Anticipatory grief is different from post-loss grief because the loss isn’t concrete yet, so there is guesswork and questioning happening in our minds. “Our brain is trying to imagine what the world will look like and feel like after this loss occurs, which is, of course, very different from living in the reality of the loss,” says Williams. So the approximation may not be close to how the loss really plays out, as grief is such an incredibly complex emotion. “Grief is so different for each person, whether it’s pre- or post-loss,” says Kriston Wenzel, LBSW, CT, a grief specialist at the Hospice of Red River Valley in Fargo, N.D. However, it’s a common misconception that anticipatory grief somehow eases or lessens the feelings of grief when the loss does occur. “People will think they have emotionally prepared themselves because they have imagined the loss, but what happens is usually the opposite. They realize it’s different or worse than they envisioned,” which can be difficult, says Williams. Wenzel recalls a friend whose husband died of Lou Gerhig’s disease after a long battle with it: “She told me [near the end of his life] ‘I’ve already grieved. I’m done. I feel like I’ve gone through everything I have to.’ And then he died. She called me and said, ‘I guess it wasn’t quite that easy, was it?’ None of us know what we’re going to feel.” “And anticipatory grief may not mean you are feeling sad about the death specifically,” says Wenzel. “It can also be sadness about the fact that you’re never going to get to do something with that person again, or sadness about the first wedding anniversary without them [on the horizon].” Anticipatory grief can also cause intense feelings of guilt, explains Williams. “People often feel like they should be maintaining hope at all times, and it can feel like a betrayal of that hope if we’re starting to imagine the world without that person,” she says. But it’s important to understand that it is not—all of these feelings are very, very valid and normal. RELATED: 5 Warning Signs You Might Be Depressed (and Not Just in a Bad Mood) “Try to create a space for this grief,” says Williams. “A lot of people find it really helpful to set ‘grief time’ aside and write in a journal, create art, or just spend time with that person.” Creating this space can not only help you avoid feeling numb or disconnected, it can also help if the opposite is true, when the grief seems overwhelming. By setting aside time to experience your feelings, says Williams, if you feel a wave come over you at work, you can acknowledge it while remembering you’re going to give yourself time to journal about it that night. “Having a space set aside helps you feel some sense of control—something we don’t have much of when we’re grieving,” says Williams. You can also work on your grief “plan,” so to speak, says Wenzel, if you’re the kind of person for whom that would be healing. “Start thinking: What are your plans? How are you going to honor this person’s life? People feel like it’s going to be so hard, I don’t know what I’m going to do, I’m not going to be able to get out of bed. But if you can reframe it in the sense of ‘what are you going to do to honor the life that they lived?’, that can be very helpful for people,” she says. These kinds of questions can also be helpful if you’re anticipating the grief of an upcoming move, a pet, or even a part of your life. “Loss is something we all have to face, whether it be the loss of a relationship or friends or jobs or money,” says Wenzel. “Grief is grief. But if we can face it in a way that’s more positive, it might not be as overwhelming to us.”
