Delayed Grief: the Hidden Emotional Pain

How delayed grief manifests, and how can you overcome it.

Grief: everybody knows what it is. Even if you haven’t felt it, you know that causes emotional suffering; that it involves a powerful range of negative emotions.

Accepting the loss of a loved one is hard — perhaps the hardest thing one goes through in life.

For some, losing a loved one can be so hard that they shut their emotions off, their mind refuses to accept the loss. Instead of going through the normative process of grief — immediate emotional suffering -, they have delayed grief.

What is delayed grief

Delayed grief has the same emotional frame than the normative grief; however, it manifests itself long after the event. The emotional distress caused by the loss will emerge only months or even years after the actual loss.

Because the emotional pain is muted — it exists, but it is disregarded — it becomes chronic pain; a numb one. The griever won’t face the loss and, consequently, won’t manage the emotions that come with it.

What causes delayed grief?

There are several reasons why you might experience delayed grief. Sometimes, the immediate grief can be too overwhelming to cope with, so you put off coming to terms with your loss until later. Shock and denial can play a big part here.

Another reason for delayed grief is that you freeze the emotions for “after the funeral.” Until then, you must deal with all the arrangements that suddenly were dropped in your life: funeral arrangements, routines adjustments; financial adjustments, childcare. In particular, if it was an unexpected death, you will have a lot to deal with — your focus will be on everything except in grieving your loss. And then, after the funeral, other “priorities” will keep showing up, delaying the grieving process.

It’s also not unusual for people to set their grief aside when they are pillars in the family; when they are “the strong ones.” When you are expected to be the one who will comfort others, you will hide your pain; you must inspire them to “be strong.” This can happen due to your own expectations or to external ones: your family or friends expect you to assume that role.

Delayed grief also happens when there is a pressing matter requiring your attention, like a divorce, an imminent change in your job, or a pregnancy. Those things will become an impediment to your grief process.

Delayed grief isn’t asymptomatic

Despite the inexistence of the usual manifestation of grief - sadness, crying, depression — delayed grief will manifest itself, just in different ways.

You are in denial of grieving; you will keep living your life as you did, before your loss: you will go to work and be efficient, your routines are unshakable, your house is in a pristine condition, and you even keep going to the gym and having coffee with friends. It’s easier to continue living as if nothing has happened.

You will hide from loss; it’s too painful to deal with. Your routines are the safest place to be, they are familiar, they won’t hurt you.

You know that sooner or later, the emotional pain will strike you. You are aware that you are using avoidance as a coping mechanism. You will have to face the hard emotions, but only when you feel ready, you keep saying to yourself.

What you might fail to realize is that delayed grief isn’t asymptomatic, much the opposite: it manifests in many ways, all damaging to your physical and mental health.

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. C. S. Lewis

How delayed grief manifests

While in normative grief you experience the acute emotional pain immediately, in delayed grief, you froze the suffering. Your brain convinces you to deal with it “when you’re ready.” But you can’t shut out your emotions: you can hide them, pretend they don't’ exist, but you can’t ever eliminate them. Grief will shift into different forms.

These are the most common manifestations of delayed grief:

Stress and anxiety disorders
Sleeping problems (sleeping too much or suffering from insomnia)
Hypersensitivity to emotions — unexpected events, even small ones, can take exaggerated proportions
Eating disorders and/or addictive behaviours
Refusal to talk or even think about the person who died
Avoid places and events that remind you of your loved one
Psychosomatic symptoms like digestive problems, allergies, headaches, muscle pain, or skin problems
Lack of plans for your future, even an immediate one. You will not set life goals
Self-isolation
Lack of empath (the internal suffering will mist everything)
Trouble in concentrating or focusing on simple tasks

Grief has no expiry date

The emotional pain caused by the loss of a loved one can last for years, even decades; it’s attached to everything you do and think. It’s like you are frozen in your grief.

The mental health risks of delayed grief

Because it endures in time, delayed grief will impact your mental health negatively.

Grief — either normative or delayed — like love, infatuation and any other emotion, is experienced subjectively. Each one of us feels and acts on it in different ways; according to our feelings, life experiences, memories and coping mechanisms.

We are unique; our responses to events and emotions vary. However, grief always means loss, and loss will always carry sadness.

Usually, grief causes not only sadness but also anger, confusion or despair. You might have heard of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Strong, powerful emotions are part of the grief process; some more intense than others, but all part of it.

Grieving is never a short nor a light experience. It’s intense, messy, hurtful. It turns our guts from the inside out; our heart is smashed; it feels like our soul died with our loved one.

As in anything, time will help the healing. But this applies to normative grief - in delayed grief, the times passes by, and the grief is still living in a façade, disguised under physical suffering and mental distress. You must come out of delayed grief and face your loss.

How to overcome delayed grief

When you deal with delayed grief, you are aware that sooner or later the emotional charge you’re repressing will come to the surface. It’s not about denying the grief, it’s about delaying it.

Often, one specific event or memory will act as a trigger; it will free all your repressed emotions. Sometimes it can be another loss, like a friend, a pet or a co-worker. When the unexpected event happens, the emotions it will trigger will be extremely hard to deal with. The grief of your loved one will hit you hard, in a way you are not prepared to. And now you have no choice: you will go through the grief process - no more hiding, your mind won’t allow it anymore.

To prevent this emotional turmoil to happen, there are some things you can do to safely come out of your delayed grief and face your loss:

Self-care

Stop caring so much about others and simply stop. It’s time to take care of yourself. Listen to your body, feel your mind and soul and provide to your needs.

You are the most important person! Even if you have children to care to, if you are not taken care of, how can you provide for them?

Start by having nutritious meals — three a day — and to get plenty of sleep. Ask your family or friends to babysit your kids if you have to, but to get some good sleep.

Self-care will be the first step to come out of delayed grief — but an honest one. You own it to yourself.

Get out of the isolation

Grief can be isolating. You need time alone; to cry, to feel sad, to be away from everybody else. They are not your loved one.

However, in delayed grief, isolation becomes a risk due to its duration. As delayed grief can last for a long time, being isolated from your friends and family while it lasts will put your mental health in serious risk.

Reach out to people close to you, to those that matter. You are not alone. Even if you think that you have no one, there are support groups, telephone helplines. There is always someone to talk to; there is always an oxygen supply somewhere.

Break the cycle of negative coping strategies

If you drink or use drugs to numb the emotional pain, seek help to end the cycle. Those strategies might help you in the short term but, as you well know, it’s a temporary fix, a dangerous one.

Don’t be afraid or ashame to ask for help. If you feel you can’t rely on your family or friends, talk to your doctor. Ask for help.

Journaling

Writing can be extremely therapeutic. You don’t have to show it to anyone; you don’t even have to read it after you’re done.

Writing down your emotions, your thoughts, whatever goes in your mind, it’s the perfect way to prevent things to accumulate inside you.

You don’t have to write about your loved one or yourself, at least not immediately. But in a way, the sense, the emotions you’re hiding from, will be attached to the words you’re writing down. You will be releasing your suffering.

Journaling will help you to manage your emotions and, in time, it will help you to face your fears and anguish. It will help you heal.

Consider Therapy

A therapist will be someone apart from your world, a person you can open to, someone who is expecting nothing from you, and that will provide you with healthier coping mechanisms.

Final thought

No one should be expecting you to grief in a specific way. It’s your life; it’s your emotions, you deal with them in your way.

Don’t (re)act how you think you should. Cry if you feel like it, shout, hide in a darkened room for hours or even days. Hug yourself as if your arms are the ones of your loved one; punch the pillow in angry when you awake from the dream you were having with the one you lost. Mute yourself, drown in your tears. Suffer.

Do whatever you want to do. Whatever you need to do. But don’t hide from grief. You lost a person you loved, and that is a sharp, deep pain. Unfortunately, you will have to face it and live through it.

In time, it will become easier. It might never stop hurting, but it will hurt less and less.

We never forget the ones we lost — we don’t have too. But we must stop suffering for them. We need to look back and smile. To think about them and feel warmth, and love. Eternal love.

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