Unresolved Grief

Unresolved grief is grief that hasn’t eased with time: months or years after a loss, the longing, pain and disbelief stay as intense as at the start and keep you from daily life. Clinicians call the severe form prolonged grief disorder. It’s different from ordinary grief, which comes in waves and softens.

Also called: complicated grief; prolonged grief disorder (WHO’s ICD-11); unprocessed or “stuck” grief.

Read Coping With Grief and Loss in Nigeria, losing a parent and losing a spouse.

Signs and symptoms

Constant longing, and thoughts of the person that crowd out everything else
Emotional pain that hasn’t lessened
Trouble accepting the death
Avoiding reminders: their room, their photos, their church
Feeling life has no meaning without them

WHO’s ICD-11 calls this prolonged grief disorder when it persists at least six months after the loss, or longer where mourning customs run longer, and disrupts daily life. The US manual uses a year. Across 14 studies, about 1 in 10 bereaved adults met the criteria.

Causes

Grief is more likely to stay stuck after a sudden, violent or unexplained death, the loss of a child or partner, or little support. Grief that was never allowed also lingers: a loss others don’t count, such as a pregnancy, or a death nobody will talk about.

In Nigeria

The weeks after a death are often filled with the burial, visitors and family, and the grief properly begins when the house goes quiet. Sensing the person, or hearing their voice, in the months after is common and isn’t a sign of illness.

Unresolved grief vs ordinary grief and depression

Ordinary grief hurts in waves, and good moments break through within weeks. Depression on top of grief looks different: no good moments a month or more on, guilt or worthlessness that aren’t about the person who died, or thoughts of suicide, which are rare in ordinary grief.

Treatment

Most bereaved people don’t need therapy; family, friends and faith are enough. When grief has stayed stuck, grief-focused talking therapy helps, including a CBT-based therapy built for complicated grief.

When to get help

The risk of suicide rises after a partner dies. If you’re having thoughts of ending your life, call 112 (or 767 in Lagos), or Safe Place Nigeria on 0800 800 2000. The full list is on our helplines page.

See a therapist if, months on, you still can’t get back to work, sleep or people. You can book a licensed therapist on Mytherapist.ng for grief and loss. For a grieving child, start with the school counsellor or a family doctor.