Mental Health Awareness Week – Bereavement

The loss of someone close is something all of us will experience at some point in our lives, recent world developments have meant this prospect has been much in our consciousness, which poses the question. “How would a bereavement affect me”?

How it can affect us

The loss of someone we care for is something we are never completely prepared for.

Life teaches us, there is an order to things, people are born they live a life and they die.

This is true, but it doesn’t take into account the relationships we build and what part in our world the person we have lost played.

Add to this the complicated nature of today’s world, the possibility of losing people before their time coupled with the pressures others and ourselves can put us under, to move on to be OK.

What happens if we can’t move on and are not OK?

Then life’s pressures coupled with our grief will generate other feelings, Loneliness, Anger, Isolation, Hopelessness, Resentment and Self-Blame. It can make us forgetful, depressed, and anxious. We can avoid people and places that we used to enjoy because it isn’t the same anymore all these things add to our feelings of loss, but most of all we can lose the person we thought we were before our loss.

This is when grief can become something that we may not be able to cope well with?

Grief is a personal thing, no two people will experience it in the same way, so it could be beneficial to talk to someone outside of your circle about your loss and how it’s impacting you, so you can find your way through it.

Loss can be leave us with questions? How do we work through them?

Thinking Ahead is a service that can offer support

At Thinking Ahead we offer counselling for bereavement, we offer a space where you can talk confidentially to a professional to start trying to understanding your grief, counselling would normally start 6 months after our loved one has passed, as the full extent of the loss takes time to settle into our lives.

We also offer support with other aspects of adjustment. Getting Help Offer support with life skills like socialising and day to day living problems.

Links to self-help resources

Spring Hill Hospice offers Bereavement counselling
https://springhill.org.uk/ 01706 649920

Mind
www.rochdalemind.org.uk
01706 752338

Age UK
No local hub, but national support is available
https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/relationships-family/bereavement/
0800 169 2081

Cruse Bereavement charity – Helping people cope with loss‎
www.cruse.org.uk
0808 808 1677

Bereavement Support
www.counselling-directory.org.uk