6 ways to support someone who is grieving
Supporting someone who is grieving can be a delicate and challenging experience. As a psychotherapist who frequently workswith those in grief, I have had the privilege of sitting with many individuals during their most vulnerable moments as they work through their grief.
The therapeutic relationship allows me a unique insight into the world of loss and bereavment. There are so often complex dynamics at play within families and other groups when there has been a significant loss. As I am a person outside of those dynamics my clients are often able to be more open with me about what is helpful and unhelpful to them while grieving.
This openness has given me many valuable insights into the grief process, and I hope sharing them will make a meaningful difference in the lives of those who are mourning.
Whether you are a friend, family member, or caregiver, my hope for you is that you will be better able to support your loved one as they grieve.
1.Accept you won’t say the right thing
My first tip if you are supporting someone who is grieving is to accept that you won’t say the right thing.
Grief is unpredictable. Usually people who are grieving are so distressed that they are angry or upset with those around them no matter what they say or do.
I often think of a grieving client who opened a session talking about how much he hated it when people said ‘sorry for your loss’ or similar. He ranted that he found it intrusive and pointless and he often left the situation as quickly as he could once someone had said it.
We began to speak of other things relating to his loss, and then towards the end of his session he mentioned someone in his life who had never said ‘sorry for your loss’ to him, and how angry he was at this person for being so rude and never acknowledging his grief.
I pointed out the discrepancy, that he was angry both at people who acknowledged his loss and angry at people who didn’t acknowledge it.
Of course, he knew deep down that he was just angry. Angry at what had been taken from him and he was putting his anger onto those around him. Once we acknowledged that anger he was able to work with it in therapy.
This kind of situation is so common in grief. There was nothing those around him could say to him that wouldn’t have made him angry at that point in his grief. The most compassionate thing they could do was to accept that they wouldn’t say the right thing and keep talking to him, allowing him to be angry and moody at times, knowing that it would pass as he worked through his grief with their support.
2. Understand that everyone grieves differently
Something I hear really often is that my clients feel pressure from someone in their life to grieve in a certain way. Often this is really well intentioned, this person has found something that helped them while grieving and they want to share it.
Or sometimes, people supporting my clients buy into myths about grief, that it's unhealthy to still talk to the person who has died or that there is a certain frequency of visiting the grave that is ‘appropriate’.
However, what my clients really need is for those around them to understand that everyone grieves differently and that what works for them won’t work for everyone.
It is possible to have a prolonged or complicated grief disorder, and you can read some more about that here. However, outside of this, understand that your loved one may do things differently from you while grieving and that’s ok.
Also on this topic, understand that everyone’s timeline for grief is different. Just because you felt ok to do certain things at a certain point after a loss doesn’t mean that they will be the same.
3. Notice the disenfranchised grievers
Disenfranchised grief refers to the people who are grieving but whose grief is not recognised by most of society.
Some common types of grief that goes unrecognised by others includes:
Death where the significance of the relationship isn’t recognised by others e.g. the death of a same-sex partner for someone who is not ‘out’, the death of an affair partner, the death of a casual friend, the death of an ex-partner, death of a pet.
Non-death losses e.g. loss of a job, loss of a community, dementia diagnosis, loss of health, infertility.
Stigmatised losses e.g. miscarriage or stillbirth, suicide bereavement, drug and alcohol related deaths.
People whose capacity to grieve isn’t recognised e.g. children, people with intellectual disabilities or mental health conditions are often not recognised as grieving by those around them.
If someone shares with you that they have had a loss such as this, be aware that they may not have much support from those around them. If you can, try to find a way to acknowledge that they have had a significant loss and that they may be grieving. Offer them whatever support is appropriate for their situation and your relationship with them.
4. Never say the words ‘at least’
Please, if there’s one thing you take from this article, never say the words ‘at least’ to someone who is grieving.
So, so often I hear from clients who feel that their grief has been dismissed by well meaning people who try to tell them the way their situation could be ‘worse’.
All this does is make them feel that there is something wrong with them for how they are feeling, that because their situation isn’t ‘worse’ they shouldn’t be as upset as they are.
Occasionally, the griever themselves will use the words ‘at least’ about some aspect of the loss that they can take comfort from e.g. “at least they didn’t suffer.”
Of course, this is fine but please, wait for them to do it and if you can, acknowledge that the loss is still difficult for them e.g. “Yes, it's great to know they didn’t suffer, but I’m sure it must still be hard for you without them.”
5. Let them tell their story over and over again
Something that I didn’t fully understand before I started working with grieving people is how common it is for people to need to tell the story of their loss over and over again. I know now that this is part of the first task of mourning, ‘Accepting the reality of the loss.’
For a bereaved person, they will often want to tell the story of the days around the time of the person's death over and over again. This helps them to fully process what is often a distressing and surreal experience.
I am always happy to let my clients tell their story as many times as they need to. However, I know that they sometimes tell me that other people in their life get frustrated with them. I can understand that frustration, because if you don’t understand the reason for the repetition it can be confusing.
So please, understand that if you are able to give your loved one a listening ear for an hour, you are truly helping them to complete one of the tasks of mourning and to begin to accept the reality of their loss.
6. Make specific suggestions for ways you could help
We’ve all said it to someone who is grieving “let me know if there’s anything I can do to help?”. But how many of us have been taken up on the offer? I’d imagine very few, because as I often hear from clients who are grieving, they don’t know what help they need or if they do know, they don’t have the energy to ask for it.
Brain fog and exhaustion are common symptoms of grief, so try to take the load off your loved one and make specific suggestions for ways you could help them.
The kind of suggestions you make will depend how close you are to them, but if you are very close then straight after the loss, you could ask if they want you to call anyone to let them know about the death. Or ask if they need a lift to the funeral home, or help choosing the funeral arrangements. If you’re not as close, in a week's time you could call and say you're in the shop, can you drop anything over? Or ask if they need their dog walked or their grass cut. Specific offers are easier to say yes or no to, and make it clear that you really do want to do something to help them.
There’s a thousand more suggestions I could make about supporting those who are grieving, but I’ve tried to include the things that come up most often as causing difficulties for my clients who attend for grief counselling.
I hope that anyone who is trying to support someone who is grieving will find this article useful. If you’re not sure if your support is enough and you think that your loved one could benefit from professional counselling or psychotherapy, please do get in touch.
