Grief is a natural reaction following the death of someone but it is a very individual experience and may be influenced by your culture and experience. Bereavement can cause deep sadness, distress and unexpected feelings such as: disbelief, anger, guilt and panic. This extra emotional distress may cause acute tiredness and other physical symptoms.
You may find yourself feeling acute grief or coping with your grief by keeping busy or distracting yourself from painful feelings. You may realize you swing between these alternate ways of managing. Other people around you may be coping differently from you and so it may seem difficult to connect with each other. You may also be trying to protect each other from distress. Some people feel overwhelmed and others try to control how they are responding. Also, some may feel very vulnerable and others find resilience in grief. This may depend on your experience and personality. Children also grieve.
It may help you to talk about these feelings which can relieve some of the stress you experience, now or later, especially if you feel vulnerable. You may feel others are avoiding you. This may be because they are embarrassed and do not know what to say. You may need to let them know you want to talk about the person who has died and that you need their support. Particularly if you have children, or work or other commitments, you may need space for yourself in which to grieve. Grieving takes time. Though it may be difficult to believe it now, most people gradually begin to feel less raw and rebuild parts of their life again, though that life will be different.
Leeds Bereavement Forum
A good starting place is the Leeds Directory of Bereavement Services 2008, produced by The Leeds Bereavement Forum. It lists the names and contact details of many services in the Leeds area offering various types of bereavement support.
These include counselling services, support groups and telephone help-lines, geared towards a variety of social groups including adults, older people, children and teenagers, as well as other social and ethnic minority groups.
The Directory is available to view here.
You can also contact Leeds Bereavement Forum on (0113) 225 3975 between 9am-4pm Monday –Thursday with any queries or for a copy of the directory.
Some services offer their support in relation to a specific illness or factor causing or precipitating the person’s death - for example, Cancer, Motor Neurone Disease, AIDS, Hepatitis B and so forth.
Cruse – Bereavement Care
A major national organisation offering support for people who have been bereaved is Cruse - Bereavement Care.
They have a Leeds office and can be contacted on (0113) 234 4150 between 10am and 2pm, Mon, Tues, Thu and Fri. Cruse also offers a bereavement support “drop-in” service at the Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre on the St James’s Hospital Site. The service is for people who have experienced any type of bereavement, and is held there between 4.30pm and 6.30pm, on the first and third Wednesdays of every month.
For bereaved relatives and close friends of patients who were previously referred to either of the two Hospices in Leeds, a range of services are offered, including telephone support, 1-1 support from bereavement visitors, formal bereavement counselling and drop-in support groups.
Bereavement Advice Centre website includes helpful information