Grief can be a confusing and isolating experience. Your emotions and experiences in grief might feel so alien and unusual that you might wonder if there is something wrong with you. Many people feel this way, and many need to have extra grace for themselves. Not only is grief confusing, but it is exhausting in many different ways. In this article, we’ll look at the interplay between exhaustion and grief.

Exhaustion and Grief: How They’re Related

Drained From the Inside

Exhaustion is a natural aspect of grief because it engages all the facets of who you are. Not only will you experience intense, conflicting emotions, but you will have to figure out many different practicalities that feel at odds with your emotional rollercoaster. Having to arrange finances or travel details while also processing your emotions is exhausting. Huntington Beach Christian Counseling offers compassionate support to help you navigate grief while managing both the emotional and practical challenges that come with it.

Many people need to hear that it’s okay to feel a certain way or to struggle with certain things while grieving. Exhaustion is just one aspect of grief, but it affects people in many different ways for different reasons. As you navigate grief, consider the ways that you might be feeling exhausted, and have some grace and patience for yourself.

Emotional Exhaustion

Some people do not consider themselves to be emotional people, but even they will be confronted with a wave of emotions in grief. Not only are these emotions powerful, but they are persistent. Grief doesn’t pass after a funeral or after a good therapy session. You might have to process a cocktail of conflicting emotions for months and even years while grieving.

One of the most difficult aspects of grief is that it offers no closure. People crave completion, wholeness, and neatness, but in grief, emotions are messy and unpredictable, and closure can be hard to find. You might have emotions that don’t blend well together, like anger and sadness or resentment and gratitude. The sheer weight of all these emotions and their unusual behaviors is exhausting, even for those who usually consider themselves level-headed.

Mental and Logistical Exhaustion

Life doesn’t spare you the space or time to grieve as needed. Many people feel numbed in grief but have to plan, organize, and think their way through things. Funerals need planning, guests need hosting, belongings and properties need to be dealt with, and in the midst of it all, you have to figure out what you are feeling and what to do with those feelings.

All the logistics and planning can be a helpful distraction, and the matter-of-fact aspect of organizing things helps you to accept reality and grieve as you should. However, it is also draining. If you don’t have friends and family members to help with these things, you will benefit from taking an hour each day to sit, breathe, and feel.

Spiritual Exhaustion

There is perhaps no other time in life where you will examine and question your beliefs quite like when you are grieving. People often feel like their foundations have been shaken or even crumbled in the aftermath of loss and tragedy, and it often feels like there is no definitive answer to your deepest questions.

If you do end up confiding in someone trustworthy about your doubts, anger, or fears, you might find their easy answer frustrating and unhelpful. No one mentions how spiritually exhausting grief can be, especially when it causes you to question your worldview.

In biblical times, people would often grieve together for weeks on end, and the cultural expression of prolonged grief was silence. Friends would meet with mourners, stay in their homes, and simply sit with them until they were ready to talk. This comforting silence is what most people need when grieving because sometimes all you need is the quiet comfort of a friend holding space with you.

Physical Exhaustion

If simple, everyday tasks are becoming more difficult to complete and you are always tired no matter how much sleep you are getting, it could be a sign that grief is taking a physical toll on you. We often think of grief as being a mental and emotional experience, but we also experience grief within our bodies. Grief is a physical experience as much as it is mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Grief Counseling in Huntington Beach

Grieving can also be a lonely experience. Sometimes, you just want to be with someone who “gets it.” It might help you to meet with a Christian counselor in Huntington Beach, California. Your counselor will give you space to be yourself and to leave your burdens at the door, even if only for an hour or so. Contact us at Huntington Beach Christian Counseling if counseling is something you would like to learn more about.

What does it look like when someone is hit with a circumstance that demands they spend time going through grief? The truth is, though there are threads of similarity, it looks different for everyone. There are types, stages, and timing of grief. Whether you or someone you know are currently experiencing grief, below you will find information to assist in what’s to come. Huntington Beach Christian Counseling offers compassionate guidance to help individuals navigate their unique grief journey with hope and support.

Types of Grief

Going through grief is different depending on the type. Different types include sizes, personal or removed, as well as factual or fictional.

Sizes

Light

This type of grief is signified by the incident being marginal and forgettable after a brief period. Whether it is a day, a week, or a few months, life tends to move on quite easily from this kind. This type includes incidents such as a flat tire, broken bone, bad grade, trouble at home, lack of sleep

Heavy

Loss of life, car wreck, loss of job, loss of a relationship, or anything life-changing that takes time to move through make up this type. This is the kind that lingers, and rightly so. You are not without reminders of it for some time after the blow hits. Aside from reminders, you might be required to take an active part in actions required after the circumstance that sparked it, adding to the weight of it.

Over and undersized grief

This type of grief occurs when a person makes too big a deal of something or too little a deal. Your experience of grief does not fit the circumstance. This can be a reaction such as “That person died, so what?” or “I stained my favorite shirt – I can’t possibly go now!”

Personal or Removed Grief

There is the kind of grief that is personal to someone and the kind that is somewhat removed from the person experiencing it.

Both personal and removed grief are felt, and appropriate at times. While removed grief is somewhat vicarious and can be felt in a way that serves to connect individuals in a support network, it is not always easy to overcome because it is grounded in thoughts and emotions that don’t have an actual event to cause them.

Personal grief always has a direct incident to link back to, an intimate connection that is based on personal experience in the moment. Removed grief can have a personal connection to the circumstances, but the timing of the experience for that grief is based on the past as opposed to the current moment for the other person. Removed grief can also be about the present but with less personal connection.

Factual or Fictional Grief

This distinction may be the most difficult for some to distinguish between. Both factual and fictional grief are truly felt. There are real feelings that can be linked in any number of ways to real circumstances that typically also make sense.

The distinction between factual and fictional grief is whether or not any part of it is made up beyond what was real. There is a point in real grief that continues the feelings and thoughts because of a desire for them to continue.

This can lead to a lack of self-care, a reduced reliance on support, a refusal to live the present life as it is, etc. It looks like not just setting aside time to remember, but experiencing the grief over and over as though it just happened.

Stages of Grief

You may be familiar with the stages of grief, but do you know that no two people go through them the same way, even if their grief is the same? Some know the stages of grief by the 7-stage model and some by the 5-stage model. Below are all seven stages to account for both:

Shock – unable to process what has happened
Denial – unable to accept what has happened
Anger – against what has happened or against whom it has happened to
Bargaining – for what has happened to be reversed
Depression – overwhelming sadness about what has happened/without hope
Acceptance – understanding what has happened and that it will not be reversed
Processing Grief – moving through and beyond into healing

Again, none of these stages are always felt in order. One may even cycle through one or two of them more than once or skip some of them altogether.

Timing

Grief is never welcomed

The pain of sorrow and groaning of the flesh, when it goes through a loss, is nothing anyone delights in. The timing of a circumstance that causes grief makes a difference in how one processes it and can make a difference in how one recovers from it.

When tragedy hits upon tragedy

Grief upon grief is a well-known saying for a reason: it happens. The timing of this grief can feel crushing on a whole new level. It can also expand the numbing feeling from one tragedy to the next so that the one experiencing the grief can seem removed from it.

Thoughts that occur during grief are often, “When will it end?” and “How much can one person handle?” One can feel more isolated in their grief during a multi-incidence of tragedy because fewer people can relate to their circumstances.

Expected grief

When grief is expected, certain people feel two waves of grief, one when they are told to expect a tragedy, and another when the tragedy takes its toll. This type of grief, similar to tragedy upon tragedy, can isolate individuals due to feeling insecure about expressing grief because they had time to prepare for the tragedy to strike. They may choose to hold in their grief around others to spare them the cost of bearing the grief with them.

In your best shape

When tragedy strikes during a high in life people going through grief can experience it in two polarizing ways. Some may experience an easier time, remaining functional and dispensing grief throughout a period of time without removing themselves too far from everyday life.

Others experiencing grief while in their best shape can feel as though it was completely unexpected. This unexpected nature of the tragedy can lead to the person taking it overly hard, completely removing them from daily life as they feel they are cast into a pit. In this circumstance, it can take a long time to recover and return to normal life activities and relationships.

When you’re at your lowest

Similar to tragedy upon tragedy, when grief hits someone at their lowest it can often have a numbing effect. It’s one more tragedy to add to the multitude of ailments in life and it doesn’t feel much different from how one feels most days.

There is a chance that someone experiencing tragedy while at their lowest can connect with other healthy individuals during their grief, find support, and see a turnaround for the better because of it.

Getting Help

When you or someone you know is going through grief there are three things to keep as top priorities. The first is to know that no two people experience grief in exactly the same way. This means that there is no wrong or right way.

The second is that for whatever amount of time you or someone else needs to recover, it is important to keep life as simple and basic as possible. The third, and possibly the most important thing is to keep connected with stable, positive, and supportive people who can help you in your low and encourage you to get back to life one step at a time. A Christian counselor at Huntington Beach Christian Counseling can provide the support and guidance you need during this time.

Going through grief is difficult for the best of us. If you need someone to help you during this overwhelming time, please reach out to our team at www.huntingtonbeachchristiancounseling.com to connect with a counselor today.