Blog - am I losing my mind?

When someone you love dies, it is very possible that you will experience changes to your state of mind. It is not uncommon that you might begin to feel as though you are in a daze, unable to focus, or that you are having memory lapses. The simplest of tasks may now seem overwhelming, leaving you feeling confused and frightened. The efficient way you previously juggled your work and home life appears to have left you, as well as your ability to handle even the slightest of curve balls. Your sleep may be affected, either through insomnia, vivid dreams (your loved one may be appearing in your dreams), or distressing nightmares.

You may find you are experiencing intrusive thoughts, and that you are reliving difficult memories, particularly perhaps of the final hours of your loved ones life.  It is unsurprising then that these feelings of disorientation might lead to you feel that you are losing touch with reality, causing you to ask - “is this normal - am I ok?”. We hope we can reassure you that yes, this is normal, and yes, you will be ok. This is a great quote from Megan Devine (www.refugeingrief.com), which offers comfort around such fears that you may be having:

“Let’s say you have 100 units of brain power for each day. Right now, the enormity of grief, trauma, sadness, missing, loneliness takes up 99 of those energy units. The remaining one unit is what you have for the mundane and ordinary skills of life. Of course you’re exhausted. Your mind, like the rest of you, is doing the best it can to function and survive under very severe circumstances. Please try not to judge your current accomplishments based on what you used to be able to do. You are not that person right now”.

What Megan speaks of here, is the idea that our brains are in profound turmoil after the loss of someone important to us. We are experiencing a period of intense emotional upheaval, the like of which we may have never been through before. It might perhaps be helpful to understand these sensations as a very normal response to what is (in the context of our usual life), an abnormal situation. When we are in the dense fog of grief, it is all too easy for us to lose a sense of reality, and this can be incredibly frightening. However, as the quote says, what is actually happening, is that our brains are trying to survive under the most challenging of conditions. This drive to survive in human beings is innate, and plays a vital role in keeping us safe - without it, we would put our lives at risk with reckless, fearless behaviour.

The loss of someone close to us is an emotional trauma, that our brain instinctively recognises. Without us even being consciously involved, our brains adopt a protective stance that will allow us to respond to danger as rapidly as possibly. Stress hormones are released that put our body into an elevated state of 'fight or flight', which will begin to affect our sleep, our appetite, our mood and our emotional responses (and explains too, why so many clients tell us that they experience panic attacks after a bereavement). This sustained state of stress response can quickly overwhelm the mind, leaving it little choice but to 'power down' in order to tolerate the loss.

However, not only do life's responsibilities inevitably march on during grief, we are often presented with extra decisions and responsibilities, such as funeral arrangements, wills, the sale of property or informing organisations of the death. These actions all require focus and attention to detail at a time when these simply are not forthcoming. So what might we do about 'grief brain'? Hopefully, we have gone some way to reassure you that you are not going mad, but let us also reassure you that this too will pass. Your mind has endured an emotional injury that will need a period of recovery, The incredible thing about our brain, is its ability to adapt not only to the trauma of loss, but to the process of restoration. Let us reassure you that the following are all completely natural response to grief:

• Crying - how much is too much? Tears can fall seemingly from nowhere in grief, and you may wonder if they will ever stop, but please know crying is understood to be critical to healing grief. 

• Sleep disturbance - clients often tell us this is one of the first side-effects of grief. At a time when we are emotionally and physically exhausted, sleep can still be hard to come by and can be a source of great frustration when you find yourself wide awake at 4 am, whilst simultaneously exhausted. Sleep, is however one of the first things that clients tell us improves when they begin having bereavement support. The mind is not happy when matters remain unresolved, and if grief is not attended to during waking hours, the mind will often seek to find resolution at night, either waking you to gain your attention, or by inducing vivid dreams. Writing in a bereavement journal before you go to sleep can help with sleeplessness.

• Your anger feels out of control - you may find yourself lashing out at those around you and experiencing intense anger at the slightest occurrence. Anger following the loss of someone you love is entirely understandable. You have lost someone central to your life, and it feels unfair and unjust. We feel a lack of control in grief, and this can manifest as anger.

• Fixating on the death - this can particularly involve re-playing the death of your loved one repeatedly, and can quickly prompt feelings of concern around whether you are in control of your own mind. This fixation is your mind trying, again, to make sense of the loss. Professional bereavement support may be particularly useful in instances where rumination does not ease up after the initial weeks following a loss. We are able to work with you to give you strategies that will help you feel you are in control of your thoughts. 

• Worrying about others dying - sometimes our clients tell us that they can become extremely concerned over the idea that another loved one may die. In many ways this is unsurprising; we have been shown that life is unsafe, and our control over events is limited. We may try to regain control by checking in constantly with our children or remaining parent, or we may find ourselves worrying excessively when we are apart from them.

Alan Wolfelt (www.centerforloss.com) points out that disorganisation following any loss, always comes before any kind of re-orientation. Whilst you might wish to by-pass this stage, it simply cannot be done. As difficult as the confusion and disorientation may feel, it is a stepping-stone toward a time when you will experience greater clarity. And you are definitely not losing your mind.

A final note - we have tried to reassure you that many of the often frightening experiences you may have after a loss, are in fact natural and very common. However, your health is extremely important, and if you feel at any point that you are experiencing either physical or psychological symptoms that are persistent and are significantly interfering with your day-to-day life, we encourage to speak with your GP.