Am I Grieving?
Could I be grieving?
Recognising Grief in Disguise
You might not think of yourself as grieving. You’re not wearing black. You’re not lighting candles. There’s been no funeral. And yet—you feel off. Flattened. Like something’s shifted beneath the surface, and you can’t quite find your footing again.
Grief doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. It’s not just for death or disaster. It doesn’t arrive with announcements. In fact, grief often hides in plain sight—behind tiredness, tension, restlessness, and unexpected emotions.
Ask yourself:
- Have you felt emotionally numb or distant recently?
- Do you sometimes cry out of nowhere, or feel irritated without reason?
- Have you stopped enjoying things you used to love?
- Do you find yourself stuck in the past, replaying conversations or regrets?
- Do you feel like you’ve lost part of yourself?
If any of these sound familiar, you may be in grief. Even if you haven’t lost a person, you may have lost something that mattered—a relationship, a role, a routine, a future you imagined, your health, a sense of safety, or even a dream you held dear.
Grief Comes in Many Forms
You might be grieving:
- A breakup, a friendship that faded, or family estrangement
- Moving house, losing a job, or changing careers
- Becoming a parent and mourning your old life
- Getting a diagnosis that shifts your sense of self
- Realising a part of your identity no longer fits
Grief shows up when something important changes. And it can be just as real, even if the world doesn’t see it.
Understanding the Cycle of Grief
Grief doesn’t move in a straight line. It moves like a backwards clock, cycling through stages that pull us down before lifting us up again.
Here’s what it might look like—without you realising it’s grief:
- Shock: You feel vacant, dazed, or strangely calm.
- Denial: You keep going, as if nothing has changed.
- Betrayal: You feel angry—at others, at life, at yourself.
- Sadness: You feel low, flat, emotionally heavy.
- Guilt or Shame: “I should have done more. I wasn’t enough.”
- Identity Crisis: “Who even am I now?”
- Understanding: You begin to make some sense of the loss.
- Acceptance: You start to accept what’s happened, even if it still hurts.
- Forgiveness: You release blame, internally or externally.
- Healing: You glimpse moments of light again.
- New Normal: You start adjusting—life finds a rhythm.
- Joy or Forgetting: You smile at memories, or move on with ease.
Some people live this cycle over years. Others move through micro-cycles of grief every week, every day, even every hour.
You don’t need to tick every stage to be grieving. You only need to feel lost and longing for what was.
Why It Matters
Many people never realise they are grieving. Instead, they say:
- “I’m just in a rut.”
- “I’m being too emotional.”
- “I should be over it by now.”
But recognising your grief is powerful. It gives you:
- Permission to feel.
- Language to express.
- Compassion for where you are.
- And most importantly, a map to find your way forward.
You’re Not Alone
As a grief psychotherapist, I rarely meet people who walk into therapy saying “I’m grieving.”
But again and again, I discover they are. Grieving something—or someone—they hadn’t made peace with.
Often, they’re stuck halfway down the cycle. Not because they’re weak, but because grief was never explained to them this way.
If this resonates, I invite you to explore The Cycle of Grief. It might just be the key to understanding how you feel.
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Read more about the cycle of grief here:
https://paulroebuck.co.uk/grief-and-loss/cycle-of-grief
And my Grief and Loss blog here :
https://paulroebuck.co.uk/grief-and-loss
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