When you lose a parent, your life stops. You may find yourself standing frozen, watching the world around you continue as if nothing happened yet something terrible happened.
The death of your parent begins a grief process that can take weeks to months, years and a lifetime to grieve. There are common stages of grief that include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Because nearly 3 million people die every year in the United States, this means there are many more people grieving their loss and cycling through these challenging stages.
There are specific things you can do to help you deal with the grief of losing a parent. They are detailed below.
Allow the Stages to Happen
The stages of grief are natural and help you process a significant loss like losing a parent. While many people experience similar stages, not everyone goes through them the same way. For some, denial may only last a day, while it can last weeks or longer for others.
Allow the process to happen on its own, and allow yourself to feel all of your feelings. It’s okay to experience times of weakness. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be angry. The key is to work through your emotions.
If you feel your emotions are uncontrollable, or if your grieving process is interfering with your work or personal relationships, seek the help of a licensed grief counselor.
Meet with a Grief Counselor
A licensed individual therapist can offer you multiple treatment forms to help through all stages of your grief. Grief counseling involves you meeting one-on-one with your therapist, engaging in cognitive-behavioral techniques that help you recognize and cope with your emotions.
Grief support groups are also made possible with the help of your therapist. Support groups offer you social connections with others who are grieving a loss. They can help you realize you are not alone in your journey. Support groups also give you a chance to support someone else.
Meeting with a grief counselor is a good thing. It is a way of taking care of yourself and making yourself a priority.
Make Yourself a Priority
Positive self-care during the grieving process is essential for healing. If you allow your mental or physical health to suffer, you may get stuck in the grieving process. Instead, ensure you get the right amount of sleep. Eat healthy foods. Even if you don’t feel up to cooking, you can order healthy meals from your favorite restaurants.
Take a walk or participate in some exercise regularly. Don’t think of it as exercise, though. Think of it as uninterrupted time by yourself to talk to your parent, to seek spiritual guidance, and to honor the one you lost.
The parent who passed would want you to take care of yourself to have a healthy and happy life for many years to come.
Your therapist can help you establish a daily plan that includes activities geared towards self-care. He or she can help you build your support system too.
Get Support From Others
Grief support groups are great and will help. However, it would help if you also had support in all areas of your life. At work, you need someone who can help you through those brief yet overwhelming moments when you miss your parent.
At home, you are not the only one who misses your parent. Your children lost a grandparent. Your spouse lost and in-law. Your siblings also lost a parent. It is essential you all learn how to support one another, mainly since you will all cycle through the grieving process at different times and in different ways.
Having friends who can provide support is also good. It’s helpful to have that person you can call in the middle of the night who will listen to you and comfort you.
Working with an individual therapist will offer your family opportunities to participate in family therapy. This type of treatment allows everyone grieving from the loss of their parent a chance to be heard and identify how grief affects family dynamics. It will also teach your family members how to help one another process through the stages of grief.
Individual therapists can also develop a plan, as a family, to discover how to continue your parent's legacy.
Talk About Your Parent
Sharing memories of your parent helps you move forward after your loss, especially positive memories that make you smile and laugh. It is crucial to share negative memories, even though it may not feel like the right way to cope.
Expressing anger towards a parent who abused you, for example, is natural to grieving. If you hold or stuff emotions of any kind, you will not be able to move on from your grief. Working through the pain and hurt you received by a parent may be best done with your individual therapist's help.
Honor Your Parent
Sharing memories of your parent is one way to honor them, but not the only way. What happens when you are no longer around to share memories?
You may consider honoring your parent in a longer-lasting way, like creating something tangible in their name. Even if your parent was not a good parent, you could still do something good on their behalf. For example, if your parent was physically abusive, you can create a charity in their name that supports children who have been abused by a parent. Turn a negative into a positive.
Other ways to honor your parent include planting a tree in their name, creating a community garden in their hometown, donating to their favorite charity each year, or publish a memoir about your life and how they influenced you throughout childhood and into adulthood.
Get creative when thinking of how to honor your parent and continue their legacy.
In conclusion, grieving is not an easy process, but it is your process. You can then control how well you work through your emotions, heal, and continue living a great life.