Anxiety After Loss
Alejandra Machado, LPC, Houston Therapist
With grief, we often think of emotions such as sadness, shock, or despair, but sometimes we are also surprised when we start to notice that we are also more anxious than we were before the loss.
Depending on the circumstances around our losses, grief can also trigger our anxiety.
This can sometimes look like worry about whether or not we did the right thing, did we do enough to prevent the loss from happening? Or, we start to worry that a similar fate will happen to us. Is there more loss coming our way?
With the recent floods in the Texas Hill Country, I have also heard from many clients who notice themselves feeling increasingly stressed. Some people have questioned, “what would I have done in that situation?” Playing out their hypothetical scenarios in their minds. This type of thinking, while part of human nature when we see such catastrophic events, can also be a slippery slope down the rabbit hole of anxiety if we don’t catch ourselves.
After experiencing a loss, there is often a lot of uncertainty, such as, what happens now?
How do we continue to live our lives now that things are different? This brings up a lot of uncertainty, not only about what the future will look like moving forward, but sometimes it can also challenge our own identity. Who are we now? If we saw ourselves as a mother, a father, a sibling, or a best friend, what is our role in this world now?
Anxiety thrives in uncertainty, and 100% certainty is hard to come by with most things.
While these thoughts and emotions are a normal part of grief and loss and don’t always require seeing a therapist, sometimes we can find ourselves beginning to feel stuck in our day-to-day lives, starting to feel hopeless when none of our strategies for self-care help us feel better.
This is where therapy can help give you a space to slow down and sort through all of it:
The loss, the pain, the messy emotions, and the changes in your day-to-day life. Together, we can find a way to help you feel more grounded while continuing to grieve. You don’t have to ‘get over it’, but you don’t have to stay stuck in an anxious loop either.
If this resonates with you and you’re looking for a counselor or therapist in Houston or anywhere in Texas, through online therapy, feel free to reach out to me, Alejandra Machado, LPC, at 281-858-3325.
