionally numb can last
days, weeks or longer in some cases. This stage allows the mind and
body to cope with making arrangements for funerals or dealing with
family issues surrounding the death. While the feelings are practical
at the time, if left for too long it can become a problem.
Yearning
Once
the shock and emotional numbness has passed, it can be replaced with a
yearning for the loved one who has died. People often spot the face of
the person who has died in a crowd or when the phone rings expect it to
be them on the other end of the line. For people who have lost a pet,
they often imagine seeing their pet walking past them out of the corner
of their eye or feel a deep yearning at feed times when they'd usually
expect to see their pet.
Anger and agitation
During
bereavement, the anger stage of grief gives rise to feelings of guilt,
resentment and strong emotions about the person who has died. You may
find it difficult to concentrate or sleep as you dwell on past
arguments or situations and emotions you didn't have the chance to
share when they were alive.
Sadness and withdrawal
The
anger and agitation stage is a period of strong emotions and usually
gives way to intense sadness and withdrawal from social interaction
with friends and family. The sadness can trigger tearful outbursts
especially when memories or reminders of the loved one are experienced.
Coping
In
time, the intense pain and sadness you feel after a bereavement lessens
and life takes on a more positive note. Loss should still be
acknowledged but you'll learn to live with it and find coping
mechanisms that allow you to heal mentally and emotionally.
Letting go
Seen
as the final stage, letting go of the loved one who has died will allow
you to carry on living in a normal way although life is not the same as
before. Sleep and energy levels usually return to normal.
There
is no timescale in which these stages take place and each person
experiences grief from a bereavement in different ways. Knowing the
stages of grief can help you to understand your emotions and moods and
recognise what you're feeling is normal. If for any reason your grief
is totally overwhelming and you're not moving on then you should seek
the help of a healthcare professional.
Diagnosis of Bereavement
You can usually self-diagnose bereavement as you go through the intense
feelings of the loss of a loved one. Because we all experience
bereavement in different ways and under different circumstances the
normal stages of grief can give way to serious mental difficulties such
as depression or suicidal thoughts.
Healthcare experts have discovered that the risks of a difficult grieving process increase if:
*Source: GoToSee.co.uk