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How To Cope With Losing Someone Close To You

Are you finding it difficult to deal with losing a loved one? These are ways to cope with losing someone.

By Lilliana BackmanPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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After losing someone that you were really close with, it's so difficult to cope with the emotions that are flooding your mind. The memories start rolling through your head and you're realizing that you'll never see that person again. You're starting to think and think and it soon controls you. You slowly distance yourself from others while grieving, and it feels like your life is falling apart. It can steal your life away, too. And you're certainly not the only one who feels like this. When I lost someone that I loved dearly, it was certainly hard for me to get back on my feet. But since this is how life goes, we can't mourn for the rest of our lives.

There are definitely great ways to cope with losing someone. In an attempt to find ways to cope and distract yourself, you can soon leave the death in the past, yet continue to preserve the memories that the two of you shared. If you're searching for methods and ways to help you get out of your grieving state, any of these ways can certainly lift you back on your feet and continue living your life.

Start accepting death.

For starters, and I know this is a tough one, but we have to accept death. There's no such thing as the 'undo' button and preventing it from happening. Since this is how life works, we can only accept it and go along with it. It's definitely going to be tough for the first few days, weeks, or even months, realizing that you won't see your loved one anymore.

So yes, you have to accept the fact that death took your loved one away. It can take time until you realize and understand that that person will be absent forever. But this isn't impossible to do.

Start taking care of yourself and your family.

When there's been a death in the family, everyone should start to care for everyone in the family. It's one of the ways to cope with losing someone who was close to you. Since everyone is feeling the same way as you, it's best that you mourn together and share your feelings with other family members.

There's no one who can understand the death of someone you loved than your own family. Like they say, family first. And especially in situations involving death, being by the side of your family is something that you should do.

Share your feelings with others.

Among the ways to cope with losing someone is sharing your feelings with others. Sometimes, we seriously just need to talk about how we're feeling, how the situation impacted us, and even talk about the person who passed. With a friend, relative, or anyone you believe is the right person to talk to, if they care for you, I'm sure they'll give you their ears.

We shouldn't bottle up everything inside. When it comes to losing someone that you loved, it's actually healthy to express your feelings to others and letting it all out. If you keep your feelings locked away inside, you'll only be grieving for much longer. And the pain won't go away either.

Never, ever blame yourself.

This is so important as one of the ways to cope with losing someone. You shouldn't blame yourself for the death. Many people believe that they didn't spend enough time with that person, talked to that person, or even didn't provide enough help for the person before death took them away. People start to look down upon themselves for missing out on opportunities like these.

But this isn't something you should blame yourself for. Since everything happens for a reason, you possibly couldn't have stopped death. Rather than blaming yourself, the best thing to do in this situation is accepting that it happened, and move on. Preserve the memories, but never look back at it as your own fault.

Find ways to keep you feeling happy.

You have to start finding ways to make you feel happy again. If it's playing video games, watching comedy films, reading books, going out with friends, anything—just try to start feeling happy again. It's not healthy if you're grieving for a really long period of time.

The more you're mourning and grieving, the more pain you're building up and it'll be difficult to get rid of. Think of ways you know will make you feel happy. It can literally be anything. As long as you're smiling again, nothing matters.

Let out your pain and feelings.

It's more than okay to cry. In fact, you'll feel ten times better after letting out your tears. A lot of pain can occur if you're keeping everything inside. If you need to scream, scream. If you need to smash something, smash something that's not important to you. If you need to punch something to get out your anger, there's a pillow waiting for you to get knocked out.

You're solving nothing if you're locking away your feelings. You should never, ever be embarrassed to cry. It's human nature and we're designed to cry after going through upsetting moments. This is definitely one of the methods on how to cope with losing someone that you loved.

Preserve the memories.

Even after losing a loved one, it's important to preserve the memories that you shared with them. Just because they're gone doesn't mean they never existed. Look at photos with the two of you, laugh at videos of the two of you, and keep all of those memories safe and locked away. I'm sure you want to keep all of the things that involves them.

Whether you're putting all the memories away in a box, bag, or kept safe on your computer, you can always spend the time to look back and remind yourself of the person that you loved. Since you once came across someone special to you, you certainly wouldn't want to forget about their existence.

Keep yourself distracted.

Keeping yourself distracted at all times is one of the best ways to cope with losing someone you loved. This one's tough to do, especially if you were really close with the person. The thoughts can be flooding your mind, but it's not impossible to be involved in other activities to distract yourself from them. In fact, it's best if the thoughts don't control your mind.

Do things that will really grab your attention. From watching TV, reading a book, baking sweets, even cleaning, or doing work can help fade away the thoughts from your mind. Because the more you allow your thoughts to consume you, the harder it will be for you to cope with the death of your loved one.

Spend time with people who care about you.

This is another great way to get yourself distracted, try going out with friends. Especially in a group, you'll slowly start to find yourself having a great time and removing the thoughts about the death from your mind. And make sure you spend your time with people who actually care about you and your feelings. You definitely won't want to waste your time with people who couldn't care less about how you're feeling.

Go to the bar, head to a fancy restaurant, go party at a club, sit around at a lounge, go anywhere with your friends. If it means you getting distracted and spending time with people that you love and care about, then this is one of the best ways to cope with losing someone.

Give yourself time to heal.

Lastly, from the ways to cope with losing someone you loved is always giving yourself time to heal. If you believe that you certainly need space to collect your thoughts and mourn over the death of someone you loved, then that's more than fine. No one will judge you. You can distance yourself from friends for a certain amount of time to simply start caring for yourself.

However, you shouldn't distance yourself for a while. If you're dropping your social life to be alone with your feelings, this is an unhealthy way of coping. You should still have a social life and spend time with others. It'll actually be worse if you spend the majority of your time alone with your thoughts. Simply giving yourself time to heal with family is a great idea, especially if the death was recent. But never lock yourself in your room for a long time.

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About the Creator

Lilliana Backman

Aspiring nurse who has a thing for writing corny short romance stories and hates everything that has to do with the word orange.

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