Why You Feel Anxious After a Loss

You might feel beside yourself with anxiety after losing someone important. Photo: Priscilla DuPreez

When you think about loss and grief, you probably think about being sad mostly. You see people who have lost a loved one or undergone a divorce, financial hardship, etc. crying. Maybe you’ve seen someone snap in anger out of the blue. But anxiety? That might confuse you when other people have it or when you feel anxious after a loss. This post explains anxiety in grief and gives some tips on how to cope with it better.

Feeling anxious after a loss? You’re not alone.

As strange as it may seem to feel anxious after a loss, it’s actually fairly common. It can be a symptom of Prolonged Grief Disorder, a newer diagnosis for people who have complicated grief for one or more years after the death of a loved one. Between 7-15% of adults experience PGD, although statistics vary across research.

As Claire Bidwell Smith explains in her book about grief and anxiety, anxiety can come from grief or loss that hasn’t been processed or resolved. This is especially true when the loss is unexpected, as it was during the COVID-19 pandemic. You don’t have a chance to prepare mentally or emotionally for the loss. That’s not to say that losing someone to a long-term illness like cancer cannot also induce anxiety, because there’s uncertainty in the course of the illness and humans tend to feel a lack of control when we can’t predict things.

Some of the common anxiety symptoms that can accompany loss include panic attacks, social phobia, generalized anxiety, and PTSD, according to Keyes and colleagues (2014). Sometimes, the initial loss gives rise to other losses, such as having to move, change jobs, take on roles that you hadn’t been responsible for before, etc. These incremental losses can create more stress, because you’re thrust into yet more unfamiliar territory. You might worry whether you’re up to the task of all the new things that require adaptation.

Some of the challenges facing you when you’re anxious in grief.

Losing someone or something important to you can come as a shock at first. There’s a period during which you might feel numb or have a hard time believing that it really happened. When the shock wears off, you’re left feeling very vulnerable for a while. You don’t know what to do, and it might be hard to accept that you’re without that person for a while. Your world is thrown upside down and you don’t know what’s coming next.

Therefore, you try to create control and certainty in your life. You might reactively assume that it was your fault that the loss happened, although others might try to convince you that you’re not. You likely had nothing to do with the person dying, leaving, or no longer being there, but you’re unconsciously trying to have that control. Other ways you might try to have control are worrying that you might die or face a similar fate as the deceased. If they died of a heart attack, you may feel panicky if your heart rate is elevated, even if you’re healthy.

Professional support for anxiety disorders, other mental illness, or complicated grief can be life-saving.

Alternatively, you might fear that your living loved ones might leave or die. In essence, you personalize the loss and believe that you or your loved ones are next in line for tragedy.

If you had mental illness before the loss, the stress of grief can worsen those symptoms. It’s not uncommon for people with Prolonged Grief Disorder to have co-existing mental health problems like Generalized Anxiety, Major Depressive Disorder, or PTSD. Having unresolved grief from other losses can also make grief harder for you, because there’s one more painful event to process in your life.

What do you do if you feel anxious after losing someone or something important to you.

Grief can be a lonely experience, especially when you feel insecure about what might happen to you and your loved ones. Support groups and professional grief therapy are advisable, so that the grief can be addressed, expressed, and transformed into a bearable experience. Professional and peer support that includes education about loss and grief can also prevent your grief from becoming complicated and stuck. I've found EMDR therapy and clinical hypnotherapy to be useful approaches, as well as talk therapy.

If you prefer a more DIY approach, reading books, articles, and listening to podcasts about grief by licensed mental health professionals can also be helpful. Using mindfulness meditation can help you from dwelling in the painful past and bring you more into the present moment. Finally, spiritual guidance from your religious or spiritual teachers (like rabbis, priests, imams, or gurus) might help you find meaning in the loss and guide you to reassurance and acceptance.

If you believe that your anxiety is getting the best of you after a significant loss, grief therapy could be useful. I have many years of experience helping people resolve grief and can help you cope with anxiety, sadness, and all the other emotions that come after a loss. Please call me at 661-233-6771 or click the button below to make an appointment.

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References:

Bidwell Smith, C. (2018). Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief. New York, NY: Da Capo Press.

Cook A. S., Oltjenbruns K. A. (1998). The bereaved family. In Cook A. S., Oltjenbruns K. A.(Eds.), Dying and grieving: Life span and family perspectives (pp. 91–115). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.

Keyes, K., Pratt, C., Galea, S., McLaughlin, K., Koenen, K., Shear, M. K. (2014 Aug. 1). The Burden of Loss: Unexpected death of a loved one and psychiatric disorders across the life course in a national study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 171(8):864–871. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2014.13081132