I have experienced/ am still experiencing grief for the first time in my life. Just over a year ago my brother had a heart attack upstairs in his room. I had to stand watching, on the phone to the ambulance whilst I saw his life get stolen from him. Never will I get this image out of my head and never will I fully recover from the night that changed my life forever, but I can offer some sort of insight for people facing a similar ordeal.
There are different stages of grief. You've probably heard these before. Denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. These do not come in a nice little row. They come whenever they like, they also return whenever they like and you can't control them. The thing you should know about grief is you can't control it and you shouldn't. Whatever you start to feel, just go with it and feel it. You need to feel sad, you need to feel all these emotions that have been thrust upon you because it builds you up and makes you strong. It stops you breaking down and completely losing all function. You could say it's building your emotional immune system.
Always let people be there. Never shut people out, you need them. You'll kid yourself and try to do it on your own but you will never be able to. It doesn't matter if people understand, how can they? You can't even really comprehend what is happening. Vent to them, let out all your emotion to them, cry on their shoulder and let people know how you're feeling, it will help you more than you realise. Accepting help will be the best thing you can do.
Everything will be a blur. Your memory will be shot to shit. You'll forget about everything apart from the fact you've lost someone. It's like you're in a parallel universe and can't seem to find your way back. It's the most surreal feeling in the world, the feeling that your world has just stopped but everybody else's seems to just keep going. You'll feel bitter and resentful of this, it will make you angry and depressed but this is all part of it. Just try with all your might to keep perspective. Life keeps on going and as painful as it is you have to keep going with it and not be left behind in the darkness.
You are not the only one grieving. This is important to remember. Don't forget that other people are feeling this loss too, support each other. I lost a brother and my mum lost a son in the same night, however we both dealt with it differently and at times we grew extremely far apart. It's important to realise that everyone deals with things in different ways however there is no right or wrong.
Try not to block it out. In most cases of sudden or traumatic death, especially if you witnessed it, you will try and block it all out. Almost try and forget it ever happened and shake it off. Go out and get blind drunk. Work more hours than are actually in a day. Don't do this. When it pops into your head let it, if you block it out it will creep up on you later on. It could be years later. Grief doesn't have a time limit. It wont just go away because you ignore it so it's best to face it head on. Try even dedicating a day or an afternoon to sit in your room and cry your eyes out, this sounds silly but you'll need it.
Seek help. If you're finding it hard to talk to friends and family seek other help. There are many places you can seek this help. Samaritans is a good one, they are impartial and there 24/7. There is a charity called Cruse bereavement, they can book someone to come see you in your home and talk to you, this is free and they are professionally trained. Equally if you're finding it really difficult and you start to get depressed, visit your GP and they can seek you other forms of counselling. Don't ever give up and face it alone.
Don't feel guilty for being happy. There will be times you'll start to feel happy, you might meet someone, or go out and have a laugh with your friends. This will make you feel incredibly guilty and drag you straight back to a depressive state. Don't let it. Guilt is a wasted emotion when you have nothing to feel guilty about. Enjoy every bit of happiness you get because you might not get it again for a while. You're allowed to be happy. You're achieving nothing by being sad. The person you lost would want you to be happy, not only that but everybody around you wants you to be happy and deep down all you want is to be able to be happy again.
Bargaining. Bargaining is one of the stages people don't really talk about. Bargaining can be wishing it was you dead instead of them. I felt this quite strongly. I was struggling silently with depression at the time of my brothers death and felt because of this it should have been me die, not him. He was happy and didn't deserve to die. Bargaining does not achieve anything, much like guilt. It's self torture. There is no way you can actually swap with the person, if there was a way I would have done it but there wasn't. The universe wants you to carry on going and complete your path. Make your life worth living, let the loss of someone teach you how valuable life is, plan out how you're going to make the most of it. I got into spirituality after the death of my brother and it taught me a great deal. I'm not saying you should go find religion, after death religion is the thing you hate most. But learn to focus on life and how precious it is and don't let a death ever be in vain.
Talk to your loved one. Just because they're gone doesn't mean you can't talk to them, it just means they can't talk back. Perfect opportunity to really get stuff off your chest. I now tell my brother everything and he can't even tell me to shut up.
They're not gone. I don't know much about after life, in fact nobody does. But always remember that one day you will see them again, you'll hear their voice and feel their embrace. They've been taken away from this world we live in but always remember we don't just live in a world we live in a great big universe so never lose hope that there isn't something else. I'm not saying there is a heaven, or reincarnation or anything like that, I don't know, but believe there is something.
Everything is relative. Never believe that your problem is greater, or your grief is bigger than someone else's. This is hard and you will have to put up with people moaning about trivial things meanwhile your life is a train wreck. You will become a better person for not letting this get to you and still being there for other people and their problems. Sometimes dealing with other peoples problems can take you away from yours for a bit.
Pretty much everyone will go through grief at one point in their life and I wish no one had to, but I hope this serves as some sort of help or insight.
"The ones we love never truly leave us" - J.K Rowling.
