Month: August 2017

Our worlds can become very small after the loss of a loved one. Grief can create blinders that make it hard to see past anything but our own pain and anguish. It can be challenging to get the help we need and to know how to be supportive…in the past we may have turned to friends and family when we’re hurting, but what happens when they’ve also been
impacted by this loss? Can we get the help we need, and is it possible to be supportive when we’re grieving too?

When I first started facilitating bereavement groups, I sort of assumed that people would be coming for help for “just” one loss. Of course one loss is more than enough…it’s already too much. Yet so many grievers I met were experiencing multiple losses.

And while in most of my writings the word “loss” pertains only to the physical loss of a person, for the sake of this piece I’m going to discuss all types of losses. Because let’s face it, as hard as the tangible loss of a loved one is, so can the other losses we experience in life add up and tear us down just as swiftly.

Here are a few examples of the multiple losses a griever can face: