The Long-Term Effects of Grief

The “5 stages of grief” as people often refer to is only the beginning of what some 
people experience after a loss. You may experience something else entirely, depending 
largely on the circumstances of the loss and what you have been going through since 
then. There are not only short-term effects of a traumatic experience that is causing 
your grief, but long-term effects as well.

Effects on Your Mental Health
As you might guess, grief has a lot of effects on your mental and emotional health. In 
some cases, it might trigger your depression or anxiety, or worsen your stress levels on 
a daily basis. For others, you develop conditions like complicated grief disorder, 
sometimes called bereavement disorder. This is for people who have a very large 
amount of grief, and go through a period of heightened mental health effects. Some 
people deal with this throughout their life, while others simply have what appears to be a 
more severe grieving period. It is common among people who lose a child or spouse, 
though it can be with any type of loss in your life.

Some symptoms of complicated grief or bereavement include constantly focusing only 
on your loss, being in a severe or deep depression, increased irritability or agitation, the 
inability to move forward, and many of the classic symptoms of grief and depression.

Effects on Your Physical Health
You may also notice that your physical health seems to be affected by your grief. You 
might have digestive issues, headaches or migraines, nausea and vomiting, weight gain 
or loss from a change in your eating habits, blurry vision, weak joints and muscles, and 
severe fatigue. It affects everyone differently, and often depends on how your mental 
state is as well. If you are someone with anxiety disorder, you might notice an increase 
in your physical panic attack symptoms like a racing heart, tunnel vision, hot flashes and 
sweating, shaking and trembling, and the inability to move.

How Grief Pops Up Later in Life
There are other long-term effects of grief as well. One of them is that it might pop up at 
random times throughout your life. You never really get over a big loss in your life, 
though you will go through periods where it doesn’t feel quite as sad and lonely. 
However, there may be times when it comes back full force and seems to consume you 
for short periods of time. Get the support you need during these moments.

