Dealing with Your Emotions - Resolving Grief

• Accept all of the feelings you are having as normal reactions to an extraordinary event. You are not “crazy.” You are reacting normally to a “crazy” event. Be patient with yourself. It takes time to recover emotionally from a traumatic event.
• Accept the fact that you have been a victim and accept the feelings that result. Remember: others may not validate your feelings. In fact, they may minimize your experience: “You were only a witness,” or “You were really lucky,” or “It’s been two weeks, why are you still bothered?”
• Don’t revert to alcohol, drugs, or overeating to cope. They will only make matters worse.
• Maintain normalcy. Go about your daily routines and take care of business.
• Attempt to understand what happened by getting the facts.
• Talk about the event and write about it.
• Combat any guilt you might have by:
  • Accepting it as normal.
  • Talking to others about your role and their role during the event. You are probably not alone in your reaction to this event.
  • Realizing you were a victim yourself and not a trained rescuer.
  • Recognizing what you “did right.”
  • Recognizing the extenuating circumstances related to the event: the suddenness, the danger, etc.
  • Help others in your family or group.
  • Reach out to support those who are particularly traumatized.
  • Respect each other’s way of coping. Don’t victimize them by judging their individual coping style. Let the “grievers” grieve and allow the “doers” to do.
  • Bereavement groups provide an opportunity to share grief with others who have experienced a similar loss.
  • If the healing process becomes too overwhelming, seek professional help.