Grief Counselling

What grief can look like

Grief is the response to losing something that mattered. Most often we mean the death of someone we loved, but grief follows many other losses too: the end of a relationship, the loss of a home, of a job, of health, of a future that no longer feels possible. Each of these can leave the same kind of imprint.

There is no single shape grief is supposed to take. Some people cry every day. Some cannot cry and feel guilty for it. Some are numb for weeks and then ambushed by waves months later. Some keep functioning at work and break down in the supermarket. All of this is part of grieving. None of it means you are doing it wrong.

When grief feels stuck

Grief usually softens over time, even when it never fully leaves. You might find it helpful to reach out for support if you notice:

• The loss feels as raw months or years later as it did at first
• You are avoiding people, places or memories connected to who or what you lost
• Sleep, appetite or concentration has changed and stayed changed
• You are using alcohol, food or work to push the feelings out of reach
• You feel cut off from the world, or from yourself
• You are carrying something you cannot say out loud to anyone in your life

None of these mean something is wrong with you. They mean grief is taking up more space than you can carry on your own right now.

How a grief counsellor can help

A grief counsellor will not try to fix your loss, because losses cannot be fixed. What they can do is sit with you while you make sense of yours. Sometimes that looks like talking through what happened, in detail, more than once. Sometimes it looks like saying what you have not been able to say to anyone else. Sometimes it looks like silence while you cry. All of those are the work.

Sessions are usually weekly, around fifty minutes. Many counsellors offer either online or in-person meetings. The first session is for you to see whether they feel like the right person to walk alongside you for a while. There is no expected number of sessions. Some people need a handful, some need many months. You set the pace.

Anticipatory grief, sudden loss, complicated grief

Grief sometimes begins before the loss does. If someone you love is seriously ill, the grieving can start during the illness, not at the end. This is real grief and it deserves the same care.

Sudden loss leaves a different mark. Without the chance to say what you wanted to say, the work of grieving sometimes has to do that work after the fact, in your own way and at your own time.

For some people, grief becomes a longer story than they expected. Researchers sometimes call this prolonged or complicated grief. It is not a personal failing. It is what happens when a loss is large or complex or comes on top of other things you were already carrying. A counsellor who works with grief will know how to meet you where you are, regardless of how long you have been here.