How to deal with grief: a survival guide

In The Grief Handbook: A guide through the worst days of your life, local author Bridget McNulty offers personal reflections on grief and expert advice on coping.

- Thobeka Phanyeko

Losing someone you love, whether sudden or due to illness, is by far the worst thing that can happen, the news often shock-inducing. Author Bridget McNulty says one of the toughest challenges in the weeks and months following her mom’s passing was accepting she was gone. “It seemed impossible for the world to continue as if nothing had happened when I no longer had a mom,” she says.

“The sudden reality when someone who was alive stops breathing forever is too harsh a disjunction not to be accompanied by shock.”

That’s why Bridget recommends giving yourself time to recover from the shock before you start processing all the truths about your life right now and forever after. “I’d go so far as to suggest you think of rules of survival,” she adds Below, Bridget shares the rules that helped her cope with her mom’s passing.

Be gentle with yourself