Signs That my Grief is Still Raw

Thinking terrible thoughts about other people when you’re grieving does not make you a bad person — it makes you a person.

The intensity of grief, for almost everyone, changes over time. It changes in a way that makes living with loss more bearable. For me, what was once constant heart-crushing pain, became something I could carry.

My dad died in 2004 when I was 20 years old, and I believed that the rest of my life would be miserable. I spent nearly 4 years trying to figure out how to function in a world of peers with alive parents. I took extra shifts at my second job so that I would spend less at home. When I was at home in my apartment, I locked myself in my room with the lights off and laid on my futon in silence. Sometimes I would sneak out at night and go for walks, passing houses with the lights on, imagining cheerful and whole families inside.

My grief did, eventually, become more manageable. Thanks mostly to a low-dose of an anti-anxiety medication and a mediocre therapist. With their help, I realized that it was possible to feel joy. That at 24 my life wasn’t over because my 54 year old father’s life was. That tiny bit of hope that came thanks to the help of half of a tiny little pill, was all that I needed to inspire me to try to figure out other ways to feel happier.

I now know that those early years after my dad’s death were filled with signs that my grief was still raw. But as the…