My Experience With Grief

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When Death Comes Knocking, My Experience with Grief I had never hoped to watch someone who I love dearly leave the face of this earth. I knew it was going to happen but I just didn’t let the thought cross my mind. It feels as though the individual is losing a grip on themselves and on the world. The eventual passing is swift, with utter silence and disbelief serenading the room. Before I could come to accept what just happened, the body was wrapped, and taken to the morgue. I closed my eyes and said to myself, “this must be a dream”. The all too familiar flashbacks observed in the popular medical drama series, “Greys Anatomy” reminded me that I could be in a premonition phase. I snapped back and the bed was empty, grandmother was gone but …show more content…

These misconceptions stem from the lack of precise definitions with terms surrounding the grief process (Worden, 2008). Grief is often seen as a maladaptive reaction to an individual’s loss whereas, it is simply an individual’s “reaction to a loss”. George Angel (1961), stresses that grief in itself represents a departure from the state of health and well-being, and just as healing is necessary in the physiological realm, in order to bring the body into homeostatic balance, a period of time is likewise needed to return the mourner to a similar state of psychological equilibrium (as cited in Worden, 2008, p.16). It is essential to distinguish that grief is not the same complicated grief, which is characterized by prolonged acute grief and complicating factors such as second-guessing, self-blaming thoughts and excessive reminders about the loss (Cadell, Regerh, & Hemsworth, 2003). Grief and loss are very fundamental human experiences stimulating major personal and social responses that are often very high intensity and personal to the individual affected (Calhoun, Tedeschi, Cann, & Hanks, 2010). Thus, in this paper, I will discuss and identify a significant loss that I have experienced and reflect on the loss. I will also elaborate on the grief theory that …show more content…

I also had to miss an entire school semester. At first, I felt extremely helpless about the situation, but I had to adapt to the new place. It was a significant emotional struggle for me and a lot of people tried to be there for me. It significantly changed the relationship I had with my uncle’s family as they supported me throughout the period following my loss. They were able to understand and allow me to grieve which has brought me closer to them over the past few years. I also expanded my horizon and sought my friends more to confide in since grandmother was

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