Just wanted to create a new conversation thread about the physical symptoms of grief. As of course it’s something only you experiencing it is going through, especially depending on who you’ve lost and who else is around you.
So my mum died suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of May and life has never been the same since. Aside from the heartbreak and all the crying, the main physical symptom I’ve noticed is how exhausted I am all the time. My body is just so tired all the time, my muscles and bones ache constantly.
In the early days of grief, my body couldn’t regulate temperature very well. Even when it was boiling hot I felt cold. I don’t have that as often now, but I had it a lot in the first 5 days to 3 weeks.
Something I had in the early stages of grief was insomnia, I wouldn’t go to bed until somewhere between 4am-5am and I’d only get like 5 hours sleep if I was lucky. I still have this now but less extreme since I retuned to work. So now I still don’t get a lot of sleep, about 6 hours or 6.5 if I’m lucky, which is crazy as I used to always need 7-9 hours on a work night. But then on a day off I’m in bed until like 11:30am. So my body is just so physically exhausted from it all every single day and I think a reason it is so exhausting is knowing nothing you do with change it or fix it.
But yeah life is still really hard and sad and weird; 5 months on and time feels strange and like it just happened yesterday whilst at the same time it feels like my dad and I have lived the is life forever. But every day is hard, some harder than others, but always hard.
Sending love to everyone as this truly is the worst experience of my life.
I seem to have lost the ability to fight off a common cold. It then gets so bad. 10 out of the last 12 weeks I have felt ill. I also tested positive for covid. I feel exhausted, but always trying to find tasks to complete. I am compelled to clean and organise. Sleep eludes me,i have about 3 to 4 hours a night.
Hi @KatieLou - i lost my mum 11 months and also felt completely exhausted with the grief, and found my muscles and bones were really aching, to the point it stopped me sleeping because i just felt so physically uncomfortable all the time. I was also conscious that i might be going through the menopause so it was hard to tell what was grief and what might be menopause symptoms. After a few months i went to the GP who tested my blood - and actually found a vitamin D deficiency. I have no idea if it can be triggered by grief, but it can cause aching bones, muscle weakness and even feelings of hopelessness. I was put on a high dose of vitamin D for 6 weeks and that certainly helped with the aches and problems sleeping. So i just wanted to put that out there for everyone, because it never occurred to me in a million years that vitamin D would be contributing to some of my symptoms!
@Ally6 - oh wow really, that’s crazy it turned out to be that. Maybe that’s something I need to consider then. See I think partly mine is the job I do, I’m a tour guide at a castle and we climb up narrow and uneven steps every single day and we do tours every hour. So we’re constantly on our feet and talking all day long so it’s very physically demanding and when you do it so often it is so exhausting.
So after I went back I couldn’t get back in the rhythm I was in before and my body was just struggling every single day and I realised it’s the grief as I’m carrying that all the time but with going back to work that was taking all my energy and I had nothing left. Literally at the end of each work day I would just have to sit down for an hour because my body just couldn’t deal with it. So yeah my job just took it all of me and now I’m working less and I’ve changed to a different department too so my body isn’t constantly going through so much every day and that’s helped a lot. Cutting back my hours and doing other things so I’m grateful my managers could do that for me.
But I do have other struggles of not having the energy to do other things. Like my room has been a mess even before my mum died and now it’s worse because I don’t have the energy to sort it out, mentally or physically, and I know it’s bad and no way to live but mentally I’m just not here enough to get through to sorting it you know. It’s hard being a 27 year old woman living in one small room in her parents house and then with grief added on top it’s all just really hard
That sounds like a fascinating job but i can absolutely see why you were aching - the body is releasing hormones during grief, muscles are tensing and then you were walking and climbing every day Im glad you’ve managed to find an alternative thats less demanding for now.
I totally relate to lacking energy - we only have so much we can give and grief takes up a lot of that energy. There just isnt enough to go round for all the other everyday stuff as well. I lost my job whilst caring for mum and at some point will have to find work again, but at the moment i dont think i would be able to cope with regular working hours.
Im glad you’ve managed to find an alternative thats less demanding for now.