C.S. Lewis once wrote in reflecting on his own wife’s death: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” And the impact of grief on one’s own physical or mental is like being crippled by fear. Grief, like fear, is physically exhausting. I know from my own experience, particularly after the death of my father, all I wanted to do was sleep. Even the simplest of tasks were accomplished slowly, because, well for one thing, a hard time sleeping.
Also, grief is a a major stressor on both our minds and bodies. People are sociable creatures, and like all sociable creatures, the close relationships they form help regulate their psychological and physical functioning. And when a close relationship is gone, it typically leaves people out of control and disoriented. Just like a frightening event. Except frightening events are often temporary, death is permanent. And just as a frightening event can be a great psychological stressor, disorienting, and confusing, grief can too. It is fair to say that the disorientation, confusion, and stress takes a toll on the body, making the body feel fragile almost like the flu. Just as the flu can take one out of the game of life for several days, I have seen grief take people out of the game for weeks, months, or even years. Much of it because of the impact of the exhaustion.
Research has shown, and I have seen in my own life, how prolonged grief leads to anxiety and substance abuse. Furthermore, and I saw it myself, bereavement leads to alcohol related problems, especially among men. Which, in turn, has a great impact on the life of the abuser as well as his or her loved ones that life or work with the abuser. Anyone who has lived with an alcoholic or drug addict has experienced the far reaching impact of the abuse, and therefore the far reaching impact of the grief that caused the abuse in the first place.
Grief is often described as heartbreak or heartache. Research has shown that the heartbreak might be literally true. The acute stress of grief, over time, can cause something called stress cardiomyopathy, a serious cardiac illness. Cardiac illness, if not treated often leads to heart attack or death. Further research has also shown that “incidence of an acute heart attack increases 21-fold within 24 hours of the death of a loved one, before declining steadily with each subsequent day.”
As if depression and anxiety from unresolved grief is not enough , throw in the impact of alcohol or substance abuse or heart attacks, one can easily see the impact of grief is far and wide. The depth and breadth of the impact of bereavement unresolved is so far reaching, it is unknowable, and that impact is not isolated to just the individual experiencing the grief. That impact reaches beyond the individual, or his family, or his community.
Grief must be dealt with, coped with, treated with respect, and worked through. And just as grief can have far-reaching negative impacts, the working through the grief can have far-reaching positive impacts too. Since people being sociable creatures, do not grieve well alone, the grieving process demands we all grieve together. This to has far-reaching impacts for the individual, his family, his community and all human kind. Perhaps again C.S. Lewis sums it up best when he said: “I will not, if I can help it, shin up either the feathery or the prickly tree. Two widely different convictions press more and more on my mind. One is that the Eternal Vet is even more inexorable and the possible operations even more painful than our severest imaginings can forebode. But the other, that ‘all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'”
Notes:
Quotes from C.S. Lewis are drawn from his superb book “A Grief Observed.”
Research was drawn from this web article on the website EverydayHealth.com.
Good Grief Reflections 