Understanding and Navigating Complex Grief

While grief is a natural response to loss, it can quickly become complex and multifaceted, impacting individuals in profound ways. Complex grief encompasses a range of emotions and symptoms that extend beyond the typical mourning process, and therefore, recognizing its signs is crucial for seeking appropriate support.

Complex grief (CG) is characterized by an intensified, prolonged, or complicated grieving process that may be challenging to navigate alone. CG often arises from various factors, such as the nature of the loss, the griever's relationship with the individual or deceased, unresolved issues, or a lack of social support. Additionally, past experiences with trauma, mental health conditions, or a history of loss can contribute to the complexity of grief. This form of grief doesn't adhere to a specific timeline and can resurface unexpectedly, triggered by anniversaries, reminders, or even seemingly unrelated events. It's essential to understand that everyone's grief journey is unique, and there's no "right" or "wrong" way to grieve.

Understanding the Signs

Complex grief is a human experience has some specific signs that differ in intensity and duration from what would be considered a 'normal' grieving period. Intense feelings of sadness, emptiness, or despair that persist for longer periods may be the first sign that the grief is more complex. Although grieving is deeply personal and doesn't follow a scripted timeline for resolution, the experiencer may intuitively recognize that they are seemingly 'stuck' in their grief for what feels like an excessive amount of time. The griever may be hearing from loved ones about their concern that the griever is unable to move out of their grief, or they themselves may feel that there has not been any lessening of their pain associated with their grief.

Oftentimes in CG, the griever may have persistent or intrusive thoughts or preoccupations about the loss, replaying memories in their mind over and over again, with an inability to focus on other activities or tasks. These thoughts and preoccupations can have a negative impact on the griever's ability to socialize in a healthy manner, sleep, eat, focus on activities they once enjoyed, or caregive for people that they need to tend to. These persistent thoughts often manifest into 'telling the story' to anyone who offers support, where the preoccupations are given space to be verbalized. Often the griever will feel a deep level of victimization in the loss and spend a great deal of time thinking about what they could have done differently, or things they regret. A common indicator of complex grief may be accompanied by statements such as "terrible things always happen to me", or other statements that indicate a pattern of loss in their lifetime, or internal limiting beliefs or victimization. As a result, the griever often has a difficult time moving forward from the loss, often struggling with life after. They may be prone to having thoughts or verbalizing to others about 'never' being able to do something: "never" loving again, "never" being happy, "never" finding a new relationship, etc. In social circles or with family, they may stick to stories that occured in the past, and not be able to verbalize future-oriented goals or thinking, struggling with being able to imagine a life moving forward.

Emotional numbness, detachment or distraction are other signs of complex grief. In those who typically have an avoidant personality, seen in individuals who may be seen or classified as 'narcissistic', they often move on rapidly to a new relationships or distractions that may give others the impression of not caring, being cold, or callous in their response to grief. This is an avoidant strategy that is utilized to help bury or stuff intense feelings, instead of needing to feel them. On the other end of the continuum is disassociation, where the griever becomes so numb that others percieve them as being detached, unfeeling, cold, non-responsive, and void of any emotional landscape. Often, they suffer in silence, avoiding discussion of their experience, in an attempt to 'not be a burden' to others. This end of the continuum can be marked with stark changes in personality, deep depressive features, and loss in interest in life.

In the realm of complex grief, all these symptoms can compound and lead to functional impairment, affecting the griever's ability to be an attentive parent, partner, to be effective at work, or to actively socialize. They may have thoughts of giving up on living, or actively attempt to end their life, and no longer have any sense of purpose or hope for the future. It is imperative to be able to recognize this state of grief in loved ones and offer them the support, safety, and resources they need in order to move through this complex grieving process in a healthy manner.

Accepting complex grieving with loving compassion is essential in order to hold space for the wounded inner aspect that is responding to this grief, both for anyone else who may be experiencing complex grief, as well as ourselves. It is through non-judgmental acceptance that one can begin to address the deeper rooted issues that are preventing the grief from fully resolving.

From a therapeutic lens, healing from CG doesn't have to entail re-living the trauma of the loss over again. Conversely, it can be addressed through the response of the nervous system to the subconscious memories held within the body, and embodying the experience instead of intellectualizing it. Rather than getting stuck on the story, the focus becomes on the inner realm, or the felt-sense. Working with an integrative trauma practitioner can offer opportunities to gently explore the inner realms of childhood experiences and memories that are adding to the complexity of the grieving process. Modalities such as breathwork, somatic movement, art or music therapy, and compassionate inquiry are gentle, yet profound ways to experience a safe space to validate the experience while resolving the stored emotional memories and remove the 'charge' that fuels complex grief, allowing for the memory to remain without the intense emotion attached to it.

Grieving is a natural process, in which our body is naturally wired to resolve on its own. When we get out of the way of this natural, gentle process, we allow space for the body's own wisdom to take over and resolve the intense emotions around the losses we experience. It doesn't have to feel overwhelming, never-ending, lonely, and ultra-painful.

If you or a loved one is experiecing unresolved or Complex Grief, contact Brave Steps for a personal exploration and resolution that will bring peace and joy back into your life.

You are not alone.