Grief is something we all experience at one point in our lives.

Those who have lost a loved one often experience diverse symptoms, including anger, blame, guilt, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, isolation; physiological sensations (i.e., hollowness in stomach, tightness in chest and throat, oversensitivity to noise, weakness, shortness of breath, lack of energy, dry mouth, depersonalization, etc.); cognitive disturbances (i.e., disbelief, confusion, preoccupation, sense of presence, and hallucinations); and behavior changes (i.e., sleep and eating disturbances, distractibility, dreams of the deceased, restlessness, sighing, crying, treasuring objects from the deceased, etc.)1. As you can imagine, experiencing some or all these symptoms can be tiring and may have an impact in your overall functioning.   

When someone experiences grief, people often wonder if what they are going through is normal or not, or if they are the only ones suffering this much. Elizabeth Kubler Ross, a well-recognized author in the work of grief and grieving, suggests that grieving people go through 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance2.  Different researchers and mental health professionals agree that these stages are not lineal, some people may experience sadness then anger, and go back to denial as they experienced at the beginning, making them feel confused and wonder if they are making any progress at healing from their loss.