When we lose someone or something important, a question almost always appears, often from those around us and then from inside us too: when will you get over it? As if there were a correct course, a timeline, a right way to grieve. The truth, though, is more human and more comforting: there is no right way to grieve.
Grief is not tidy stages
We often hear about stages of grief, as if it were a path with a clear beginning and end that you cross step by step until you reach acceptance. Experience, though, is rarely so tidy. Grief does not move in a straight line. It comes in waves, recedes and returns, catches you off guard on days you thought you were fine, in a smell, a song, a photograph, an empty seat at the table. This does not mean you are going backwards or that something is wrong. It means you are grieving as a human being, not as a diagram.
There is no right way or right time
Some people cry a great deal, others cannot cry at all. Some want to talk about the loss constantly, others fall silent. Some throw themselves into work or into caring for everyone else. None of these responses is wrong. Each person grieves in their own way and in their own time, and that deserves respect, first of all from themselves. The aim is not to get over the loss, as if it were an obstacle. It is to find a way to keep living alongside it.
Grief is not stages that end, but a relationship that changes its shape.
Grief is not only about death
We often forget that we grieve far more than the death of a loved one. We grieve relationships that ended, jobs that were lost, places we left behind. We grieve versions of ourselves that no longer exist, lives we imagined and that never came to be, dreams we had to let go. All of these are real losses, and they deserve the same space and the same tenderness as any other grief.
What can help
There is no recipe, but there are some things that often ease the road.
- Give yourself permission to feel whatever you feel, without judging it as right or wrong.
- Do not force yourself into a timeline set by others.
- Keep, where you can, some steady points in daily life, even small ones.
- Find ways to remember, rather than pushing yourself to forget.
- Let some people come close, even if your first impulse is to withdraw.
A space so you do not carry it alone
Therapy does not erase the pain of loss, and it does not promise to cure you of grief. What it can offer is a space where you do not have to carry it alone, where you can speak freely about the person who is gone or the thing that was lost, without anyone rushing you to move on. At thestherapy we are a team of psychologists in Thessaloniki, offering sessions in Greek and in English, in person and online. Whenever you are ready, this space is here for you.