Supporting yourself to help someone grieving

Why it’s hard to support a bereaved person

There are a few reasons why it can be difficult and draining to support someone after someone close to them dies.

Seeing someone in pain: Seeing someone grieve and experience strong emotions can be difficult. If you care about them, it can really hurt. Knowing you cannot take their pain away is even harder.

Your own trauma: Seeing someone else suffering and listening to them talk about difficult events and feelings might remind you of your own experiences.

Reminder that everyone dies: Hearing about someone else’s experiences can be a frightening reminder that we are all vulnerable, and that bereavement comes to us all at some time.

Fear of upsetting them: Fear of doing or saying the wrong thing is often the reason people don’t do anything to help after someone is bereaved. Even once you are involved, the anxiety of getting it wrong can hang over you.

Survivors guilt: Part of you might be feeling relived that you are not the one experiencing the loss. This in turn can make you feel guilty.

Your own grief: Sometimes you might also be grieving. You might feel like you need to prioritise the other person’s grief over your own. Or you might be grieving other losses and bereavements.

Whatever the reason, supporting someone who is grieving can take a lot out of you.

How to help yourself

It’s not selfish to look after yourself and when you are supporting someone – you can’t pour from an empty cup.

Keeping healthy

You can’t help others if you are not well yourself. Try to keep healthy and look after your own wellbeing.

The following can help:

• Try to protect your sleep. If you need to help someone in the night, try to make some time the next day to catch up on rest.
• Try to eat regular meals.
• If possible, limit alcohol and drugs. They might provide temporary relief, but they can make anxiety worse and affect your sleep.
• Exercise can really help. If you’re already in an exercise routine, try to stick to it. If not you could think about starting with a short walk or gentle stretching. There are lots of beginner exercise routines available online for all abilities. Even 5 or 10 minutes a day can help.
• Getting outside has often been shown to help people’s mental wellbeing. If possible go somewhere where you can be in nature, or see some greenery or water.

Dealing with your feelings

Give yourself space for your own feelings. You will need time away from supporting someone, especially if it is very intense and emotional. The following can help:

Take time off: It’s OK to do other things that refresh you, and take your mind off what your friend or family member is going through.

Journal: It can be helpful to write down your feelings. It’s a great way of reflecting and working through things. Getting it out on paper or into phone or computer can help stop thoughts going round and round in your mind.

Find your own support: It might not be the right time to talk to your grieving friend about your own feelings. But if you have other friends or family, talking through what you are doing and feeling can help.

Make space for your own grief: If you are grieving yourself, whether it’s for the same person or for another loss, make time for yourself to grieve too. Find out more on managing grief

Supporting children: If you are supporting a child or young person, we have more information that might help

Dealing with anger and other difficult situations

Grief affects people in different ways. Grieving people are not always acting or thinking in the way they usually would. They can be angry. They can also need different things and different people at different times.

Sometimes they might not know what they want or need. It’s not always going to be possible to do or say the right thing.

If someone is angry or hurting, they might take it out on you. They might also blame you or be upset by things you said, even if you were trying your best to help.

If you’ve hurt someone, apologise and try and understand their point of view. If that doesn’t make things better, you might need to just sit with the difficult feelings, and either let it pass, or talk about it much later.

Talking to someone else about the situation might help, and give you the perspective and support you need.

Dealing with guilt

Many people feel terribly guilty when they are trying to help someone who is grieving.

• You might feel like you are not helping as much as you think you should.
• You might feel that you shouldn’t find it difficult or painful when it is someone else who is grieving.
• You might feel resentful of the demands put on you, and feel guilty for feeling that way.

All these feelings are natural. Remember no-one knows your feelings unless you chose to share them. You also have to be realistic about what you can do. Don’t offer more help than you can give.

If you are reading these pages, you are already showing you care and want to help. Thank you for what you are doing. Giving any support at all is so much better than just ignoring the situation.

Find out more

Read more about helping someone in the first months after a death  – including practical tasks.

Find out more about the effects of grief and what can help in our pages on Understanding grief