Multiple Losses: How to Cope With Cumulative Grief
It is hard enough to grieve one loss and the death of one person. When you experience multiple losses, grief is experienced at a whole other level. You may be asking yourself, ‘How do I even begin grieving these losses?” A sense of confusion may arise in the process of disentangling the multiple losses – picture a large tangled ball of grief with many threads to untangle. It is no wonder that it can feel like a complex endeavour to cope with cumulative grief. It makes sense that you are feeling a sense of lostness, deep pain and overwhelm given how difficult it is to comprehend all the losses. If you had a difficult relationship with one or more individuals who died, it can make the grieving process all the more complex.
What are Multiple Losses?
Multiple losses can look like:
Multiple deaths that happen simultaneously, (e.g. losing several people at once such as through cancer, a car accident, plane crash, homicide, or earthquake disaster), within a short period of time (within days, months, a few years) or across a span of time (many years).
A combination of death loss(es) (either human or pet loss) and non-death loss(es) – you may experience non-death loss(es) at the same time as death loss(es), prior to or after death loss(es). For example, break-up with a partner or friend, divorce or separation, job loss, serious injury, infertility, or chronic illness diagnosis.
Grief is not just mental and emotional. It is largely a physical and experiential process. Your body (nervous system) is storing and processing the trauma that comes with cumulative grief. A newer loss can uncover unprocessed grief from a loss that occurred years back and it can be painful to revisit older losses. At some point in navigating cumulative losses, you may experience grief overload – this can lead to a state of freeze in your nervous system which manifests in various ways such as numbness, depression, a sense of hopelessness and shutting down.
Additionally, you may experience a state of flight in your nervous system – this can show up as anxiety. You may feel hypervigilant and be scanning constantly in fear of the next bad thing happening. Also common is feeling easily triggered, irritated and angered by things that you would not have been bothered by as much prior to the losses.
Multiple losses leave a huge impact – you now view and experience this world differently. Any assumptions you previously held about how the world should be are likely shattered into a million pieces. It may feel that you are being punished for the losses. Questions arise about why this is happening to you. You may find yourself withdrawing from others and losing the desire to socialize. Sometimes surviving the weight of cumulative grief looks like keeping yourself busy and avoiding feeling anything. Your body adapts and does what it needs to survive in the early days of dealing with multiple losses – this can look like taking a break from turning towards grief and then eventually turning towards grief when you feel ready and resourced with the support of community, professionals, family and friends.
How to Cope with Cumulative Grief
Just as how each person who died is unique - your relationship with each person is unique. This also means that the grief you experience for each person is unique. As such, it is important to make room, time, and space to grieve each loss individually. Make time for frequent self-care breaks in between grieving each loss actively.
Show yourself compassion in the grieving process by giving yourself permission to grieve at your own pace – there is no timeline for grief. Go gentle on yourself with whatever emotions come up, whether it be sadness, guilt, regret, anger, resentment, etc. It is okay to feel conflicting emotions. Make room for different levels of intensity of grief for each of the losses.
It is important to plan for self-care and support prior to and after each suggested activity below. For example, light a candle, turn on peaceful music and arrange for a phone call with a friend. It is also crucial to pace yourself and to allocate specific time for each individual you are grieving for each of these exercises. If at anytime you feel overwhelmed while engaging with any of the suggestions below, take a break and engage in self-soothing practices such as hugging a pillow, tuning into sounds around you or pushing your feet firmly into the ground.
Suggestions on ways you can process and integrate each loss individually:
Reflect on and write down the special qualities of each person you are grieving, what they contributed to your life and what you miss the most about each of them.
Write a letter to each of the person you are grieving – set aside time to write things you appreciated about them and include anything you want them to know.
Create several grief journal dedicated to each person you are grieving or dedicate different sections in a journal to each individual – write down feelings and thoughts that emerge when you think about each of the losses.
Make a grief collage for each person you are grieving – use old magazines and cut out words and pictures that reflect the relationship you have with each person. Paste them on a flat stock paper and take time to be with emotions that emerge.
Create a playlist of songs that reflect the relationship you have with each individual you are grieving.
As grief and trauma often resides in our body, it is of utmost importance to connect with your body and tend to your nervous system. One way of doing this is by engaging in various forms of movements and self-soothing such as swaying back and forth, jogging on the spot, and placing a hand on your heart while taking in deep belly breaths. By resourcing your body, you are moving towards rewiring your nervous system and letting your body know that it is safe in the present moment.
It can be tremendously helpful to have a therapist companion you as you disentangle, integrate and process cumulative losses and multiple grief. At Anchored Hearts Counselling and Grief Therapy, we take a trauma-informed, attachment-informed and somatic (body) informed approach in processing grief and traumatic grief. We would be honoured to support you as you process your grief during this difficult time. We invite you to reach out to us to find out more about how we can support you in your grief process.
References:
https://pathwayshealth.org/grief-support/grieving-multiple-losses-at-once/
https://www.empathy.com/grief/dealing-with-more-than-one-loss
Techniques in Grief Therapy (edited by Dr. Robert Neimeyer)
