Grief and Loss

Grief is what happens when you lose something that mattered. That is usually a person, but it does not have to be. People grieve relationships, jobs, health, identity, the life they thought they were going to have. If it meant something to you and it is gone, the pain that follows is grief.

There is no correct way to grieve and no timeline for it. The idea that grief moves through neat stages and then resolves is one of the most unhelpful things our culture has produced. In reality it is messy, unpredictable, and it does not care about your schedule.

Some days you are fine. Other days something catches you off guard and it hits like the first day all over again. A song, a smell, a Tuesday afternoon for no reason at all.

You might feel numb rather than sad. You might feel angry and not know what to do with it. You might be functioning perfectly well on the outside while something inside feels permanently broken. You might feel guilty for laughing, guilty for moving on, guilty for not moving on fast enough.

People around you might have stopped asking how you are. They assume you are through it because time has passed. But grief does not work to other people's expectations. It takes as long as it takes, and pretending otherwise just pushes it underground where it finds other ways to surface.

Counselling offers something that most people in your life cannot. A space where your grief does not need to be managed, wrapped up, or made more comfortable for someone else. You can say what you actually feel without worrying about upsetting anyone or being told it is time to move on.

Your counsellor will not try to fix your grief. That is not the point and it is not possible. What they will do is sit with you in it, help you make sense of what you are experiencing, and gently support you in finding a way to carry it that does not consume everything else.

Some people come for a few sessions. Others come for longer. There is no right amount of time and no pressure either way.

If you are carrying something heavy and have run out of places to put it, a conversation might help. Your first session is free and you do not need to have the words for what you are feeling before you get in touch.