Written by Marko,
The idea of saying goodbye to someone you love forever is heartbreaking.
But, as hard as it is, it’s a different kind of hurt when you compare it to losing someone out of the blue. It’s sad, but the truth is, being able to say goodbye is a privilege not everyone gets.
You have time to sit with it, and to hold your loved one’s hand, even if it’s for the last time.
Then there’s the other way, when you’re just living your normal life. And someone knocks on your door and tells you your loved one is just… Gone. Just like that. No last conversations, no warnings. One minute they’re here, the next, they aren’t, and there’s nothing in between that.
This kind of shock leaves your brain stuck, and that stuck place is called traumatic grief.
In this article, we’ll go over the differences between traumatic grief and what people call normal grief. And if you’re wondering why that difference is important, it’s because you can’t recover unless you know what you’re recovering from.
How Grief Usually Unfolds When Loss Is Expected
Grief always hurts. There’s no way around that. It doesn’t matter if loss is expected; nobody can prepare for it in a way that doesn’t hurt.
But the hurt usually doesn’t come all at once. Instead, it follows a somewhat steady path. Imagine if a person has a family member who’s terminally ill. They know what’s coming, and the hard moments come little by little. The whole thing feels like this heavy burden they’re carrying around all the time, and when the time comes, and they finally lose their loved one, they already saw it coming.
This all gives the brain some time to prepare.
That doesn’t mean that there’s a way to be actually ready for what’s going to happen, but you can’t help but have a sort of mental rehearsal going on in your head. So, you might cry in your car every few days, or you might imagine what your life is going to look like once that person is no longer here. There’s time, which means there can be closure, and closure is the first step towards healing.
Time also means emotions can adjust.
By no means does that mean it follows neat little stages that come one after the other. Grief is messy, and some days are better than others. Still, the little things like going to work and making dinner help in keeping you grounded.
And as time heals you, you’ll still have all the memories of the person who’s no longer with you, but it’ll stop hurting (as much, anyway).
If the loss comes without any warning, though, none of this can happen.
What Changes with a Sudden, Traumatic Loss
It’s very frowned upon to say that one kind of grief is harder than another because everyone deals with grief in their own way.
You can’t know how someone else is feeling, and you can’t be sure that you have it better or worse than they do. With that being said, the grief that accompanies traumatic loss is very different from the grief that happens after an expected loss, and some might say it’s harder.
And they wouldn’t be wrong.
The hardest part of traumatic grief is that you now have to deal with two things at once.
| Sudden or violent loss measurably increases risk of prolonged grief/trauma (e.g., PTSD-like reactions). – National Institute of Mental Health |
You feel the emotional loss, which is heavy enough on its own. But along with that, you’re also in complete and utter shock. And shock and sadness are two different emotions.
When you’re in shock, it’s basically your brain slamming the brakes even though there was no yield or stop sign in sight.
For the most part, people go numb right after they hear the tragic news. Not in a cold way like they don’t care, but just blank.
| Acute stress reactions )e.g., numbness, confusion, dissociation, etc.) are common side-effects of experiencing traumatic events. – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration |
So, they’ll stare at a wall for an hour, or they’ll answer the door and forget they did it a few seconds later. They’ll hire a wrongful death attorney for fatal car crashes in Chicago when they should have hired one in Joliet, where they live. From the outside, this seems absolutely ridiculous, but two things are happening here: one, the brain is trying to protect you.
And two, that loss made no sense, so it’s pretty much impossible to accept what’s happening.
The brain keeps searching and searching for a connection between one moment where life was normal, and the next when it fell apart.
On top of all this, there’s also the real-life stuff to handle because there’s no grace period. You have to sign the papers here, make the calls there, decide on funeral arrangements and finances, and yes, hire a lawyer if someone else is to blame for the tragedy.
It’s not that hard to believe that, because of dealing with all this, a person would forget they opened the door or hired a lawyer in the wrong city, isn’t it?
How Traumatic Grief Feels Different in Daily Life
Normal grief is heavy, but traumatic grief? That’s both heavy and confusing at the same time.
Here’s what the difference looks like in everyday life.
There’s No Time to Prepare Mentally
If the loss came out of nowhere, the brain didn’t get any of the warning signs.
No hospital stays, no bad test results, no slow decline, no last conversations… Nothing. As a result of this, the mind will continue acting as if the person is still alive, regardless of the fact that reality is different.
A person who’s grieving could find themselves picking up a phone to call their deceased loved one, or setting an extra plate for dinner. You might say this is pure denial and nothing else, but that’s not the case here. The brain is having a hard time catching up with what’s actually happening because nothing makes sense.
The worst part is that this can go on for months.
The Body Stays Stressed
Grief consumes both mental and physical health, and with traumatic grief in particular, the body acts as if the danger is still here. You stay in that terrible fight-or-flight mode for a long time. You might notice your heart starts to race at random times, or you’ll jump at small noises.
| Your body can stay in a constant state of heightened stress after experiencing trauma; this can negatively affect sleep, heart rate, body regulation, etc. – National Institute of Mental Health |
And sleep? Now, that’s a battle every single night.
You’ll either sleep too much or too little, but either way, you’ll never truly rest.
As crazy as it sounds, all this is normal. This is basically your nervous system doing exactly what it’s designed to do. The problem here is that there’s no ‘real’ threat to handle. Your mind thinks there is a threat, so it reacts accordingly.
Thoughts Keep Going Back to The Dreadful Event
Normal/regular grief revolves around someone’s memories about the person that’s gone (for the most part). These are inside jokes, things you’ll miss (laugh, jokes, routines, etc.) – the good times.
Traumatic grief is different. This type of grief is stuck on death where your mind replays a few moments over and over again. And it’s difficult to get out of that loop.
| Core features of trauma-related conditions are intrusive (negative) memories and repeated mental replay of the trauma. – U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs |
The phone call, the news, the moment you found out, rinse and repeat, over and over.
You don’t consciously choose to think this; it simply shows up. The hardest part about this is that the brain is so focused on that tragic event that you can’t hold onto the happy memories.
It’s not that they’ve disappeared, but they’re buried under that replay button that refuses to stop.
It’s Harder to Find Closure
Harder, and even impossible.
Normal grief gives you an ending. It’s not a happy ending, but it’s an ending nevertheless, where you might even get to hold the person’s hand and tell them you love them. It all makes sense, as painful as it is.
But there’s no ending with traumatic grief, and nothing makes sense anymore.
| Because of the absence of anticipatory coping/closure after experiencing unexpected loss a person can experience prolonged grief. – Harvard Medical School |
So, in order to make it all feel sensical, the ‘what ifs’ start to pop up. What if they left 5 minutes earlier? What if someone had been there?
None of that helps, but it also can’t go away. You know it’s irrational to play those scenarios over and over, but without a proper goodbye, your mind can’t wrap around the fact that this tragedy happened, and it can’t move past it.
Conclusion
None of this has anything to do with how much you loved the person.
The only thing that matters is how the tragedy happened: was it expected, or was it a shock? And you might say that neither is worse, but truthfully, traumatic grief hits on more levels. Aside from the deep sadness, there’s also shock and pressure, with no soft landing in sight. It’s like your life just attacked you all of a sudden.
Make no mistake; just because you understand the difference doesn’t mean you can fix anything. But it’s useful because it explains why recovery is slower, and why everything feels more unpredictable.
At the end of the day, if all you can know is that you’re not going insane, that’s still something.
Author Bio
Marko is an adamant and eager content writer with a decade of experience in various niches, with healthcare being one of them. With his way of implementing storytelling, comparisons, and examples into hard-to-grasp topics, Marko’s able to make complex things sound interesting and relatable – key ingredients to make something understandable. As a hobby, Marko enjoys offroading, board games, and spending time with his family and his dog Cezar.
Please also review AIHCP’s Grief Counseling Certification, as well as its Child and Adolescent Grief Counseling Program, Pet Loss Grief Counseling Program, Christian Grief Counseling Program, Grief Diversity Counseling Program, Grief Perinatal Program, Grief Practitioner Program and finally its Grief Support Group Leader Program.