you were fine in the supermarket. then a song came on, or you saw their favourite biscuits, and suddenly you couldn't breathe. later that same day you laughed at something on tv and felt guilty for it. if grief feels like this, sudden, then gone, then back again, you are not doing it wrong. this is what grief usually looks like.
why does grief come and go?
for a long time, the common idea was that grief is work you have to get through: feel everything, face it head on, and eventually come out the other side. people who weren't visibly grieving all the time were sometimes told they were 'in denial'.
in the late 1990s, two researchers, margaret stroebe and henk schut, suggested something different. they noticed that grieving people move back and forth between two kinds of moments. some are about the loss itself: missing them, crying, looking at photos, going over the last days. others are about carrying on: paying a bill, going back to work, learning to cook the meals they used to cook, seeing friends, sometimes just watching something easy.
the waves are doing something
when a wave of grief hits, your mind is turning towards the loss. it is remembering, feeling, and slowly taking in a reality that is very hard to accept. when the wave recedes and you find yourself caught up in ordinary life, your mind is turning away so it can rest. neither direction is the wrong one.
this is why grief can feel so unpredictable. waves are often set off by things you can't plan for: a smell, a date, a voice that sounds like theirs. over time, for most people, the waves come less often and with a little more space between them. they may never stop completely, and many people don't want them to.
the moments you spend away from grief are not a betrayal. they are how you keep going.
what the waves can look like
for some people, the waves are big and obvious: crying in the car, not being able to get out of bed, a sudden rush of panic. for others they are quieter. a heaviness that settles in mid-afternoon. a flatness that makes everything feel far away. a short temper that seems to come from nowhere. all of these can be grief.
in the early weeks, waves can come so close together that they feel like one long storm. there may be very little 'restoration' time at all, and that is okay. the body and mind are in shock, and simply getting through the day is enough. the back-and-forth tends to become more noticeable later, as small stretches of ordinary life begin to open up.
it's also common for waves to arrive at strange times. not at the funeral, where you expected to fall apart, but three weeks later in a car park. not on their birthday, but the day after. grief doesn't keep a diary. it follows its own logic, and part of that logic is that it often comes when you've finally relaxed enough to let it.
both sides matter
stroebe and schut were careful to say that neither side of the model is better than the other. turning towards the loss matters: it is how we take in what has happened, honour the person, and let ourselves feel the size of it. but turning away matters too. it is how we rest, rebuild routines, and start to find out who we are now.
the 'restoration' side isn't only about getting back to normal. it includes all the new things grief asks of you: learning to manage money they used to manage, making decisions alone, going to a party without them, working out what to say when someone asks how many children you have. these things are part of grief too, even if they don't look like it from the outside.
people often lean more one way than the other. some find it natural to talk, cry and remember; others cope by keeping busy and getting on. both styles can work. the model suggests that trouble tends to come when someone is stuck at one extreme for a long time, unable to look at the loss at all, or unable to look away from it.
what if i feel guilty for having a good day?
many people feel a sharp guilt the first time they laugh, enjoy a meal, or forget for a whole afternoon. it can feel as though moving away from the loss means moving away from them. the dual process model suggests the opposite: those breaks are part of grieving, not a sign that you have stopped caring.
it can help to think of the good moments and the hard ones as belonging to the same love. you can miss someone terribly and still notice the sun is out.
how other people can help with the waves
one of the hardest things about grief coming in waves is that other people often only see one side. friends may visit when you're coping and assume you're fine. or they catch you in the middle of a wave and worry that you're not coping at all. both are only part of the picture.
it can help to tell people, if you're able, that this is how grief is for you right now: some days are okay, some are very hard, and it can change in an hour. that gives them permission not to take a good day as a sign that you're 'over it', and not to panic on a bad one.
you might also let people know what helps in each kind of moment. maybe in a wave you want someone to sit with you, or to say their name. maybe on an easier day you'd like company for something ordinary, a walk or a film, with no pressure to talk. people often want to help and simply don't know how.
and if no one around you understands, you are still not alone. many people find it helps to read or hear from others who are living with loss, and to discover that the waves they thought were strange are something almost everyone who grieves knows.
common questions
sources
- 1stroebe, m., & schut, h. (1999). the dual process model of coping with bereavement: rationale and description. death studies, 23(3), 197–224.
- 2stroebe, m., & schut, h. (2010). the dual process model of coping with bereavement: a decade on. omega: journal of death and dying, 61(4), 273–289.
- 3bonanno, g. a. (2009). the other side of sadness: what the new science of bereavement tells us about life after loss. basic books.
if you're struggling to cope, you don't have to wait. findahelpline.com lists free, confidential support near you. this article is for understanding, not diagnosis or treatment.
