By Naazi Morad
In normal grieving, pain comes in waves. Over time, the waves become less overwhelming. The person slowly learns to carry the loss while still engaging with life.
In prolonged grief, something different happens:
the grief doesn’t soften—it stays activated.
The person may still feel as if the loss happened recently, even years later. There is often:
- Persistent yearning or longing
- Difficulty accepting the reality of the death
- Emotional numbness or shutdown
- A sense of “life stopped there”
- Ongoing identity stuck in “before the loss”
In clinical psychology, this pattern is recognised in Prolonged Grief Disorder.
Understanding grief through stages: where people get stuck
One of the most well-known frameworks is the Kübler-Ross model. While it was never meant to be a rigid step-by-step process, it gives us a helpful psychological map.
People with prolonged grief are often not “moving through stages”—they become anchored in one or two emotional states.
1. Denial: “This can’t be real”
Some individuals remain psychologically suspended here for years.
Even though intellectually they know the person is gone, emotionally it never fully registers.
This can happen when:
- The loss was sudden or traumatic
- There was no opportunity to say goodbye
- The relationship was emotionally unresolved
The mind resists acceptance because acceptance feels like betrayal.
2. Anger: “This should not have happened”
Here, grief becomes protest.
The person may feel anger toward:
- The deceased (“Why did you leave me?”)
- Doctors, fate, God, or life
- Themselves for what they did or didn’t do
Anger is actually a protective layer. It keeps deeper pain—helplessness, abandonment, despair—at a distance.
But when anger is never processed, it becomes a long-term emotional identity.
3. Bargaining: “If only I had…”
This stage often becomes a mental loop.
People replay scenarios:
- “If I had taken them earlier…”
- “If I had said something different…”
- “If I prayed more, acted differently…”
This is the mind trying to regain control over something uncontrollable. When stuck here, guilt becomes chronic and self-forgiveness feels impossible.
4. Depression: “Life is empty now”
This is often where prolonged grief becomes most visible.
But it is not just sadness—it is a loss of meaning.
People may experience:
- Emotional withdrawal
- Loss of interest in life
- Social isolation
- A sense that part of them died too
What keeps them stuck here is often not just sadness—but identity. They begin to live as “the one who lost.”
5. Acceptance: not “okay,” but integrated
Acceptance in grief is often misunderstood.
It does not mean:
- forgetting
- moving on
- being happy
It means:
“I can hold the reality of the loss without it consuming my entire existence.”
In prolonged grief, the person has not yet reached this psychological integration.
Why people stay stuck for decades
From a psychological perspective, prolonged grief is rarely about the loss alone. It is about what was unfinished inside the relationship and the self.
Here are some core mechanisms that keep grief frozen:
1. Unprocessed attachment
When the bond was deep or dependent, the nervous system continues to behave as if the person is still accessible.
The brain struggles to update reality.
2. Trauma layered onto grief
If the death was sudden, violent, or witnessed, the grief becomes intertwined with trauma responses. The mind doesn’t just mourn—it replays.
3. Identity fusion with the loss
Some individuals unconsciously build identity around the loss:
- “I am the grieving mother/father/spouse”
- “My life ended when they died”
Letting go of grief can feel like losing the person again.
4. Guilt and unresolved meaning
When there is no internal resolution—no sense of peace about “what it meant”—the mind keeps searching for answers that do not exist.
5. Lack of emotional processing at the time of loss
Many people are forced to “be strong” during the initial grief period. The emotions are suppressed for survival. Years later, they surface because they were never metabolised.
How healing actually begins
Healing prolonged grief is not about forcing closure. It is about restoring psychological movement where everything became frozen.
Some key therapeutic directions include:
1. Making the loss real again
Not in a harsh way—but gently reconnecting the mind with reality. Many people with prolonged grief live in a psychological “in-between space.”
2. Allowing grief to be expressed, not avoided
Grief that was never spoken often needs voice:
- talking
- writing
- memory work
- emotional expression without judgment
3. Reprocessing guilt and unfinished stories
Therapy often involves helping the person revisit the relationship with honesty, compassion, and realism.
Not rewriting the past—but softening the internal punishment.
4. Rebuilding identity beyond the loss
One of the most important shifts is moving from:
“I am the person who lost”
to
“I am still a person who continues to live while carrying love and memory”
5. Reconnecting to life without betrayal
A major barrier is the belief that healing means forgetting.
In truth, integration means:
love remains, but it no longer paralyzes life.
A final reflection
Prolonged grief is not the absence of healing—it is often the presence of stuck love, unresolved meaning, and an overwhelmed nervous system that never got the chance to complete its process. In many ways, the person is not refusing to move on.
They are holding on because, somewhere inside, letting go felt like losing the person all over again.
Healing begins when the mind learns a different truth:
You can remember without reliving.
You can love without being trapped.
And you can continue, without abandoning what mattered.
