Grief & Loss

Everyone can need support and back up during a difficult time

Grief & Loss

Grief is one of those things everyone experiences eventually, but somehow we’re never really prepared for how it actually feels.

Here’s what I want you to know: grief isn’t just about death, though that’s often what people think of first. You can grieve the end of a relationship, the loss of your health, a job you loved, the version of yourself you used to be, the future you thought you’d have, or the sense of safety you once felt in the world. All of these losses are real, and all of them deserve space to be mourned.

If grief is taking up significant space in your life, making it hard to function, leaving you feeling stuck or isolated, or showing up in ways that feel overwhelming or confusing, therapy can help. Not by making the grief go away—because it doesn’t just disappear—but by helping you learn to carry it in a way that doesn’t crush you.

So What Does Grief Actually Feel Like?

Most people describe grief as coming in waves. Some days you feel almost okay, like you’re managing. Then something small—a song, a smell, a random Tuesday that would have been their birthday—knocks you sideways and you’re right back in it, sobbing in the grocery store parking lot or unable to get out of bed.

Grief can show up as deep sadness and longing—the ache of missing someone or something so much it physically hurts. But it can also look like anger (at them for leaving, at yourself for things unsaid, at the unfairness of it all), guilt (for moving forward, for laughing again, for not doing enough), or complete emotional numbness where you feel disconnected from everything and everyone.

Some people describe it as disorientation, like the world shifted on its axis and nothing feels quite right anymore. You go through the motions—work, meals, conversations—but it all feels hollow or far away. Your brain feels foggy. You can’t concentrate. Sleep becomes either impossible or the only escape you have.

And here’s what makes grief so hard: people expect you to “get over it” on some invisible timeline. After a few weeks, they stop asking how you are. After a few months, they seem uncomfortable when you bring it up. The world moves on, and you’re supposed to move on too—except you can’t, because the loss is still there every single day.

What Grief Is — And What It Definitely Isn’t

Let me be really clear about something: grief is not a problem to be solved or a checklist of stages to complete. Those “five stages” you’ve heard about? They’re not a roadmap. Most people don’t move through them in order. Many cycle through them multiple times, skip some entirely, or feel several at once.

Grief is the natural response to loss. It reflects how deeply you cared, how meaningful the connection was, and how significantly the loss has changed your life.

Grief is not:

• A sign of weakness or lack of resilience
• Something you should be “over” by now
• A linear process with a clear endpoint
• The same for everyone (even people grieving the same loss)
• Something you can just “stay busy” and avoid

Grief is deeply personal. How you grieve is shaped by who you lost (or what you lost), your relationship with them, your history, your personality, your support system, and a thousand other factors. There’s no right way to do this.

What Grief Looks Like in Your Life

Grief doesn’t show up the same way for everyone, and it can change over time. Here’s what you might notice:

In your emotions:

• Deep sadness, longing, or emptiness
• Anger—at the person who died, at yourself, at the situation, at other people who still have what you lost
• Guilt or regret about things said or unsaid, done or not done
• Anxiety about other losses, or fear that you’re losing your mind
• Numbness or emotional detachment, like you’re just going through the motions
• Relief (if the loss followed long suffering), then guilt about feeling relieved

In your thoughts:

• Difficulty concentrating or remembering things
• Intrusive thoughts or images related to the loss
• Rumination—replaying conversations, wondering “what if,” obsessing over details
• Feeling preoccupied with the person or what was lost
• Questioning your beliefs, faith, or sense of meaning

In your body:

• Exhaustion or heaviness, like everything requires enormous effort
• Changes in sleep—insomnia, nightmares, sleeping too much
• Changes in appetite—eating too much, not eating at all, nothing tastes right
• Physical pain—chest tightness, stomach problems, headaches, body aches
• Feeling like you’re moving through water or fog

In your life:

• Withdrawing from friends, family, or activities
• Difficulty engaging with work, parenting, or daily responsibilities
• Avoiding places, people, or things that remind you of the loss
• Feeling disconnected from people who “don’t get it”
• Struggling to find joy or meaning in anything

Why Grief Feels So Physical

Here’s something important to understand: grief doesn’t just live in your mind—it lives in your body.

When you lose someone or something significant, your nervous system registers it as a threat to your safety and stability. Your body goes into survival mode. Some people’s nervous systems get stuck on high alert—anxious, hypervigilant, unable to settle. Others shut down—numb, exhausted, disconnected.

This is why grief is so physically exhausting. Why you can sleep for 12 hours and still feel tired. Why your chest feels tight or your stomach hurts. Why you can’t think straight. Your nervous system is trying to process an enormous disruption to your sense of safety and connection in the world.

This is also why people telling you to “just think positive” or “focus on the good memories” doesn’t work. Grief isn’t something you can think your way out of. Your body needs to process it, not just your mind.

What Makes Grief More Complicated

For some people, grief gets stuck or becomes more overwhelming because of specific factors:

Sudden or traumatic loss — When there’s no time to prepare, no chance to say goodbye, or the death was violent or traumatic, grief often gets tangled with shock and trauma responses.

Ambiguous loss — When someone is physically gone but not dead (dementia, estrangement, missing persons), or physically present but psychologically absent, grief has nowhere to land. You can’t fully mourn someone who’s still “there.”

Unresolved conflict — If the relationship was complicated, abusive, or ended with things unsaid, grief often comes with intense guilt, anger, or confusion about how you’re “supposed” to feel.

Lack of support — When people around you minimize the loss (“At least you have other kids,” “You can get remarried,” “It was just a pet”), don’t understand it (miscarriage, job loss, divorce), or expect you to be over it quickly, isolation makes grief harder to bear.

Multiple losses — When losses pile up close together, you don’t get a chance to process one before the next hits. Grief compounds.

Pressure to be okay — If you’re the one everyone else is leaning on, or if your role demands you hold it together (single parent, caregiver, leader), you may not give yourself permission to fully grieve.

Understanding these patterns can help you move toward self-compassion rather than self-judgment. You’re not grieving “wrong”—you’re dealing with complicating factors.

“But Should I Really Be in Therapy for Grief?”

This is a question I hear often, especially from people who think grief is “normal” and therefore doesn’t need professional support.

Here’s my answer: Yes, grief is normal. But that doesn’t mean you have to go through it alone or that it can’t become overwhelming enough to warrant help.

Therapy isn’t just for diagnosed mental illnesses. It’s for any time you’re struggling and could use support, tools, and someone who understands what you’re going through.

Here are the other concerns I hear:

“Won’t talking about it make it worse?” I understand this worry—sometimes it feels safer to just avoid the pain. But here’s the thing: the grief doesn’t go away because you’re not talking about it. It just sits there, taking up space, affecting everything. Therapy gives you a safe place to process it at your own pace.

“I don’t want to ‘get over’ them.” Good therapy doesn’t push you to “get over” your loss or “find closure” (whatever that means). It helps you find ways to continue your relationship with the person or what was lost—to carry them with you rather than leaving them behind.

“It’s been [months/years], shouldn’t I be over this by now?” There’s no expiration date on grief. Some losses change us permanently. If it still hurts, it still hurts. You’re not doing it wrong.

“Other people have it worse.” Grief isn’t a competition. Your loss matters. Your pain is valid. Someone else’s “worse” loss doesn’t make yours disappear.

These hesitations are completely normal—and they’re often part of what keeps people stuck longer than they need to be.

Grief Across Different Life Stages

Grief can look different depending on your age, role, and what else is happening in your life.

Children may not have the words to express grief, so it shows up through behavior—regression, clinginess, acting out, or physical complaints. They might seem fine one minute and inconsolable the next. They need help understanding that death (or loss) is permanent and it’s not their fault.

Teens often grieve while also navigating identity development and peer relationships. They might intellectualize their grief, minimize it to fit in, or express it through anger or risky behavior. They need space to grieve in their own way while still having boundaries and support.

Adults often carry grief while managing work, parenting, caregiving, or other major responsibilities. They may feel pressure to “keep it together” for others, leaving little room to process their own pain. Grief can also trigger existential questions about meaning, purpose, and mortality.

Parenting while grieving is especially hard because you’re trying to support your children through their grief while barely holding yourself together. Your emotional availability is compromised, your patience is thin, and you might feel like you’re failing everyone.

Couples often grieve differently, which can create distance and misunderstanding. One partner might need to talk; the other might need space. One might cry; the other might stay busy. Without understanding that different doesn’t mean wrong, grief can strain even strong relationships.

How Change Actually Happens

Let me be honest with you: grief doesn’t have a finish line. You don’t “complete” it and move on. The goal isn’t to stop grieving—it’s to learn how to carry the grief alongside the rest of your life.

Early in therapy, we often focus on just getting you through the day. Building coping skills. Supporting your nervous system. Making sure you’re sleeping, eating, and staying connected to people who care about you.

As therapy progresses, we work on processing the loss—the memories, the regrets, the unfinished business, the meaning of the relationship. We explore how to maintain connection to who or what was lost while still engaging with your life as it is now.

Over time—and I mean real time, measured in months and sometimes years—many people find:

• The waves of grief become less frequent and less intense (but they still come)
• They can think about the person or loss without falling apart
• They can hold both grief and joy at the same time
• They’ve integrated the loss into their story rather than being defined by it
• They’ve found ways to honor what was lost while still moving forward

Progress isn’t linear. Anniversaries, holidays, and unexpected triggers will still knock you down. But gradually, the grief becomes something you carry rather than something that carries you.

How We Actually Work With Grief & Loss

Here’s the thing about grief therapy: there’s no script or formula because everyone’s loss is different and everyone’s grief is unique. What we do is figure out what YOU need—whether that’s space to talk about the person you lost, tools to manage overwhelming emotions, help repairing relationships strained by grief, or support navigating the practical realities of life after loss—and we build a treatment plan that actually fits where you are right now.

Depending on what you need, we might use:

Grief-informed talk therapy — This is about creating space to tell the story of your loss, process the emotions that come with it, explore what the person or thing you lost meant to you, and figure out how to maintain connection while still living your life. Sometimes the most healing thing is just being truly heard and validated by someone who gets it.

Emotionally focused approaches — Grief doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It affects your relationships—with partners, children, family, friends. We explore how grief is showing up in your connections with others and help you communicate your needs, understand different grieving styles, and stay connected even when grief makes you want to withdraw.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) — This explores the different “parts” of you that are responding to the loss—the part that’s angry, the part that feels guilty, the part that wants to move on, the part that wants to stay stuck. We help those parts work together instead of fighting each other.

Somatic and nervous system-informed approaches — Grief lives in your body. These approaches help you process the physical toll of loss—the exhaustion, the tension, the shutdown, the hypervigilance. We work on regulating your nervous system so you can feel your feelings without being overwhelmed by them.

EMDR — If the loss was sudden, traumatic, or complicated by other traumatic experiences, EMDR can help process the trauma aspect of the grief so it’s not quite so raw and intrusive.

Mindfulness and grounding practices — When grief feels overwhelming, these tools help you stay present, tolerate difficult emotions, and find moments of peace even in the middle of pain.

We work collaboratively. We go at your pace. And we never push you to “let go” or “move on” before you’re ready. The goal is to help you find a way to live with the loss—to integrate it into your life rather than having it take over your life.

A Final Word

Grief changes us. There’s no going back to who you were before the loss—that person doesn’t exist anymore. And that’s okay. It’s not about returning to “normal.” It’s about figuring out who you are now, in this new reality, carrying this loss.

With support, many people find that grief doesn’t have to isolate them or overwhelm them forever. They learn to hold both the grief and the joy, the loss and the life that continues. The person or thing they lost becomes part of their story—an important chapter, but not the only one.

You don’t have to carry this alone.

Bellevue Family Counseling provides grief counseling in Bellevue, WA (98004) and via telehealth across Washington State. We serve clients in Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Sammamish, Issaquah, and the greater Eastside. To get started, call (425) 947-5030.