I was very closely stirred by the news of my friend on Li.Ru about the sudden death of her husband. Words and condolences to a person at this moment will not always help, because his grief is so deep that it seems to happen not here, but in the world of feelings hidden in the very middle of the soul. It is at this moment that the realization comes that you are completely alone in this world and not protected. This article talks about how you can be close to a person in trouble so that he feels your shoulder of support.

Close and beloved people leave suddenly and untimely. Emptiness, grief and misunderstanding piles up - how can you live, breathe, eat, talk, if there is no loved one nearby and never will be again. The mind says that it is necessary to live on, but it is not clear how.

There is a long period ahead, which we must not only go through, but learn to smile again and enjoy life. But it will be later, but for now it is necessary to accept the loss, to realize it. And then gradually restore your emotional and mental state.

In this state, a person is faced with a complex of feelings: sadness, loneliness, loss, anger due to his own impotence, disappointment and resentment of fate. If a person believes that he did not do or did not say something important, then a feeling of guilt develops, which can grow to self-flagellation. Surging loneliness brings with it a fear of life without a loved one and anxiety based on one's own lack of independence. Feelings can be exacerbated by physical and mental fatigue, which can lead to apathy, lethargy and unwillingness to do anything. In the worst case, all these feelings can lead to despair, which can last for a very long time. But most often in the first hours and days after the loss, people experience shock, which, as a defensive reaction, is accompanied by confusion and numbness of emotions.

Fortunately for mental health, most of these feelings are strong only at first, and then weaken. Otherwise, they can cause severe depression and the development of phobias. In this case, the help of a doctor is necessary.

The first emotion that a person experiences when hearing about the death of a loved one is disbelief. With this feeling, the human psyche protects itself from the destructive effects of grief and gives it time to prepare and cope with it.

But when information about death enters consciousness, it becomes confused. It is difficult for a person to concentrate, thoughts jump, forgetfulness appears. Often a person becomes introspective and detached.

In this state, a person begins to haunt obsessive memories. A person remembers the deceased himself, about the events connected with him. If death did not occur before his eyes, then the person begins to imagine a picture of death, inventing details and details.

After the chores associated with the funeral are over, and the surrounding life flows in its usual course, there will be a feeling of the presence of the deceased, a feeling that nothing has changed, he just left and will now return.

This sensation can be so strong that it gives auditory and visual hallucinations. A person may dream of a dead person. He hears his voice and can even enter into an invented dialogue.

Grief is not just an emotional state. It fills all thoughts, all living space. Severe stress makes a person constantly think about the deceased, remember their life together, talk with him mentally about what was left unsaid during life. All thoughts and emotions of a person are occupied only with grief, so it is very difficult for him to focus on something else. And if other people do not share his grief with him, then a person can withdraw and get hung up on his negative emotions.

Strong emotions undoubtedly affect the physical condition of a person. First of all, the nervous and cardiovascular systems suffer. Blood pressure rises, chest heaviness and tightness in the throat, dizziness, chills appear. Disturbed by pain in the heart. Then stress adversely affects the state of the gastrointestinal tract. Possible disorders, pain, nausea, constipation. If stress becomes protracted, then psychosomatic diseases may occur, which will become acute, and if the situation is not stabilized in time, they will turn into complex health problems.

A severe emotional state can affect the night's rest. Sleep can become restless, often interrupted, up to insomnia. Daytime experiences can turn into nightmares.

Each person experiences grief in different ways in accordance with the characteristics of their psyche and emotional stability. One withdraws into himself and does not want to communicate with other people. The other, on the contrary, feels the need to constantly talk and listen about the deceased, and may even reproach other relatives with an insufficient, in his opinion, degree of grief and grief. You should not at this moment try to correct or correct the behavior of a person. Unfortunately, everyone can only survive his grief, and his psyche knows how to do it with minimal damage to his health.

Death is part of our life. Everyone knows that from his birth a person is doomed to old age and dying. Everything will end someday, and human life is fleeting and often ends senselessly and cruelly.

The loss of a loved one makes us think about the frailty of life, about the temporality of our stay on this earth. And the question arises about the meaning of our existence. And in the search for an answer to this question, our attitude to life is being revised. Thoughts about the transience of life inspire us with a desire to change something in it, and the real likelihood of losing loved ones encourages us to treat them better now.

Unfortunately, even our most beloved people are mortal. Psychologists to reduce the effects of grief and stress give several recommendations:

1. Accept the loss. Realize and accept that the person has left your life forever and will never return.

2. Fight pain through pain. It must be immersed to the end, but not avoided. You have to let your emotions flow as they please - cry, scream, hit things. Let the anger and pain come out.

3. Rebuild your life on your own, without the deceased.

4. Fill the resulting void with relationships with other people. You are capable of loving others, and that's okay. There should not be a void, you just need to let another person in there. After all, the deceased probably wanted you to be happy.

5. Resentment due to an unjust death will pass, the psyche will recover from the injury, and you will again become optimistic about the light of life.

How to help a loved one who has suffered a loss

1. A person must throw out all negative emotions. Your task is to listen patiently about the deceased, about his death. The more that is said, the faster the realization of what happened will happen.

2. Speak yourself. Do not be afraid to stir the dormant memories, otherwise they can freeze in the soul with a painful lump.

3. Be sincere. Let you not talk prettiness, but avoid offensive patterns.

4. Constantly keep in touch. And call yourself and come often. Since a person in this state cannot independently maintain contact, then take this work on yourself.

5. Give all possible help. A person in a state of distraction cannot even wash the dishes. Make him a company to leave the house, for example, to the store. Prepare dinner and make them eat.

6. Show empathy - your loved one needs it.

Only in the rarest cases is a person prepared in advance for the death of a loved one. Much more often grief overtakes us unexpectedly. What to do? How to react? Mikhail Khasminsky, head of the Orthodox Center for Crisis Psychology at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ on Semenovskaya (Moscow), reports.

What do we go through when we grieve?

When a loved one dies, we feel that the connection with him is broken - and this gives us great pain. It is not the head that hurts, not the hand, not the liver, the soul hurts. And nothing can be done to stop this pain once and for all.

Often a grieving person comes to me for counseling and says, "It's been two weeks now and I can't get over it." But is it possible to recover in two weeks? After all, after a major operation, we do not say: “Doctor, I have been lying in bed for ten minutes, and nothing has healed yet.” We understand: it will take three days, the doctor will look, then he will remove the stitches, the wound will begin to heal; but complications may arise, and some stages will have to be repeated. All this can take several months. And here we are not talking about bodily injury - but about mental, in order to heal it, it usually takes about a year or two. And in this process there are several successive stages, which cannot be jumped over.

What are these stages? The first is shock and denial, then anger and resentment, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance (although it is important to understand that any designation of the stages is conditional, and that these stages do not have clear boundaries). Some pass them harmoniously and without delay. Most often, these are people of strong faith who have clear answers to questions about what death is and what will happen after it. Faith helps to go through these stages correctly, to go through them one by one, and eventually enter the stage of acceptance.

But when there is no faith, the death of a loved one can become an unhealed wound. For example, a person can deny the loss for six months, say: “No, I don’t believe it, this couldn’t happen.” Or "stuck" on anger, which can be directed at doctors who "did not save", at relatives, at God. Anger can also be directed at oneself and produce a feeling of guilt: I did not love, did not tell, did not stop in time - I am a scoundrel, I am guilty of his death. Many people suffer from this feeling for a long time.

However, as a rule, a few questions are enough for a person to deal with his guilt. "Did you want this man dead?" “No, I didn't want to.” “What, then, are you guilty of?” “I sent him to the store, and if he hadn’t gone there, he wouldn’t have been hit by a car.” “Well, if an angel appeared to you and said: if you send him to the store, then this person will die, how would you behave then?” “Of course, I wouldn’t send him anywhere then.” “What is your fault? That you didn't know the future? That an angel didn't appear to you? But why are you here?"

For some people, a strong sense of guilt can also arise simply due to the fact that the passage of the mentioned stages is delayed for them. Friends and colleagues do not understand why he walks gloomy, taciturn for so long. He himself is embarrassed by this, but he cannot do anything with himself.

And for someone, on the contrary, these stages can literally “fly by”, but after a while the trauma that they have not lived through emerges, and then, perhaps, even the experience of the death of a pet will be given to such a person with great difficulty.

No sorrow is complete without pain. But it's one thing when you still believe in God, and quite another when you don't believe in anything: here one injury can be superimposed on another - and so on ad infinitum.

Therefore, my advice to people who prefer to live for today and put off the main life issues for tomorrow: do not wait for them to fall on you like snow on your head. Deal with them (and with yourself) here and now, look for God - this search will help you at the moment of parting with a loved one.

And one more thing: if you feel that you cannot cope with the loss on your own, if there has been no dynamics in living through grief for a year and a half or two, if there is a feeling of guilt, or chronic depression, or aggression, be sure to contact a specialist - a psychologist, a psychotherapist.

Not thinking about death is the path to neurosis

I recently analyzed how many paintings by famous artists deal with the theme of death. Previously, artists took up the image of grief, grief, precisely because death was inscribed in the cultural context. There is no place for death in modern culture. They don't talk about it because "it hurts." In reality, just the opposite is traumatic: the absence of this topic in our field of vision.

If in a conversation a person mentions that someone has died, then they answer him: “Oh, sorry. You probably don't want to talk about it." Or maybe just the opposite! I want to remember the deceased, I want sympathy! But at that moment they are moving away from him, trying to change the subject, afraid to upset, offend. A young woman's husband died, and relatives say: "Well, don't worry, you're beautiful, you'll get married." Or run away like the plague. Why? Because they themselves are afraid to think about death. Because they don't know what to say. Because there are no condolence skills.

This is the main problem: modern man is afraid to think and talk about death. He does not have this experience, his parents did not pass it on to him, and to those - their parents and grandmothers, who lived in the years of state atheism. Therefore, today many cannot cope with the experience of loss on their own and need professional help. For example, it happens that a person sits right on the grave of his mother or even spends the night there. Where does this frustration come from? From not understanding what happened and what to do next. And all sorts of superstitions are layered on this, and acute, sometimes suicidal problems arise. In addition, grief-stricken children are often nearby, and adults, with their inappropriate behavior, can cause them irreparable mental trauma.

But condolence is a "joint disease." And why suffer someone else's pain if your goal is to feel good here and now? Why think about your own death, isn’t it better to drive away these thoughts with worries, buy something for yourself, eat tasty food, drink well? The fear of what will happen after death, and the unwillingness to think about it, triggers a very childish defensive reaction in us: everyone will die, but I will not.

Meanwhile, birth, life, and death are links in one chain. And it's stupid to ignore it. If only because it is a direct path to neurosis. After all, when we are faced with the death of a loved one, we will not cope with this loss. Only by changing your attitude to life, you can fix a lot inside. Then it will be much easier to go through grief.

Erase superstition from your mind

I know that hundreds of questions about superstitions come to Foma's mailbox. “They wiped the monument in the cemetery with children’s clothes, what will happen now?” “Can I pick up a thing if I dropped it in a cemetery?” “I dropped a handkerchief in the coffin, what should I do?” “A ring fell at the funeral, what is this sign for?” “Can you hang a photo of your dead parents on the wall?”

The curtaining of mirrors begins - after all, this is supposedly a gate to another world. Someone is convinced that the son should not carry the coffin of his mother, otherwise the deceased will feel bad. What an absurdity, who, if not his own son, should carry this coffin?! Of course, the system of the world, where a glove accidentally dropped in a cemetery is a kind of sign, has nothing to do with either Orthodoxy or faith in Christ.

I think this is also from the unwillingness to look inside yourself and answer really important existential questions.

Not all people in the temple are life and death experts.

For many, the loss of a loved one is the first step on the path to God. What to do? Where to run? For many, the answer is obvious: to the temple. But it is important to remember that even in a state of shock, one must be aware of why exactly and to whom (or Whom) you came there. First of all, of course, to God. But for a person who has come to the temple for the first time, who, perhaps, does not know where to start, it is especially important to meet a guide there who will help to sort out many issues that haunt him.

This guide, of course, should be a priest. But he does not always have time, he often has a whole day scheduled literally by the minute: services, trips and much more. And some priests entrust communication with newcomers to volunteers, catechists, and psychologists. Sometimes these functions are partially performed even by candlesticks. But we must understand that in the church you can stumble upon a variety of people.

It's as if a person came to the clinic, and the cloakroom attendant said to him: "Does something hurt you?" “Yes, back.” “Well, let me tell you how to be treated. And let me read literature.

The same is true in the temple. And it is very sad when a person who is already wounded by the loss of his loved one receives additional trauma there. Indeed, to be honest, not every priest will be able to properly build communication with a person in grief - he is not a psychologist, after all. And not every psychologist will cope with this task, they, like doctors, have a specialization. For example, under no circumstances will I undertake to give advice from the field of psychiatry or work with alcohol-addicted people.

What can we say about those who give out incomprehensible advice and breed superstition! Often these are near-church people who don’t go to church, but come in: light candles, write notes, bless Easter cakes, and everyone they know turns to them as experts who know everything about life and death.

But with people experiencing grief, you need to speak in a special language. Communication with grieving, traumatized people must be learned, and this matter must be approached seriously and responsibly. In my opinion, in the Church this should be a whole serious direction, no less important than helping the homeless, prison or any other social service.

What should never be done is to draw some kind of cause-and-effect relationship. No: "God took the child for your sins"! How do you know what only God knows? Such words of a grieving person can be traumatized very, very much.

And in no case should you extrapolate your personal experience of experiencing death to other people, this is also a big mistake.

So, if you come to the temple with a heavy shock, be very careful about the people you approach with difficult questions. And do not think that everyone in the church owes you something - people often come to me for consultations, offended by the lack of attention to them in the temple, but having forgotten that they are not the center of the universe and those around them are not obliged to fulfill all their desires.

But the employees and parishioners of the temple, if they are asked for help, should not pretend to be an expert. If you want to really help a person, gently take his hand, pour him hot tea and just listen to him. He does not need words from you, but complicity, empathy, condolences - something that will help you step by step to cope with his tragedy.

If a mentor dies...

Often people are lost when they lose a person who was a teacher in their life, a mentor. For some, this is a mother or grandmother, for someone it is a completely third-party person, without whose wise advice and active help it is difficult to imagine your life.

When such a person dies, many find themselves at a dead end: how to live on? At the stage of shock, such a question is quite natural. But if his decision is delayed for several years, it seems to me just selfishness: “I needed this person, he helped me, now he is dead, and I don’t know how to live.”

Or maybe now you need to help this person? Maybe now your soul should work in prayer for the deceased, and your life should become embodied gratitude for his upbringing and wise advice?

If an important person for him, who gave him his warmth, his participation, passed away in an adult, then it is worth remembering this and understanding that now you, like a charged battery, can distribute this warmth to others. After all, the more you distribute, the more creation you bring into this world, the greater the merit of that deceased person.

If wisdom and warmth were shared with you, why cry that now there is no one else to do this? Start sharing yourself - and you will receive this warmth already from other people. And don't think about yourself all the time, because selfishness is the biggest enemy of the grieving.

If the deceased was an atheist

In fact, everyone believes in something. And if you believe in eternal life, then you understand that the person who proclaimed himself an atheist, now, after death, is the same as you. Unfortunately, he realized this too late, and your task now is to help him with your prayer.

If you were close to him, then to some extent you are an extension of this person. And now a lot depends on you.

Children and grief

This is a separate, very large and important topic, and my article “Age Features of Grief Experience” is devoted to it. Until the age of three, a child does not understand at all what death is. And only at the age of ten begins to form the perception of death, as in an adult. This must be taken into account. By the way, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh spoke a lot about this (I personally believe that he was a great crisis psychologist and counselor).

Many parents are concerned about the question, should children attend the funeral? You look at Konstantin Makovsky's painting "The Funeral of a Child" and think: how many children! Lord, why are they standing there, why are they looking at it? And why shouldn’t they stand there if adults explained to them that there is no need to be afraid of death, that it is part of life? Previously, children were not shouted: “Oh, go away, don’t look!” After all, the child feels: if he is so removed, then something terrible is happening. And then even the death of a domestic turtle can turn into a mental illness for him.

And in those days there was nowhere to hide children: if someone died in the village, everyone went to say goodbye to him. This is natural when children are present at the funeral, mourn, learn to react to death, learn to do something creative for the sake of the deceased: they pray, help at the wake. And parents themselves often injure the child by trying to hide him from negative emotions. Some begin to deceive: “Dad went on a business trip,” and the child eventually begins to take offense - first at dad for not returning, and then at mom, because he feels that she doesn’t finish something. And when the truth is revealed later... I have seen families where the child simply cannot communicate with his mother because of such deceit.

I was struck by one story: the girl’s father died, and her teacher, a good teacher, an Orthodox person, told the children not to come near her, because she was already so bad. But this means to injure the child again! It is terrible when even people with a pedagogical education, people who believe do not understand child psychology.

Children are no worse than adults, their inner world is no less deep. Of course, in conversations with them, one should take into account the age-related aspects of the perception of death, but one should not hide them from sorrows, from difficulties, from trials. They need to be prepared for life. Otherwise, they will become adults, and they will never learn to cope with losses.

What does it mean to "survive grief"

To fully survive grief means to turn black sorrow into a bright memory. After the operation, there is a seam. But if it is well and accurately made, it no longer hurts, does not interfere, does not pull. So it is here: the scar will remain, we will never be able to forget about the loss - but we will no longer experience it with pain, but with a sense of gratitude to God and to the deceased person for being in our life, and with the hope of meeting in the life of the next century.

It is difficult enough to convey in words the feelings when a loved one died. In those long hours of sadness, people sometimes simply deny what happened.

Then they fall into despair, numbness, experience a strong psychological shock.

Very often, the feeling of loss becomes extremely strong, unbearable grief. Whether an accident caused death, a prolonged illness or advanced age, it is always terribly painful, depressing and lonely.

As a famous professor in the field of psychiatry said Holly Prigerson: "The feeling of loss never goes away without a trace - you just have to get used to it." But how to get used to and survive the loss of a very close and dear person?

We mourn and remember

How to come to terms with the thought of the irretrievable departure of a loved one, friend, colleague.

Worrying and grieving is completely natural and normal.

However, the pain of loss is sometimes delayed and often against this background various forms of depression develop.

In severe cases, suicide.

Each of us in his own way, purely individually, endures the bitterness of loss. The measure of grief, after all, is a relative concept. And it largely depends on the attitude towards the deceased during his lifetime. Wiping away the welling tears at the funeral of a friend, we sincerely worry about what happened.

But how to measure all the sorrow and depth of grief of a mother who has lost a child. Acute mental pain and deepest pity, absolute emptiness and meaninglessness of further existence.

Below are some wise biblical advice on how to deal with grief when a loved one dies.

First, definitely speak about your feelings. Pour out your sadness. Don't shut yourself up in your grief.

Find the strength to communicate with others. can relieve suffering. Don't turn down their help.

So you will find comfort in putting your difficult thoughts into words and delivering them to someone who is ready to sympathize and listen carefully. The living word heals. This is an indisputable fact.

And if it's hard to put into words, try expressing your feelings on paper .

It is no coincidence that many deplorable, soul-tearing, mournful songs are poured out by the author in deep sadness.

Paper will endure everything and accept your pain.

Often you just need cry. It is important.

"There's a time for everything, and there's... a time to weep," the Bible said. And, of course, without any doubt, the loss of a loved one is the very “time to cry”. And Jesus Christ “flowed with tears” at the memorial crypt, his friend Lazarus is buried here ...

Appreciate every minute while they are around.
You can't turn back time, you can't stop its rapid run.

They say time is a doctor, no you can't help me
They say - time heals, And at least a hundred years will pass -
They say the pain will go away, my pain will not subside,
Be patient, it will get easier. My pain won't go away.
But how to continue to live??? Months will pass, years will pass
Doctor Time, tell me And I also again
If the heart is in pieces! Bowing my head, I will
Do not collect, and do not sew, Stand at the grave.
If there is nothing to breathe, And pray quietly,
If there is an ice floe in the chest ... And wait to meet you:
Help, Doctor Time, Sleep, my heavenly angel,
Find me a cure! Sleep well, dear!

Tell us about your grief below, pour out your sadness, share with friends and your soul will feel better.

Natalya Kaptsova

Reading time: 8 minutes

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The death of a person is always an unexpected event, especially when this happens to people close and dear to us. Such a loss is a profound shock to any of us. At the moment of loss, a person begins to feel a loss of emotional connection, a deep sense of guilt and an unfulfilled duty to the deceased. All these feelings are very oppressive, and can cause severe depression. Therefore, today we will tell you how to survive the death of a loved one.

The death of a loved one: 7 stages of grief

Psychologists distinguish 7 stages of grief that all people who mourn for a deceased loved one experience. At the same time, these stages do not alternate in any particular sequence - Each person goes through this process individually. . And since understanding what is happening to you helps to cope with grief, we want to tell you about these stages.
7 stages of grief:

1. Negation.
   "It is not true. Impossible. It couldn't happen to me." Fear is the main reason for denial. You are afraid of what happened, afraid of what will happen next. Your mind is trying to deny reality, you are trying to convince yourself that nothing has happened in your life and nothing has changed. Outwardly, a person in such a situation may simply look numb, or, on the contrary, fuss, actively organize the funeral, call relatives. But this does not mean that he easily experiences the loss, he just has not yet fully realized it.
   However, it should be remembered that a person who has fallen into a stupor should not be protected from the hassle associated with the funeral. Ordering funeral services and completing all the necessary documents make you move, communicate with people, and thus help you get out of your stupor.
   There are cases when, in the stage of denial, a person generally ceases to perceive the world around him adequately. And although this reaction is short-lived, help to get out of this state is still needed about. To do this, you need to talk to a person, while constantly calling him by name, do not leave alone and try to distract a little . But it’s not worth comforting and reassuring, it still won’t help.
   The denial stage is not very long. During this period, a person, as it were, prepares himself for the departure of a loved one, realizes what happened to him. And as soon as a person consciously accepts what happened, he begins to move from this stage to the next.
2. Anger, resentment, rage.
   These feelings of a person capture completely, and are projected onto the whole world around. During this period, you have enough good people for him and everyone is doing everything wrong. Such a storm of emotions is caused by the feeling that everything that is happening around is a great injustice. The strength of this emotional storm depends on the person himself, and how often he splashes them out.
3. Guilt.
   A person more and more often recalls the moments of communication with the deceased, and a realization comes - here he paid little attention, there he spoke very sharply. The thought “Have I done everything to prevent this death” comes to mind more and more often. There are cases when the feeling of guilt remains with a person even after he has gone through all the stages of grief.
4. Depression.
   This stage is most difficult for those people who keep all their emotions to themselves, not showing their feelings to others. In the meantime, they exhaust a person from the inside, he begins to lose hope that someday life will return to its normal course. Being in deep sadness, the mourner does not want to be sympathized with. He is in a gloomy state and has no contact with other people. By trying to suppress their feelings, a person does not release their negative energy, thus becoming even more unhappy. After the loss of a loved one, depression can be quite a difficult life experience that will leave an imprint on all aspects of a person's life.
5. Acceptance and pain relief.
   Over time, a person will go through all the previous stages of grief and, finally, come to terms with what happened. Now he can already take his life in hand and direct it in the right direction. His condition will improve every day, and anger and depression will weaken.
6. Renaissance.
   Although it is difficult to accept a world without a person dear to you, it is simply necessary to do so. During this period, a person becomes uncommunicative and silent, often mentally withdraws into himself. This stage is quite long, it can last from several weeks to several years.
7. Creation of a new life.
   After going through all the stages of grief, a lot of things change in a person’s life, including himself. Very often in such a situation, people try to find new friends, change the environment. Someone changes jobs, and someone changes their place of residence.