How to define abnormal grieving

Grieving is common to everyone in the world. Everybody faces several episodes of grieving within their lifetime. Therefore, grieving is not always abnormal. But, it can become abnormal in some instances. Before defining abnormal grieving, one should know what normal grieving is. Grieving occurs is four steps . They are shock and denial, intense concern, despair and depression and recovery. Everybody goes through all these steps. Finally the person understands the loss, accepts it and moves on. There are specific time durations for each of these steps.

People grieve when they loose something very dear to them. For example, death of a loved one is an inevitable grieving event a person faces during his or her lifetime. When a person gets to know about a loss of a loved one, he or she does not immediately accept the fact. They know that the person they loved won’t come back. But, they continue to pretend as if it is not. This is the first stage of grieving, named as shock. This step can normally last 2-3 months. Intense concern is next step of the grieving process. During this period the person’s day to day activities are significantly disturbed by the thoughts of the loved one. They keep having flash backs of the incidents. This period can last from 6 months to 1 year. Despair and depression is the most painful part of the grief reaction. The person can even get depressed during this period. Even though it is very painful, it is the most important step of the grieving process in which the person finally understands the loss. The final step of grief reaction is recovery. At this step, the person understands that he or she has to go on with life. The pain caused by the loss is significantly reduced. The incident becomes only a part of their life. 

The grieving process becomes abnormal  any of these steps takes more time than usual. It is also abnormal for a person to have suicidal ideas, or psychotic symptoms during grieving. It is normal to have brief moments of abnormal behavior during the process of grieving. But, it becomes abnormal when the person continues to have these abnormal behaviors. For example normally, one can complain that he or she is seeing the lost person. These are very brief episodes. It is abnormal if the person continues to behave and talk to the lost person as if they are with them all the time.

Depressio n, suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts are also symptoms of abnormal grief. A depressed person usually has a low mood, loss of interest in pleasurable activities and he or she might also experience weakness. They can also have low self esteem, poor concentration, poor sleep, pessimistic ideas, abnormal appetite and guilty feelings. If a person expresses suicidal thoughts, he or she should be immediately referred to a psychiatrist because they can act on their thoughts at any time.