Finding Light in the Darkness: Understanding Grief and Traumatic Loss

Losing someone we love is one of life's most painful experiences. Grief is a natural response to loss—not an illness or something to fear. For most people, grief is a process of gradually adjusting to life without their loved one while finding ways to keep their memory alive. However, when loss happens suddenly or violently, the grieving process can become more complicated and may require extra support.

Normal Grief: A Natural Response to Loss

Grief is how our hearts and minds work through loss. After someone we love dies, most people experience waves of sadness, longing, and struggle with daily tasks. You might cry without warning, forget for a moment that they're gone, or feel like the loss isn't real.

Common experiences in normal grief include:

• Deep sadness and missing the person who died

• Thinking about them constantly

• Trouble focusing or making decisions

• Changes in sleep and eating patterns

• Waves of strong emotions that come and go

• Slowly accepting that they're really gone

These reactions, while painful, show that you're processing your loss. Most people find that with time, support from others, and allowing themselves to grieve, the intense feelings gradually ease. The pain doesn't vanish, but it becomes easier to manage. Joy and meaning slowly return to life.

Research shows that only about 3–4% of people experience grief so intense after a natural death that they need professional help (Rosner et al., 2021). For most people, grief heals naturally over time.

When Loss Becomes Traumatic

Some losses happen under circumstances so sudden or violent that they create unique challenges. Traumatic loss includes deaths from homicide, suicide, accidents, or other violent events. These losses can shatter our sense of safety and our belief that the world is predictable.

After sudden, violent deaths, up to half of those grieving may need professional support (Lenferink et al., 2024). Traumatic grief combines grief and trauma—you must process both how your loved one died and adjust to life without them. You might try to avoid painful memories of the death while also struggling to accept that it happened.

What Traumatic Grief Looks Like

Beyond normal grief symptoms, traumatic grief often includes:

• Unwanted thoughts or images about how they died

• Nightmares or feeling like you're reliving the death

• Feeling on edge or anxious

• Difficulty feeling safe

• Intense anger at yourself, others, or the situation

• Feeling numb or disconnected

Research shows that anger after traumatic loss can take many forms—anger at the justice system, other people, yourself, or the person responsible (Lenferink et al., 2024). Anger directed at yourself seems especially connected to ongoing grief and trauma symptoms.

Understanding that these reactions are normal responses to abnormal circumstances can help you be kinder to yourself. You're not "grieving wrong"—you're responding to an overwhelming experience.

The Hope of Growth After Loss

Here's the hopeful truth: even after devastating loss, many people experience meaningful personal growth. This doesn't mean the loss was "worth it" or that pain disappears. Rather, growth and grief exist side by side.

Post-traumatic growth means positive changes that come from struggling with difficult life events (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004). Research consistently shows that bereaved people—even after traumatic loss—can discover new strengths, appreciate life more deeply, develop closer relationships, find spiritual meaning, and see new possibilities they never imagined.

Most bereaved people report some form of growth, including:

• Greater self-confidence and independence

• Deeper, more meaningful relationships

• Greater appreciation for life

• Enhanced spiritual awareness

• Discovery of inner strengths

Parents who lost children shared that after struggling with their grief, many became more thoughtful, decisive, and appreciative. One parent said, "We have grown tremendously from it. We are not done growing yet. In that sense, good has come from it."

This growth doesn't happen by ignoring pain or rushing through grief. It comes from actively facing your loss and finding meaning in it (Neimeyer et al., 2010).

Supporting Your Healing Journey

Growth doesn't happen automatically—it requires engaging with your grief while having support. Research shows that people who find meaning in their loss do better than those who can't make sense of what happened (Neimeyer et al., 2010).

Helpful approaches include:

• Allowing yourself to feel emotions rather than pushing them away

• Processing both how they died and what their loss means to you

• Working through complicated feelings like anger and guilt

• Rebuilding your sense of who you are after loss

• Connecting with supportive people who understand

• Engaging in meaningful activities like rituals or memorials

Professional help can address both trauma and grief aspects of your experience (Boelen & Lenferink, 2020). Therapy can help with self-directed anger and guilt, while also helping you rebuild meaning. Remember—seeking help shows courage, not weakness.

Moving Forward With Hope

Grief reflects love. The pain you feel shows how much your relationship mattered. While traumatic loss may be one of life's hardest challenges, transformation is possible with support, time, and actively engaging with your grief.

The pain may never completely disappear, but it can become integrated into a life that holds both sorrow and joy, remembrance and renewal. Your loved one's death is part of your story—but it doesn't have to define your entire story. Growth, meaning, and hope can emerge, even from devastating losses.

You don't have to navigate this alone, and you don't have to rush. Healing happens at its own pace. Both normal grief and traumatic grief deserve compassion, patience, and support.

References

Boelen, P. A., & Lenferink, L. I. M. (2020). Associations of depressive rumination and positive affect regulation with emotional distress after the death of a loved one. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 27(6), 955–964. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.2482

Lenferink, L. I. M., Nickerson, A., Kashyap, S., de Keijser, J., & Boelen, P. A. (2024). Associations of dimensions of anger with distress following traumatic bereavement. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 16(2), 176–183. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001275

Neimeyer, R. A., Burke, L. A., Mackay, M. M., & van Dyke Stringer, J. G. (2010). Grief therapy and the reconstruction of meaning: From principles to practice. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 40, 73–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-009-9135-3

Rosner, R., Comtesse, H., Vogel, A., & Doering, B. K. (2021). Prevalence of prolonged grief disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders, 287, 301–307. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.03.058

Tedeschi, R. G., & Calhoun, L. G. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1501_01