Grief isn't Something We "Get Over".

Grief is messy, it is unpredictable, confusing and also deeply personal. It doesn’t arrive neatly. It doesn’t move in a straight line. It twists, turns, disappears for a while, then shows up again. You can be laughing with friends, standing in a shop, or listening to a song on the radio, and suddenly grief is there beside you again.

Aoife Smyth IACP Accredited Psychotherapist and Supervisor

Grief is messy, it is unpredictable, confusing and also deeply personal. It doesn’t arrive neatly. It doesn’t move in a straight line. It twists, turns, disappears for a while, then shows up again. You can be laughing with friends, standing in a shop, or listening to a song on the radio, and suddenly grief is there beside you again.

Whether the loss was expected or completely unexpected, grief is a shock to our system. We don’t just have to adjust emotionally and mentally to life without our loved one, we have to recover physically too. Grief can leave us exhaust, foggy, overwhelmed, and disconnected because our whole being is responding to a new reality.

Our minds are wired to seek what is familiar. Four days, months, or even years after someone dies, our brains may continue searching for them. We reach for the phone to call them. We think we see them in a crowd. We instinctively expect them to walk through the door. Our minds are looking for a pattern that existed hundreds or thousands of times before, struggling to make sense of a world that has suddenly changed. A world that we struggle to make sense of without them in it.

Maybe that is one of the hardest parts.

And the love…, the love is still there. The need to share, tell, call, hug, laugh, and connect remains. But the person we want to give that love to is no longer physically here. Our hearts don’t always know what to do with the love that remains.

Grief isn’t something we” get over.” It’s something we learn to carry. Some days it feels lighter. Some days it feels heavier. Both are part of the journey. It asks a great deal of us. It asks us to a doctor to reality we never wanted or continuing to live alongside the love.

There’s no way to grieve. There’s only your way to grieve because it’s your loss even if it’s complicated, unpredictable and feels endless at times you’re responding to the profound experience of loving and losing someone who mattered.

Wherever you are in your grief, I hope you remember that healing is not about letting go but learning how to carry the love you shared in a new way.