The Physical Effects of Grief | Pets Center

When my mother passed away after a two-year battle with cancer, I felt nothing but numbness. Numbness crept into my body the moment my grandfather told me my mom had passed away. At that moment, I was standing in the parking lot of the hospital where my mother was lying inside dead, and all I could feel was numb.

The numbness stayed with me during the following days, through visits from mourning family and friends, through the funeral, and through the job of clearing my mother?s things from the house she lived in with my father. The numbness allowed me to live through everyday, and sleep at night. It allowed me to complete everyday tasks without thinking about my mother and that I would not see her again in this lifetime. I began to get used to the numbness, almost embracing it as a friend. Then, as quickly as it came, the numbness was gone.

Replacing it was a dull, aching in my chest. I began to comprehend what had happened, what I had lost at twenty-one years of age. I was motherless and my father was so overwhelmed with grief that I felt I had lost him, too. The pain in my chest was slight but constant and I often felt it was going to suffocate me. With the pain came the anxiety attacks. I began having difficulty doing things that were once natural. I could barely walk through a crowd of people or spend time with groups of friends without having chest pains, heart palpitations and feeling as though I could not breathe. I was a college senior at the time, and I could barely sit through my classes. I left during the middle of my college graduation ceremonies because I felt like I was having a heart attack.

After experiencing anxiety attacks for six months, I finally decided to visit my doctor. He ran a number of tests to rule out any medical reasons for the symptoms I was experiencing. When all tests came back normal, my doctor confirmed that what I had been having were anxiety attacks. He explained that my body was reacting to the stress of losing my mother by having the attacks. He suggested ways of working through stress ? counseling, exercise, meditation, and yoga. I realized if I didn?t begin taking care of myself, I was going to become ill. I took my doctor?s advice and went to counseling, joined a gym and purchased a meditation/yoga videotape.

The counseling helped me sort through my feelings and got me to start talking about my mother?s illness, death and how I had been affected. Joining a gym helped me in several ways. Exercise helped me develop a stronger self-image. I slept through the night easier on the days I exercised; helping end the insomnia I had been experiencing. I made new friends at the gym, which made working out something to look forward to. I gained the courage to try new activities and aerobic classes, without the fear of having an anxiety attack.

I started doing the meditation and yoga tape, which was helped me learn to focus on relaxation and letting go of stresses.

Once I started taking control of my life, the anxiety went away and I began to feel at peace. Of course, I still had times of mourning and I continue missing my mother to this day. The lifestyle improvements I?ve made have provided me with outlets for my grief, so I cannot internalize it. Gone is the numbness, the anxiety. They were replaced with openness; wellness and the ability to not only accept loss, but to grow from it.

Source: http://www.petscenter.net/the-physical-effects-of-grief.html

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