Everything is different - grief time

"Since the death of my partner, I've been like a trance. A feeling of the infinite and no longer emptiness has grasped me. I can only perceive what happens around me as if packed in cotton wool."

A client of mine. Let's call them Andrea. During a normal working day, 9:15 a.m. in the morning, her world collapsed for her. Because there she was called by a good friend and colleague of her partner, who informed her that her partner had died 15 minutes ago on a brain. It would have been very quick, they would all be in shock, it was incredible. The alarmed emergency doctor could only find death.

Andrea can hardly remember the journey home on this day. Since this call, she has been like a trance. The only thing she still felt about herself was the hot tears that ran over her face. The colleague stroked her hand and made a tea when she had arrived at home. The whole process was later no longer 100 % classified for them. Everything was only shadowy and unreal, as if everything was just theater and not real.

While she became aware that she had to inform the other family members, it could have been as good that her partner simply slept next door in the bedroom. It was only when it became evening and she was alone - it was her wish - this feeling of fainting and helplessness moved closer again. She called her mother, who came immediately and she was now happy not to have to be alone, especially since her mother did not make any demands on her and was simply there without talking much.

3 weeks passed. The time she remained away from work did not want to talk to anyone about the death of her partner. She knew that the more she talked about it, the more real the full extent became and would totally "devour" it. If she realized everything, she would have to deal with what she will have to change in the near future. Giving up this apartment, for example, in which you had lived together for 7 years, because she would not be able to finance it with her wages.

And how should she pull away? Here was his energy - his spirit - his smell. He was still felt everywhere, nothing had changed in the apartment since he was gone. His clothes were still there, his razor stood in the bathroom and his mountain pines were in the hallway as if he came home right away. And should she change something about that? She knew that she didn't have the strength for it yet.

During this time, her greatest fear was that she had to go back to work and endure the eyes that she would look at with pitying - unbearable - almost came up into her.

She would feel like a leper, she already knew that and then the fear came that colleagues avoided her and treated her like a stranger. She told me: "What helped my best friend called" afterwards "in the office a few days before my first working day and already answered all the questions that everyone had, of course. I would certainly have had it - but I just didn't want to answer her at that time. I am still grateful to her today. That made it a lot easier for me today."

"Above all, she announced to everyone that I don't want to talk about the death of my partner - not yet. Maybe at some point. But I wanted to determine this day myself. And yes, everyone kept on it and it was easier than expected to cope with this first working day as a widow."

I personally find it important that other people accept that grief can look different and processed differently. Not the way you think it is common, but everyone can mourn in the way how it is true for him.

She said: "Today I know that my girlfriend, who really stood by my side, feared for a long time that I would eat my grief into myself and sick because I just didn't want to talk about it. Today she says that it was also a good apprenticeship for her because she now knew that you just have to accept how people mourn her, even if you can not understand it yourself in any way."

No matter what relationship you stand with a grieving person, whether as a friend or as a relative. In such times you just have to follow the other and be there for him. This is the only way you can really help and not just turn the pity wheel. That doesn't help anyone.

And usually it brings a lot to just be there!