WHEN SOMEONE YOU LOVE DIES

What is grief?

Grief is a word we use to describe all the feelings we have when someone we love very much dies. Grief may not feel normal but it is. Everyone will ‘grieve’ in their own way.

You may experience all sorts of feelings or you may feel nothing.

You may find it easy to talk or you might keep all of your emotions inside. Grief is when we are expressing all of the love or any other feelings we have for the person who has died. We might also grieve when our pet dies.

How might I feel?

• Sad
• Angry
• Confused
• Detached - as though this is not real or really happening
• Frightened
• Overwhelmed
• Upset and distressed - when all these feelings are inside us
• Guilt
• Panic and worry
• Helpless
• Numb

All of these feelings are normal when someone you love has died.

It’s really important to find someone you can trust and share your feelings with them. This might be a family member, a friend, or a place like Star Bereavement who help children and young people with their grief feelings.

It’s also normal to sometimes forget about your grief, to feel happy when we think of a happy memory or time, to have fun and take breaks from grieving and its normal to dream about the person who has died. These dreams might be nice and peaceful or scary and not nice.

Am I normal?

YES!! When someone or something important to us dies it is one of the biggest and most painful things anyone can experience, its completely normal to need a bit of help.

All grief feelings are normal. Grieving is healthy and the more you can share your feelings the easier it will become.

Trauma

When someone very important to us dies, especially if this is a parent, a sibling or someone who cared for us a lot (this could be someone else who was a parent figure to us or a friend) we experience something called trauma. We often describe the death of someone we love as a traumatic life event or traumatic experience.