Grief & Anxiety: The overlooked emotion

When people speak of grief and loss, often the most common emotions and feelings that we hear are ones such as sadness, numbness, disbelief or anger, perhaps guilt and confusion.

Rarely do we read or hear about people suffering from anxiety that even cause panic attacks. However, it is a very common emotion people experience after the death of a loved one, and yet it is so often overlooked or goes unmentioned.

Feeling anxious makes sense

It is understandable that loss makes us anxious. There is nothing more immediate than the death of a loved one, or the imminent death of a loved one, to remind us of life’s unpredictability. We realise there is so much we have no control over.

Nothing pulls the rug from underneath us more violently than the death of a loved one, or the anticipatory grief and loss we feel when a loved one is dying. For many it is as if they enter an unknown territory.

What is normal?

It is normal to feel afraid about this new future, to worry about how we are going to cope without our loved one. Sometimes it can be a very real concern of how someone is going to manage financially especially if the person who has died was the main breadwinner.

How will someone cope alone after years of being a couple? What will happen if I become ill, or die? Children often worry about the remaining, living parent dying after a parent dies. However, sometimes that worry turns into anxiety that can literally stop someone in their tracks. It may feel as if you are paralysed. You may even experience panic attacks.

Panic attacks

In her book Anxiety The Missing Stage of Grief, Claire Bidwell Smith describes her first panic attack at the age of eighteen following the death of her mother and during her father’s reoccurrence of cancer that would end in his death. She thought she was having a heart attack and ended up in the emergency room.

It took many years to get the help she needed, but she did and then became a grief therapist herself and now helps many so they do not suffer as she did for so long. For anyone suffering, her book is a hands-on approach to looking at anxiety with practical exercises and suggestions to manage it.

What is anxiety?

Anxiety affects us physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Physically you may have symptoms such as:

• A racing heart
• Dizziness
• Shortness of breath
• Sweating
• Dry Mouth
• Shaking
• Constant Fatigue

Mentally, you many find yourself thinking:

• I’m going to die
• I’ll never get through this
• I can’t cope
• I’m going mad
• I can’t concentrate or think straight

Behaviourally you may find yourself:

• Avoiding certain places and people in case you start feeling anxious
• Isolating from friends and family
• Needing to be reassured constantly
• Needing to feel safe – perhaps staying home a lot
• Having trouble speaking and expressing yourself

Emotionally you may find yourself feeling:

• Panicked
• Overwhelmed
• Confused
• Scared
• Jumpy
• Irritable

Reach out

If symptoms persist, it is important not to isolate more. Reach out for help:

• Talk to your GP
• Call BSN to get support and resources.

What helps?

Some of the links and books here below have suggestions of specific techniques you might want to try, such as:

• Journaling
• Square Breathing – a specific type of breathing that can help calm your nervous system
• 5,4,3,2,1 technique that may help to ground you in the present

Clare Bidwell Smith in her book talks about meditation and mindfulness as helpful tools, along with what she calls retraining the brain to reframe catastrophic thinking and to change thought patterns and behaviour.

Therapeutic support

For some people these suggestions might be enough to support them, for others, seeking the help of a qualified professional therapist might be needed. Ms. Bidwell Smith suggests looking for therapists who are trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as it has successful results in treating anxiety.

You are not alone

Whatever you do, know that some anxiety is not unusual. It is quite normal. You are not going crazy. But this does not make it easier or less intrusive.

If anxiety is interfering with you being functional, don’t delay. Get help. Talk to someone, so you can work out what is going to help you most. At BSN trained volunteers are ready to listen and support or signpost you to professionals if needed. You are not alone.

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