Last week, I shared one of the most personal things I’ve written. For the first time, I shared my writing more openly with friends and family, and the response to One Year Later was beautiful.
What surprised me was how many people could relate to parts of what I was describing, even if their experiences were completely different to mine. Not everyone has experienced pregnancy loss, but so many people recognised the feelings that can come alongside grief and trauma — anxiety, feeling overwhelmed in social situations, nervous system dysregulation, PTSD or CPTSD, or that strange feeling of being physically present somewhere while mentally feeling miles away.
Our experiences can be completely different, yet some of the feelings that come with them can be surprisingly similar.
It made me think about the other side of grief too. When somebody we love is going through something incredibly difficult, how do we know what they need from us? And perhaps more importantly, how do we support them when sometimes even they don't know what they need?
Grief doesn’t always look like grief
Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time learning about my nervous system and beginning to understand what makes me feel safe again. I know far more about my own responses now than I did at the beginning of all of this, but understanding myself doesn’t automatically mean I know what somebody else needs.
Grief comes in so many different forms. It can be the loss of a baby, a parent or a partner. It can be the end of a relationship, a change in health, or even grieving a version of your life that you thought you were going to have. And what I’ve realised is that grief can look very different from the outside to how it actually feels on the inside.
Someone can be laughing at dinner and still be struggling. They can turn up to work, answer messages, get their children ready for school and carry on with normal life while internally feeling completely overwhelmed.
I’ve had conversations with friends who have lost parents or partners who have described feelings that I recognise so well. One of those is how overwhelming social situations can suddenly become. Another is that feeling of dissociation — being somewhere physically but not really feeling completely there.
Those conversations have reminded me that we often have no idea what another person is carrying simply by looking at them.
The words that stay with us
During the hardest parts of my own grief, I became incredibly aware of how powerful words can be. A single sentence could affect my entire day, and sometimes much longer than that.
There were words that made me feel understood and less alone, and there were others that stayed with me for completely different reasons. Most of the time I knew there was no bad intention behind them. People often just don’t know what to say when something awful has happened, and I can completely understand that. Before experiencing recurrent loss myself, I’m not sure I would have known what to say either.
But going through it has made me much more mindful of the things we say when someone is struggling. Not because I think we should be frightened of saying the wrong thing or feel as though we have to walk on eggshells around someone who is grieving. More that sometimes we don’t actually need to find the perfect words.
We don’t always need to find the positive or try to make somebody feel better. Sometimes acknowledging that what they are going through is incredibly hard is enough.
What support looked like for me
One of the things I’ve learned about myself is that when I’m overwhelmed, I need space. I don’t necessarily want people popping in or asking me to socialise. I feel safest at home, in my own environment, with the people closest to me, and particularly when my nervous system is struggling, retreating a little is often what I need.
But needing space never meant that I wanted to feel forgotten.
Looking back, some of the things I appreciated most were actually the smallest gestures. A message saying someone was thinking of me. Somebody remembering a date they knew might be difficult. A message that specifically said I didn’t need to reply. There was something comforting about knowing somebody was there without feeling as though I had to talk, explain myself or reassure anyone that I was okay.
And I think that’s where I’ve realised there can be a difference between giving someone space and leaving them alone in their grief.
For me, those little messages allowed me to have both. I could have the space I needed while still being reminded that I wasn’t completely alone.
Maybe support starts with being mindful
I want to be careful here, because I’m not writing this to tell anyone how they should behave around somebody who is grieving. If anything, my own experiences have taught me that there simply isn’t one right way to support someone, because there isn’t one right way to grieve.
What comforts me might completely overwhelm somebody else. One person might desperately want company while another needs to retreat. Someone might want to talk about the person they have lost constantly, while someone else might find those conversations too painful. Neither response is wrong.
I think what I’ve taken from my own experience is simply to be a little more mindful of each other, because we rarely know everything that is happening beneath the surface.
Someone declining an invitation might not be uninterested. Someone being quieter than usual might not be rude. Someone leaving a social situation earlier than expected might simply have reached their limit. And somebody asking for space doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to know that you care.
It isn’t about walking on eggshells or constantly worrying that we might upset somebody. I certainly don’t expect people to understand exactly what my nervous system needs, and I wouldn’t presume to know what somebody else needs either. Maybe it’s more about giving each other a little more grace and respecting that another person’s capacity might look very different to our own.
Being mindful with our words. Respecting someone’s boundaries without taking them personally. Understanding that sometimes people need to retreat. And perhaps occasionally sending the message anyway, even if you don’t expect a response.
Because sometimes a very small gesture can make somebody feel a little safer in a world that, for a while, has felt incredibly overwhelming.
So, what does support look like for you?
I think this is the part I’m most interested in.
I can write about what grief and support have looked like for me, but my experience is only one experience. The conversations I’ve had recently have made me realise how differently we all process difficult periods of our lives, and I’d genuinely love to understand more about what has helped other people.
If you’ve experienced grief — whatever form that grief has taken — what did you need from the people around you? Did you want company, or did you need space? Was there something somebody said that stayed with you? Or perhaps a tiny gesture that meant far more than the person who did it probably ever realised?
And maybe the bigger question is: what do you wish people had understood about you during that time?
I don’t think any of us are going to get it right all of the time. We’re human, and sometimes we won’t know what to say or do. But perhaps the more openly we talk about these things, the better we become at understanding each other through them.
Not fixing someone’s grief or deciding what they should need from us, but being a little more mindful, a little more respectful and a little more aware that we never truly know what somebody else might be carrying.
Sometimes, simply reminding someone I’m still here is enough.