Grief

Grief is basically a natural response to losing a close person you care about. The emotional expression of grief can be physical, psychological, social, and spiritual. The physical symptoms of grief that include literal heart aches, digestive problems, headaches, nausea, dizziness, heart races, lack of sleep, and tiredness (Jakoby, 2012). The psychological symptoms of grief include; increased irritability, bitterness, numbness, preoccupation with loss, inability to show or experience joy, and detachment (Jakoby, 2012). The social impacts of grief include; isolation, withdrawal, unrealistic prospects of others, and conflict due to different grieving styles by others. The spiritual aspects of grief include; questioning one’s spiritual beliefs, loss of meaning and seeking new meaning, and strengthening one’s spiritual beliefs. 

There are various types of grieves, and they include anticipatory grief, which occurs when the person the family is caring for gets a considerable diagnosis and their health starts to worsens. During this moments, an individual experiences difficulty to talk with others since their care is still alive and may have feelings of guilt or confusion due to the kind of grief they are experiencing (Jakoby, 2012). Normal grief is when a person is able to move towards acceptance of the loss. Delayed grief occurs when the emotions and reactions of death are postponed to later on time. Complicate grief refers to normal grief that deteriorates in the long-term and impairs someone’s ability to function. Disenfranchised grief is felt when a person experiences a loss, yet others do not recognize the significance of the loss in that person’s life (Jakoby, 2012). Chronic grief is expressed in different ways that include; feelings of hopelessness, situation avoidance, and a sense of disbelief regarding the reality of the loss. Cumulative grief is occurs when someone suffers several losses usually within a short period of time. Masked grief is expressed through physical symptoms or behaviors resulting from character that are negative. Distorted grief is presented with severe feelings of anger or guilt, being hostile to others and through self-destructive characters. Exaggerated grief occurs when normal grief responses intensify, and inhibited grief occurs when a person does not externally exhibit any normal signs of grief. 

Every culture has unique set of beliefs about the meaning and purpose of life and life after death. This defines how different people from different cultures approach death. For instance, people may bear with death if they believe in life after death. Others may consider the spirit of their loved one who has died directly influences the living family members. Family members will be comforted that their loved one is watching over them. Generally, beliefs about the meaning of death assist people of a given culture to make sense of it and how to deal with the mystery. 

Depending on the cause of death and the age of a person, specific cultures perform different rituals. For instance depending on the age of the deceased person, specific cultures may define who is to present during the death ritual and the kind of ceremonies that need to be performed to the deceased. Besides, if the cause of a person’s death is suicide, some cultures perform rituals that intend to appease the gods so that the bad spirit does not come back to the community and cause more deaths (Aramesh, 2016). When a person dies from a chronic illness, some cultures perform specific rituals before death that will allow him or her to be welcomed to the spiritual world. To others loss of a child would mean wailing quietly, while that of an adult is done publicly. Additionally, the age of the deceased would define the duration the family members are expected to grieve for the deceased (Aramesh, 2016). In general, specific cultures have different cultural considerations on how they approach death. 

In conclusion, grief is an expression of someone’s feelings following dead of a loved one. Grief is expressed in different forms including; psychological, physical, social, and spiritual. Depending on the feelings and attitudes people of a specific culture hold concerning death of their loved one, they hold different death rituals in honor of the deceased. 

References

Aramesh, K. (2016). History of attitudes toward death: a comparative study between Persian and western cultures . J Med Ethics Hist Med , 9, 20-32.

Jakoby, N. (2012). Grief as a Social Emotion: Theoritical Perspectives. Death Studies , 36 (8), 679-711.

REPLY 2

 Grief

  Grief? What is it? What are the causes of grief and how does it affect somebody wholly? The simple definition of grief is the pain, sorrow of being through a sorrowful situation or experience for instance mourning the demise of a loved one or some other misfortunes that have resulted in personal loss. The loss of a loved one brings with it a lot of emotional pain as the attachments one had with deceased will have to be erased forever and not to be retrieved. After the death of a family member, there are so many transitions the ones left behind must go through to adapt to new norm. There are different symptoms that one shows when going through grief which may vary from physical, psychological, spiritual, and social responses.

 There are 8 different types of grieves that people experience. The anticipatory grief is one that begins to build when a member has got a chronic disease like cancer that got no known cure. The normal grief is the less displayed type of grief. One seems to hold up well from the outside but suffers from the inside which is completely different from the complicated grief where the bereaved may end up not going on with normal activities. The delayed grief is one that does not show up at the instance when they fall to grief but displays later even after the grieving period is over. On the hand, inhibited grief is one that a person goes tries not show their grief and tries to keep themselves busy to distract themselves from the grieving while disenfranchised is the most unique where one grieves over things other people may not find grievable like loss of a non-family member. Absent grieving on the other is one that the affected still hold up as if nothing happened to them and stay in denial while exaggerated grief is one that may seem unrealistic as even the normal functioning is not restored as fast as is supposed to.

 According to (Osterweis et al., 1984) at adulthood is when most bereavements occurs, and grieving is most at that stage of life. At the stage is when there are more life events that one goer through and that increases the rate of people they interact, and they may tend to have a large scale of people whom they are emotionally connected with. With the occurrence of the incident for instance death of a loved one, the close members will have to go through an emotional bereavement just before the symptoms being displayed physically. The most known and common response to death either if it was looked forward to or not is the disbelief, numbness  and in shock. Although some members of the family may tend to behave like they are in control but that is probably because they are yet to come face to face with the reality of the loss. Some feel like they are embroiled in a void place not knowing what to do and often not wanting to talk or interact with anybody and remain the whole time. Hallucinations and illusions tend to be the few symptoms they display. Some even go on to say that they had seen the deceased in the streets or even had appeared to them in their dreams. 

In general, the loss of a loved one tend to bring emotional and psychological torture to the kin of the deceased than even the even the physical responses. The process of coming to terms with the new situation proves to be the most traumatizing. (Utz et al., 2011) “The death of a spouse is one of the most common, yet most distressing, transitions faced by older persons.” The loss of an intimate partner proves to be the most difficult and causes a huge gap in the life of a person as they will have to fill the gap left by the deceased. For instance, the death of a wife, the man will have to take up the roles that were previously being taken care by the wife and that might be the hardest task of their lives. The few symptoms witnessed is the people lack any sense of humor when talking, they tend to avoid conduct with people and even stop doing things they had previously doing jovially but now they do not find them of any use.

One’s physical health is determined by their emotional and psychological stability. Any malfunction of either of them directly affect a person’s physical health. The bereavement period sees the bereaved may tend to stop eating. That will translate to loss of appetite and even they end reducing in weight and at some extent develop complications like intestinal ulcers. Their social life deteriorates to the extent they avoid talking to people and prefer sitting by themselves and weep all through the period. Some situation people tend to avoid public gatherings and even at transitional stage still it wots be realized as much and at times it develops into a lifetime complication

In children, toddlers display their separation f from their parents through restless ness, crying and irritability as they feel some loss in attachment. Those at the age to understand what death is experience some gap in their lives as they had personal relationship with deceased and that affects them both emotionally. It is displayed through lack of concentration ta school or even may display behaviors of insolence and violence. The trauma they go through with lack of full parental love brings out the worst in them as they lose purpose in life. As a result, some start abusing drugs to stay out of the reality remain in the world of fantasy.

As far as treatment is concerned, there is no specific biotics to be prescribed to deal with grief as the already happened incident cannot be reversed. Common and the effective therapy is by supporting yourself emotionally, psychologically by accepting the situation at hand and moving on. Acceptance is the beginning of healing process. At extreme cases one is advised to seek psychotherapist who might be help with situations as in the cases of trauma and convulsions.

REFFERENCES

Utz, R., Caserta, M., & Lund, D. (2011). Grief, Depressive Symptoms, and Physical Health among Recently Bereaved Spouses. The Gerontologist, 52(4), 460-471. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnr110

Osterweis, M., Solomon, F., & Green, M. (1984). Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Ca.: National Academies Press (US);.

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