After a death.
People are kind for about a month. Then everyone goes back to their lives, and you are still in it.
Some of the reasons people come
- A recent death, and the strange administrative months that follow it.
- A death some years ago that was managed rather than grieved, and has started making itself felt.
- Grief that does not look like grief — irritability, exhaustion, a flatness that will not lift.
- A relationship that was difficult, so the grief arrives mixed with relief or anger and there is nowhere to say that.
- A loss other people did not count: a former partner, a friend, a colleague, an estranged parent, a pregnancy, a pet.
- Being the one who held everyone else together, and finding that nobody held you.
- Anniversaries, inquests, clearing a house, or a first Christmas that you can see coming from months away.
Nobody needs to be told that grief comes in stages, because it does not, and being told that it does tends to make people feel they are doing it incorrectly.
What we would actually do
Mostly we would talk about the person who died. Not in a structured way — just properly, and for as long as it takes, which is usually longer than anyone has given you.
A great deal of what makes grief unbearable is that it becomes unspeakable. People stop asking. You learn to say you are doing all right. The thing gets sealed off, and sealing it off costs energy you cannot spare.
So the work is largely unsealing it: saying the difficult parts out loud, including the ones that feel disloyal, and finding that the room can hold them. What tends to change is not the size of the loss but how much of your life it takes to carry.
Grief that arrives late
It is very common to function well for a year or two and then come apart, often in response to something apparently unrelated. This is not a relapse or a failure. It is usually the first moment there was room for it.
Losses nobody acknowledged
Some deaths do not come with compassionate leave or a card. An ex-partner. A friend you had fallen out with. A parent you had not spoken to in a decade. These are often the hardest, precisely because the grief has no social permission attached to it.
When the relationship was difficult
If the person who died hurt you, or disappointed you, or simply never became who you needed them to be, then their death ends the possibility of that ever changing. Grieving someone you did not entirely like is real grief, and it is complicated in a way that deserves proper time.
Questions people ask
It has been three years. Is it too late to come?
No. A good proportion of the bereavement work I do begins years afterwards, often when something else — another loss, a birthday, a house move — brings it back up. Grief does not have a statute of limitations.
I do not cry. Does that mean something is wrong with me?
No. People grieve in very different registers, and some of the most affected people I have sat with have never once cried in the room. Doing it quietly is not doing it wrong.
What if the relationship was complicated?
Then the grief will be complicated, and it will probably be harder to talk about anywhere else. Relief, anger and guilt are extremely common after a death and are very poorly tolerated by most social settings. They are fine here.
Will I have to describe the death?
Only if and when you want to. Some people need to go through it in detail, sometimes more than once. Others never do. Both are workable.
Is there free bereavement support?
Yes, and it is often good. Cruse Bereavement Support runs a national helpline and local services, and many hospices offer free bereavement counselling to families they have worked with, and sometimes more widely. If cost is the barrier, start there — and tell me, because I hold a small number of reduced-fee places.
If you want to start
Sessions are 55 minutes, weekly, £70 — in Lewes Tuesday to Thursday, online Monday and Friday.
See how it works for what happens after you make contact, or fees for the full cost, including reduced-fee places.