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Grief Glossary. Add your definitions!

Having some fun with grief. And you didn’t think that was possible did you? Those of us in the “club” can relate.grief-sculpture

Grief – The price you pay for having loved someone and lost them

Grief Ambush– When you are minding your own business and wham, grief hits you from behind and takes you down. You didn’t even see it coming. You feel the weight of it in your heart and all your limbs. It sticks around a while before it lifts slowly allowing you to breathe again. “Grief attack” is a synonym

Grief anxiety – Worrying that you’ll bring everybody down and no one will want to be with you if you are feeling down and sad. This one is rooted in a fear of rejection

Grief brain – When you feel confused and can’t organize your thoughts worth squat. You get lost going to the bank a mile away, you forget things, names, where you parked your car and what your own phone number is

Good grief – That thing that Charlie Brown always said that was funny once and now you see it as a paradox

Grief hangover – That beat up and wrung-out feeling that hits you after a harsh grief episode. You’re sort of flat and lifeless

Grief hell – The grief that happens often in the early days of your loss when you are certain you are never going to be able to live with such pain and loss

Grief journey – That really long, hard journey you wish you’d not been introduced to in the first place but ironically will help you to heal emotionally

Grief posture – When grief sits so heavily on your shoulders you slump

Grief relapse – When you are humming along making progress and all of a sudden you go two steps backwards. You don’t know what’s happening. You made such progress. But then you realize this journey is not so linear and there is back and forth all over the place

Epic grief relapse – When you are humming along making progress and all of a sudden a super setback of epic proportions. Grief relapses this epic usually happen around a life event, family holiday or a death anniversary

Grief relief – Some event that makes you forget grief for a whole hour or even more!

Grief vacation – Taking the day off from grief to have fun knowing it will return and you have to let it in. But today, you’re taking the day off!

Grief wallowing – It’s when you start to project scenarios in your head that make things worse or just let it go on too long without making yourself snap out of it

Add your definitions!

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AnneMoss Rogers

AnneMoss Rogers is a mental health and suicide education expert, mental health speaker, suicide prevention trainer and consultant. She is author of the Book, Diary of a Broken Mind and co-author of Emotionally Naked: A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Suicide and Recognizing Students at Risk with Kim O'Brien PhD, LICSW. She raised two boys, Richard and Charles, and lost her younger son, Charles to addiction and suicide on June 5, 2015. She is a motivational speaker who empowers by educating and provides life saving strategies and emotionally healthy coping skills. As talented and funny as Charles was, letting other people know they matter was his greatest gift. And now that's the legacy she carries forward in her son's memory. Mental Health Speakers Website.

6 thoughts on “Grief Glossary. Add your definitions!”

  1. Grief doula: someone who has been through this before and is there to help you with the pains of grieving.

    Grief release: the cathartic feeling from journaling, blogging or speaking about your loss.

    Grief guilt: the feeling you have when you realize you’ve had a few hours where you “forgot” about your loss.

    Grief denier: someone who is too uncomfortable to talk with you about the person you lost so they talk about everything else.

    Grief thief: someone who has to share their stories of loss to the point of shutting you down. Grief thieves are not able to listen, just be present with you.

    Grief gifts: unexpected blessings in the midst of the hardest time in life.

  2. Grief tunes: songs on the radio that trigger tears even if they have nothing to do with your loss, but that hit a nerve and send you into a grief attack (see previous definition). Usually happens when you’re driving alone, particularly at the end of a long workday.

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