05/03/2026
Grief-Typical, Complicated & Traumatic
Loss is hard, and a loved one’s death is painful even in the most ideal circumstances that we, as human beings, can imagine. We’re usually introduced to death, or its concept, early in life and eventually accept it as the end of the life cycle. We imagine it will arrive, naturally, sometime near the end of the human lifespan when our bodies are expected to fail. While we’ll never want anyone we love to die, we can accept it as an unavoidable, yet predictable part the life cycle. The cycle that suggests death comes at the end of a long life, when our bodies are expected to fail. The best we can hope for ourselves or our loved ones is drifting away peacefully in bed at the age of 99. So, again, we are never happy to lose a loved one, they are always missed, but we accept it as the natural closing of the life cycle. Unavoidable to all, in a predictable time.
All other variations from that ideal passing complicate the grief cycle and challenge the security, comfort, and predictability foundational in trusting that those we love, who are not in end of life stages or terminally ill, are safe. We struggle when only one of these categories are present. Any variation from that ideal narrative complicates the already gut wrenching, agonizing, and painful grief process. A seemingly healthy elderly individual passing feels sudden, but not totally unexpected. Similarly, learning of a loved one’s terminal diagnosis is unexpected, but their death may not be. We can’t prevent our bodies eventually failing, but most other end of life scenarios involve some influence of choice, or at least the illusion of influence, and seemingly an avoidable outcome (even when it isn’t).
Hindsight’s 2020 and it’s hard to avoid an outcome we hadn’t considered possible, or likely. We take precautions and do all the “right things” that we know of and sometimes even that isn’t enough to avoid tragedy.
The even more uncomfortable truth is that death is unpredictable, arriving in any age and stage. For the living, their grief is complicated when the loss is sudden, unexpected, and by the means in which they passed. The loss itself can be traumatic for those living in a variety of sceneries.
A few examples are:
-loss of a loved one by su***de, or by act of violence.
-Loss of a child, by any cause.
-For a parent, loss of their child, even their adult child, at any age. Parents don’t expect to outlive their children.
- too many other scenarios to mention.
Grief can also become traumatic by accumulation:
- When an individual loses several loved ones at once or two losses that occurs so closely together, the individual isn’t able to move through grief for the initial loss fully before being thrust into beginning stages of loss for the consecutive passing.
-Especially if those who pass are part of the grieving individuals significant social support system and/or key contributor to their overall sense of security in life.
It’s appropriate to seek therapeutic support for any category of loss, typical, complicated, or traumatic.
A therapist can’t take the grief away or undo the loss, but they can:
1. Help guide you through the grief process and avoid sticking points or areas where those grieving often become stuck (for years).
2. Provide a healthy understanding of the grief process so we don’t get in the way and block the process itself (again-we can be stuck for years).
3. Develop healthy tools to manage the intense emotions typically experienced during the grief process.
4. Identify and support processing trauma associated with the loss, if present.
5. Overall support development of patterns that work with your body (emotional body), not against it.
Cheryl Combs-Walker, MSW, LCSW, CPTT
