Why Does Grief Feel Harder After the First Year?
Grief often feels harder after the first year because the support that surrounds early grief fades, while the death is still very much a part of your everyday life. That gap between what other people expect and what you're actually living with is the reason we wrote our new book, STILL: Grieving in the Second Year and Beyond. It's out today on Amazon in paperback and ebook.
What changes after the first year?
In the early months, grief comes with a kind of structure. People bring food and send cards. Friends check in. There are books, pamphlets, and plenty of advice about what to expect. Even when everything feels unbearable, there's information, attention, and permission to fall apart.
Then the first year ends. The first birthday, the first holidays, the first anniversary of the death have all come and gone. The people around you have gone back to their own lives, and the check-ins slow down or stop.
The grief doesn't stop with them. For a lot of people, the second year is when the reality settles in. The shock has worn off, the "firsts" are over, and what's left is the long stretch of living without the person who died.
Shouldn't I be doing better by now?
This is one of the most common questions we hear from people in the second year and beyond. It usually comes with a few others close behind it. Do I still have the right to be affected by this? Is it okay that I still want to talk about them? Why do I still have days when I'm not okay?
The answer is that there's no deadline. Missing someone two, five, or twenty years after they died isn't a sign that something went wrong. It's a sign that they mattered.
When everyone around you seems to think you should be "over it," it's easy to start hiding how you feel. A lot of people stop saying the person's name out loud because they don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. That kind of quiet can make grief feel heavier and more isolating than it was in the beginning.
Why does later grief feel so contradictory?
The years after a death are full of things that seem like they shouldn't go together. They do anyway.
You can be okay and not okay, sometimes in the same afternoon.
You can miss the person who died and still want something for yourself.
You can let your life change without deciding you have to become someone else.
You can have real moments of peace and know you'll never stop grieving.
None of these cancel each other out. Feeling good on a Tuesday doesn't mean you've forgotten them, and a hard Friday doesn't mean you've gone backward.
William Worden, whose tasks of mourning shape a lot of our work, describes one of the tasks as finding a lasting connection with the person who died while also moving forward into a new life. Both parts matter. The second year and beyond is often where people start figuring out what that connection looks like for them, and that takes time.
What is STILL, and who is it for?
STILL: Grieving in the Second Year and Beyond is the second book in our Grief Brain Readers series. The first, The First Year After Loss, was written for the early months. STILL picks up where it leaves off.
Like the first book, it's short and easy to read in small pieces. We know grief brain is real, and that long chapters aren't always possible when you're tired and your focus comes and goes.
We wrote STILL for anyone who is:
Past the first year and wondering why it doesn't feel easier
Tired of feeling like they need permission to still be sad
Trying to figure out how to carry their grief into the life that comes after
Supporting someone who is a few years out and still struggling
Between the two of us, we've spent decades sitting with grieving people, and we've both lived through the deaths of people we love. This book comes from both of those places.
Get STILL on Amazon: https://a.co/d/05WXYj0d
Keep reading
What to expect in the first year after a death (The First Year After Loss): https://a.co/d/0g9mDVje
The GRIEF Ladies Guide: how to grieve with love instead of pain: https://a.co/d/0gKkYGkN
Workbook: https://a.co/d/03CuXPZ6
If you're still sad, still crying, and still grieving, you're not behind and you're not doing it wrong. You're living with a loss that's going to stay with you, and you deserve support for as long as you need it. We hope STILL helps.
