What is prolonged grief disorder?
This page explains the term prolonged grief disorder, why someone might be diagnosed and what help is available for long-lasting, strong feelings of grief.
Prolonged grief disorder is a mental health diagnosis. Some people call it complicated grief disorder or unresolved grief.
There is often disagreement over whether diagnoses for things like grief are helpful. Some argue that because it is normal and natural response to feel grief for a long time it shouldn’t be treated as a disorder. Others find diagnosis a helpful guide to what kind of support someone might need.
Time is supposed to be a healer but time does nothing so far, in my head every day is the first day over and over again.
Glyn… grieving my lovely wife Sue
We are all different and there is no timetable or grief timeline for how long it will take you to learn to live with the death of someone close to you.
How can I get a diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder?
In mental health, there is no physical test you can do to diagnose someone. Diagnoses are given if a professional believes it will help you get better support. It should only be given after someone qualified has spoken to you to fully understood your experiences and needs.
To be given a diagnosis of prolonged grief disorder, someone must have strong and long-lasting feelings of grief. To be given this diagnosis these feelings must not have changed over time (a year) and must have severe effect on their daily life.
I was referred by my G.P. to the mental health services in my area as the sorrow and all other manifestations of grief were unabated after 12 months.
Anonymous
If you feel a diagnosis could be helpful to you, it might be helpful to think about what it is you are hoping to get from a diagnosis, such as:
- Understanding your experiences better
- Practical help coping with difficult thoughts and feelings
- You want to feel seen, validated or normal
- You want to connect to others with similar experiences
These are all things that are possible without a diagnosis. See the Support for strong, long-lasting feelings of grief section below to explore what helps you feel better.
Benefits of a diagnosis
- It may help professionals understand what you’re experiencing quickly
- It may be needed for you to get certain mental health services.
- It can help you feel seen. It can feel like someone telling you your feelings are real, when the world seems to be telling you something else.
- It can help you understand your experience and find others who have been through something similar.
- You may feel less alone, knowing others have the same feelings.
Disadvantages of a diagnosis
It can be more difficult to access community-based grief services who may see your situation as ‘too severe’ or ‘too complex.
- You may experience stigma and discrimination related to mental health problems
- Diagnoses often fail to recognise religious and cultural difference and so may not be helpful.
- You may feel defined by this label or diagnosis, and that people stop seeing who you really are.
- Thinking of your experiences as something medical may get in the way of understanding your feelings and experiences as a normal reaction to a challenging and painful situations.
What causes prolonged grief disorder?
How you experience grief is affected by a huge number of factors relating to your life experiences, personality, the way the person died and more.
For example:
- The way you learned to relate to people as a child (your attachments).
- How you feel about the person who died.
- The meaning you give to your loss for example “bad things happen to me” or “it was their time”.
- The support from friends and family you have now.
If you are feeling strong, long-lasting grief it is likely because of a mix of reasons. Everyone is different, and every bereavement is different.
Prolonged grief disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
A traumatic event can be something shocking, scary or dangerous. It is normal to experience the effects of that traumatic event for some time afterwards. These effects can be feelings of anger, numbness, shame, panic and/or anxiety.
If someone close to you has died in a traumatic way, it is likely this will affect your experience of grief.
Some of the feelings, thoughts and experiences that professionals look out for to diagnose PTSD are similar to those that are part of prolonged grief disorder.
It is not a good idea to try and diagnose yourself. The process is complicated and needs a fully trained professional to understand fully.
The NHS have information on support for PTSD.
Remember, which diagnosis is given, if any at all, may change with time or professional opinion. The important thing is that you are given the help you need.
Grief is very lonely and isolating. I wake up in the night and have visions of the trauma I delt with during my husband's illness.
Anonymous
Support for long-lasting, strong feelings of grief
Most people who are grieving find that over time, they are able to feel better with the support of family, friends or community.
You may be visiting this page because you are worried your experience is stronger, more complicated, confusing or has lasted longer than you think it should. But there is no ‘should’ when it comes to grief. Everyone’s experience is different. Many of us find that grief never leaves us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn to live with grief and find meaning and joy in life again.
If you need support Sue Ryder’s grief and bereavement services can help:
- Online Bereavement Community is a safe place to connect with other people who are grieving
- Grief Guide for short, easy to read information and advice
- Grief Kind Spaces are in-person grief support groups
- Online Bereavement Counselling Service
If you find that community-based and peer support services, like Sue Ryder’s, are not enough for you to be able to manage your grief, you may need more specialist mental health support.
If you would like more support or are worried about your mental health, speak to your GP. But you should not need a mental health diagnosis to get the support you need.