How Long Does Grief Last? Timeline, What to Expect, & Ways to Cope

Grief Timeline

Despite what people might think, grief is not something that happens in stages, in a linear pathway, or in a specific timeline. The grief response is as unique as a fingerprint.¹ People have often heard of the five stages of grief (i.e., denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance), or the expanded seven stages of grief, and will try and use these models as a guide for their experience with grief and loss. Although these “stages” can be responses people have after experiencing a loss, the stages of grief model has been misrepresented.

Factors that may influence someone’s grieving process include:

• Timing of the death in the life cycle: The loss of a child, young person, or someone in the “prime” years of their life can be more impactful for the bereaved as they might feel the injustice of a life unfinished.²
• Nature of the death: The way someone dies can impact how you grieve. If the death was sudden, it can potentially come with more intense grief reactions, such as shock, compared to if it was anticipated.²
• Significance of the loss:  What you deem important in your life will likely impact your grief if it is lost. You might have a significant grief reaction if you lost your job and view it as an essential part of your identity. The greater the significance, the greater your grief will likely be.³
• Type of loss: Some losses may be more painful than others and influence how long we grieve. For example, the death of a parent can bring significant hurt and grief and last longer compared to a breakup of a casual dating relationship. An ambiguous loss, such as a person with Alzheimer’s or a soldier missing in action, can be more impactful due to the uncertainty of a loved one’s psychological or physical presence.⁴
• Type of grief experienced: Disenfranchised grief can occur when a loss is hidden or not publicly validated, such as the loss of a pet or a former partner. This experience can negatively impact you making you feel more alone in your grief or that your grief is invalid. Being isolated or invalidated in your grief can then lead to complicated grief which can be a sign you could benefit from support. Anticipatory grief is when you start grieving leading up to an expected loss or death.³
• Multiple losses: Grief can accumulate, so previous losses and grief can be brought up by recent losses. Additionally, if you have experienced multiple losses at once, it can further intensify your current grief.³
• Circumstances at the time of the loss: If you were already experiencing personal issues (e.g., financial strain, physical or mental health challenges, etc.) at the time of the loss, it can impact the way you feel and your grief.³

Symptoms of Traumatic Grief

Grief can be painful and can come with intense anger, depression, insomnia, and sadness. You might feel like trying anything to get away from the pain. The loss you experienced might cause intense distress enough to negatively impact relationships, work, school, or your day-to-day functioning. It is important to reflect on how your grief impacts you and the ways you are coping with it.

Seeking support can help you address intense issues like:

• Using substances to cope
• Withdrawing from social circles
• Engaging in self-destructive behaviors
• Complicated grief or traumatic grief responses
• Suicidal ideation or hopelessness
• Immobilized or overwhelmed by grief and related emotions

How Long Should Grief Last?

Grief is as unique as the person experiencing it so there is no agreed-upon timeframe of how long grief should last. When asked this question, grief expert David Kessler asked “How long will your loved one be dead? That’s how long”.⁵ Although pain comes with grief, over time and depending on how you tend to your grief³, the grief you feel in your heart will become “more love than pain”.⁵

That said, if your grief is significantly impairing your life in various ways on almost a daily basis at least 12 months or more after the death, for at least a month beyond the 12-month mark, it could be a sign of Prolonged Grief Disorder (also called complicated grief or persistent complex bereavement disorder). If there is an overwhelming sense of yearning/longing for your loved one and/or being preoccupied with memories or thoughts of them, it would be useful to reach out to a mental health professional to assess if PDG is present while also helping you with developing coping strategies.

Factors that Can Impact How Long Grief Lasts

Grief can be more intense within the first year after a death⁵ and will vary depending on the type of loss you experienced (i.e., the closeness of the relationship, the meaning of the lost thing/person to you). Although there might initially be plenty of support offered by friends and family, it can start to decrease around the 3–6-month mark.³

Here are some common factors that can impact how long grief can last³:

Closeness of the Relationship

The closer the relationship, the more impactful the death can be. This can naturally lead to a longer and more intense period of grieving. When someone you are close with dies (a spouse for example), we not only mourn their death but also the secondary losses that come with their death. This may include their wonderful cooking, their support as a  partner, their ability to manage the finances, and more. You then need time to identify and grieve those losses along with their death which takes time. Being patient and compassionate with yourself is important as grief cannot be rushed.

The Way the Person Died

Deaths that are traumatic, sudden, untimely, drawn out, or difficult can lead to more intense grieving for a longer duration. Again, grief is a unique process for everyone, so everyone will have their own reactions to a death.

Life Factors at the Time of Death and Coping Methods

Someone who is physically well and able to cope with the daily challenges of life at the time of a death might be able to cope better than someone who is struggling. Those who were already feeling overwhelmed by life factors at the point when someone died can be more impacted by the death (thus may grieve longer). Additionally, those who have \healthy, adaptive coping strategies may be better able to weather the storms of grief compared to those who have limited coping strategies or have not learned coping strategies to deal with previous deaths or losses.

Developmental Factors

A person’s life stage can impact how they grieve. For example, children typically grieve longer than adults due to their reduced ability to tolerate sadness and emotional pain, as well as needing to understand what death is and means⁶. Someone who has a neurodevelopmental disorder might struggle more in their grief as they may have difficulty understanding the concept of death.

Available Support

Grief needs to be witnessed⁵, so if people have supportive social networks available to them (e.g., family, friends, congregations, work colleagues, etc.), it can help them process and reduce the intensity of their grief. People who are more isolated in their grief may struggle more with it and experience it longer.

The Passage of Time

Grief will fluctuate as time passes, where it may seem to decrease but then can be triggered by something, and the pain returns.⁵ A useful analogy to think of is grief as a ball in a box. As time goes forward, our box expands around our ball of grief which then hits the pain button inside of us less often. With time, the consistency and intensity of the pain decrease.

As the loss becomes more distant, and a person has worked to integrate and process the loss in their life, there can be a shift to less pain and more love in their grief.⁵ You might start to feel more optimistic about the future, have more energy, and be more ready to socialize with others, or your work performance may improve.⁷ The is no specific timeframe for how long this takes.

Does Grief Ever Stop?

There is no fixed endpoint when you are mourning a death.³ Although you might eventually accept, integrate, or make meaning of the death, and return to some semblance of your pre-loss functioning, grief reactions come and go like waves over the course of one’s life. It is not the progression of time itself that helps with your grief but rather what you do with that time to mourn and process your loss.

How to Cope with Grief

The Dual Process Model of grief can help you with coping and processing your grief.⁸ In the Dual Process Model, people go back and forth between a loss orientation (e.g., focusing on the loss and tending to one’s grief) and a restoration orientation (e.g., doing new things such as fun activities, starting new traditions, and tending to life changes). Going back and forth between these two orientations can help you cope with and integrate your loss.

Regardless of how long ago your loss was, here are 10 tips for dealing with grief and loss:

Join a Grief Support Group

Grief groups can be a way to connect with others and feel less alone in your grief.⁹ The discussions had in grief groups can help validate and normalize the way you might be thinking or feeling, help you mourn your loss, and discover ways to cope with your grief.

Online support groups have been shown to reduce the severity of grief, loneliness, and related stress¹⁰. Both online and local groups that meet in person can provide the additional grief support many people need.

Connect with Your Loved Ones for Support

Calling on our loved ones in times of need can give you the chance to talk about how you are physically and/or emotionally feeling, discuss ways to cope, or share practical needs you have but cannot tend to due to your grief. The important thing to remember is to ask directly for what you need.

Some ways in which your loved ones can support you while grieving include

• They can help motivate you.
• They can help you make decisions.
• They can help combat feelings of loneliness.
• They can help you with practical day-to-day things (e.g., cooking, cleaning, getting the kids to school).
• They can help you find support resources such as grief groups or counseling.
• They can help you honor and tell the story of the person who died.

Face Your Emotions

Grief can bring with it a whole host of intense emotions. Part of the work you can do with your grief is learning to face it. If you always try and escape your grief, you will feel as if it is continuously lurking over your shoulder. When you lean into your grief, it can help you mourn and process your loss.⁵

Talk About It

Talking about the way you are feeling with trusted others is important. Sharing your grief around the loss you experienced gets your grief out so that you are not alone with it but also helps with integrating and processing your new post-loss reality.¹¹

Create a Memory Box or Grief Drawer

You can place meaningful objects that remind you of the deceased in a box you can decorate or in a specific drawer in your house. The items can serve as linking objects to help you continue your bond with the deceased while learning how to manage your emotions. When looking at the items, you are tending to your loss. When you put the box away, or close the drawer, you then switch the focus to tending to daily life and stepping away from grief.¹²

Consider Journaling

¹³One way to express your grief can be through writing or journaling about it. Grief journaling can help with accepting your loss, identifying and expressing feelings from your loss, and is a safe location to express those feelings.

Be Mindful of Important Dates

Grief can come in waves and so there may be periods of time when it lessens. For some people, the grief intensifies during significant dates such as the deceased’s birthday or death anniversary creating an anniversary effect. Creating a plan for coping around those days can be helpful with a potential upsurge of grief.

Practice Grief Rituals

Grief rituals can provide you with a way to honor the person who died or the loss you experienced. Engaging in a ritual can help you process your grief and let go of some of the grief you might be holding on to. ¹⁴

Engage in Self-Care

It is extremely important when you are grieving to practice self-care. Although it may feel like a difficult task when mourning, you need to practice tending to yourself during this difficult time. Remember to eat regular meals, drink water, and do regular physical activity. Doing activities you like will help you stay engaged in self-care, increasing your ability to tolerate the intensity of your grief.¹⁵

Make Art

Using the medium of art can be helpful to express what you might be having difficulty expressing or understanding verbally. Engaging in artwork such as sketching, drawing, or painting; cutting out images or phrases from magazines you identify with in collage work; or playing, writing, or mixing music can be helpful with your grief work.¹⁶

How to Help Others Deal with Grief

We tend to be death-avoidant in our society and so you might find yourself being unsure of what to say to someone who has lost a loved one or how to explain death to a child. While it may not be an easy conversation, there are ways to make it helpful and supportive.

If someone you know is struggling with grief, some things you can do include³:

• Be patient: Mourning takes time and so it is important not to rush your loved one who is grieving. Sending them messages to “get over it” or “you should be past this” will only make them feel more isolated in their grief.
• Offer practical help: When grieving, people can struggle with doing everyday tasks. Ask the griever what they need help with. Volunteer to do things you know you are good at such as yard work or getting their weekly groceries.
• Do not be afraid to talk about the deceased: Grief needs to be witnessed repeatedly. Asking about the deceased and their grief lets the bereaved know it is OK to talk about things with you.
• Do not try and take their pain away: Nothing you say or do will take away the pain of their loss and gives the bereaved a message that you are uncomfortable with their grief. Be present with the bereaved and hold space for their pain.
• Continue to check in on them: Offer invitations to get together. Although they might decline, indicates you are thinking of them and care. Consider calling, texting, or emailing them on a semi-regular basis.
• Remember important dates: Sharing that you are thinking of the bereaved during the birthday, wedding anniversary, or death anniversary of the deceased can be meaningful for the bereaved and helps them feel less alone in their grief.

When Can Counseling Help People Cope with Grief?

Attending counseling can be beneficial for those who feel they could benefit from additional support in dealing with their grief no matter the type of loss (e.g., death, relationship, job, house, etc.). Grief therapy can especially be helpful if you are finding it is negatively impacting your ability to function in important areas of your life such as work or in relationships, if you are noticing suicidal ideation, or if you might be experiencing prolonged grief disorder.

It can be helpful to seek out the support of a therapist who specializes in grief and bereavement and/or trauma depending on the loss you have experienced. See the following articles on finding a therapist and an online therapist directory.

Some therapy options to deal with loss include:

• Individual grief counseling: Meeting with a certified therapist for grief therapy counselor can help you to explore, recognize, honor, and cope with your grief reactions.³
• Group therapy: Group therapy can help normalize some of the feelings and experiences you might be having while grieving, help you feel less isolated in your grief, and foster hope.¹⁷
• Online therapy options: If you live in a remote area, or prefer the convenience of not having to drive to a therapist’s office, online individual therapy or online group therapy could be helpful options.

Final Thoughts

Your grief response is as unique as you are and does not operate in a specific timeline, in specific predetermined stages, or in a linear trajectory. If you feel isolated in your grief, your grief is being invalidated by others, or you feel disabled by your grief, consider seeking help from a qualified grief therapist. Remember grief often lessens in intensity over time when people find ways to mourn and process their loss.