Surviving Grief: What They Won't Tell You To Expect, But I Will.

Everyone experiences Grief differently. However, I am going to tell you three things that happen to everyone universally when they are grieving. Then, I will share the ways to overcome each of the three things I've listed.

Grief requires isolation and solitude.

• Nobody wants to be around sad people. In the beginning, before and during the funeral services, maybe a week or so after the services, everyone will be there for you. Friends, associates, and lots of family will be present when the death in the family is fresh. A week or two after the funeral, they're gone. The calls will stop coming, the text messages will end, and you'll look up, and nobody is there. Your life has momentarily stopped and has altered forever. Everyone else continues as if nothing happened because it's not happening to them. Without the support of those who were once there in the beginning, it can become a lonely place.

• The moment your support system disappears after everything is over, we who are still grieving will begin to feel as if everyone left us alone because our sadness is starting to become a burden.

• So, we isolate ourselves to overcome the feeling of being a burden to everyone we love who promised to be there for us but did not keep their promises. Isolation will become your safe space. You can move about at your own pace and on your own terms. No one will be around rushing you to heal.

• You don't have to accommodate to meet anyone's expectations of where they feel you should be in your Grief or where they want you to be. People don't want to be bothered with your depressed stage of Grief.

• If people don't want to be present at your lowest, cut them off and don't invite them back in at your highest. No one is entitled to you at your best if they can't stand to be around you at your worst.  

  Grief will require you to cut off your closest family members.

• As I've stated, Grief is lonely. The reason is your family may grieve differently. In a Black household, you learn to avoid Grief. In the era of slavery, Enslavers killed our families in front of us to scare us, teach a lesson, and prove a point. Historically, Black families struggle with showing emotion when someone they love dies. If we showed emotion, it would give enslavers the satisfaction they desired to keep the oppressed mentally enslaved. In small acts of resistance, Black people chose to rebel by showing no emotion.

        Black people were stoic. You could not break us.

• Unfortunately, although slavery has ended, Black families are still stoic today. This pride has been carried from generation to generation, leaving our people mentally underdeveloped.

• For this reason, the closest family members you expect to grieve with will leave you to grieve by yourself: your siblings, parents, or grandparents.

• I tried to grieve with my adult sister after our father passed away in 2023. She made fun of me, told me she couldn't deal with my Grief, and stated I needed to seek mental help as if my Grief was causing me to go crazy. We haven't spoken since.

• To overcome family members hurting you while you grieve, you let them go. Family fail to realize that their words and actions can set you back in your Grief after you've come so far along to get into the healthy mental space you were in to open up to them.

• So, stop opening up. If your family is closed off with you, you do the same. It may be lonely, but you'll appreciate the alone time while grieving because it's comforting.                                                                 

      Grief is lonely and metaphorically paralyzing

• "Grief is love, with nowhere to go"- Jamie Anderson.

• When you're grieving, your friends and associates are there for the moment, but soon, the outings will continue without you. Yes, you'll receive an invite, but friends who have never experienced real Grief will never understand how Grief can leave you paralyzed mentally. You'll feel stuck in the same place, space, and chair in a room you never want to come out of again. Your heart will feel so heavy that it'll feel like it's filled with blood clots waiting to explode and kill you. You'll want to stay still. You can die of a broken heart. We don't talk about this enough.

• Your friends, family, and associates will tip-toe around you, waiting for you to get better, and won't invite you to anything else until you do because your Grief will bring down the morale of the gathering. Soon, you will want to be alone because you're now aware that nobody wants to be around you while you're grieving, so you won't kill the vibes in the room.

• That's okay. Be alone. Don't be afraid of it. Embrace loneliness. For me, being alone has become my safe space. I can always count on myself. I'll never disappoint myself as others have disappointed me. Being alone gives me the time and space to heal properly. Being alone is peaceful and removes the hardship of dealing with other people's drama while trying to nurse my broken heart back to health.

• Oftentimes, people won't know how to comfort you in your Grief because the truth is that there's nothing they can say or do to comfort you. Grief is forever. You can never bring your loved one back. What can one say or do to comfort you?

• So, instead, your friends and associates will try to compare your Grief with someone else's who they know is experiencing the same thing as you. They'll try to compare your Grief to theirs when it's not remotely the same as what you're going through. Your friends will do this to show you that if they can get through what they've experienced or someone else has experienced, then you should, too. It's dismissive. They want you to hurry up and move on so life between you all can go back to normal.

• You overcome this by cutting them loose. Whoever is not with you in the rain doesn't deserve your sunshine. Please do not allow them to come back into your light after you've pulled yourself through the darkness.  

      Grief feels like Abandonment

• You will feel abandoned by your family and friends. Depending on how your loved one passed away, you will also feel abandoned by the deceased. It's completely normal. I've found grief counseling to be beneficial to my feelings of Abandonment by my deceased mother. She didn't commit suicide, but she was diagnosed with a disease that she could have controlled to live a little longer. Unfortunately, she never accepted her diagnosis, and after 18 years of living with the disease, she passed away due to not taking her medication correctly.

  
  

     Grief requires you to start a whole new life and find your new identity without the ones you love and have lost. You'll become a new person after Grief. You'll become more humble for the simple things in life, grateful to have come out of dark spaces, and stronger than ever before you experienced Grief.

     You'll move on from the people in the past who promised to be there and weren't. Surprisingly, you'll become closer to strangers and appreciate the people you've known in passing but maybe weren't that close to. These people will be there for you with comforting words and give you the support you need.

     One thing's for sure, two things for certain:

• If you plan to outlive your parents, your time will come. The thing that people who have grieved the loss of their parents don't want to talk about is how we don't want to revisit our Grief, trying to be there for the same people who left us in the dark to overcome our Grief alone.

Where am I currently in my Grief?

• I am currently in the stage of Depression. I'm doing better than I was when my mom first passed away last year in June of 2024, but I am still struggling with Depression. My most prominent symptom of Depression is a broken heart. There is hope, and with time, it gets better. My biggest accomplishment is listening to music in the car again. Music is my life, and I don't miss a beat. I struggled initially because my mom and I loved the same music from her era and mine. Every song I've ever loved reminded me of her. Instead of playing music in the car, I listened to True Crime Podcasts. Listening to Podcasters talk through the radio as if they were in the car with me gave me comfort. I never felt alone. Since I've become fully invested in True Crime stories, I listen to music and podcasts. With time, music doesn't hurt to listen to anymore.

What am I doing to help me overcome the depressive stage of Grief?

• Crying. Crying releases natural endorphins. Crying it out is a natural pain reliever. I don't hold in my emotions or my tears. I let it out no matter where I am to relieve the pressure of my broken heart.

• Patience. Time heals all. As cliche as this may sound, it is the truth. Time makes it easier to accept because death leaves you no other choice.

  
  

          The loss of my mother was so life-altering for me because she has been the one constant in my life that I could always count on to be present and be there for me. I know what it's like to stop talking to family and lose a friend, but I've never been without my mother. My mom made it easier to walk away from family and friends that didn't suit me because all I ever needed was her. All my life, she's all I ever had until I didn't. She died. No one will ever have your back like your mother. She provided a constant sense of familiarity, comfort, and safety. Losing my mother put me in a place of loneliness.

     But over time, I know from experience that the heart magically begins to heal. The pain is so unbearable that you'll do anything you can to rush time to engage the healing process faster. But with time and patience, your heart will slowly heal. You can't pour alcohol or peroxide on a bandage and wrap your heart in it. You must cry it out, release those endorphins, and patiently wait until time heals all. Grief takes between 6 months to 2 years to process. Give yourself grace.

Endorphins are natural pain relievers. Here is a list of activities I do to cope with Grief.

• Cry it out until your heart relieves the weight and pressure.

• Grief Counseling. Talking to someone who can help you navigate Grief will become your number 1 support system.

• Exercising. Work out at the gym and eat healthy. You'll feel accomplished.

• Journaling. Writing down all your intrusive thoughts allows you to answer your questions and give you clarity.

• Showering/Batheing. Therapeutic and soothing.

• Enjoying nature and fresh air, taking walks without headphones, and listening to life's business, reminds you to appreciate your own.

• Watching Comedy-based family TV shows. Family TV shows remind you to spend time with the loved ones you have left and enjoy their company with memories and laughter. You don't want to look up one day and lose another family member that you didn't get the chance to spend time with because you buried yourself in past Grief.

• Reality TV Drama. Sometimes, we all like to invest in drama that's not our own. We hate to admit it.

• TikTok makes me laugh daily. There are also people in social media groups struggling with Grief. You're never alone in a support group through social media.

To overcome Grief is to put yourself first.

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