But why am I SO exhausted?

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Hi everyone! It’s Melinda. Welcome to Melinda’s Grief Corner! If this is your first time here, be sure to check out past posts to learn more about the inspiration behind this new Article Club feature and read about other grief-y topics I’ve covered with resources I’ve shared! Glad to have you here!

The emotional part of grief is something you can kind of understand before you’re ever on a grief journey. We see it in movies, read about it in books, we listen to grief-y lyrics in songs - longing, sadness, pain, heartache.

What I didn’t realize were the physical parts of grief. Particularly, the complete exhaustion.

When I tell you dear reader that I was completely wiped out the weeks and months immediately after my dad died, I mean it.

Like going to bed at 6:00 pm tired.

Like sleeping 12 hours and waking up still exhausted kind of tired.

The kind of tired where I honestly thought I needed to go to the doctor to make sure nothing was actually wrong with me.

Turns out nothing was actually wrong with me. Nothing medically anyway. It’s just that grief exists in our body just as much as it does in our emotions.

And let’s be honest.

Grieving is EXHAUSTING.

What didn’t register for me at the time was that my body was in survival mode. I was in shock at the death of my dad. Anxious about how my mom was feeling over the death of her husband. Overwhelmed by ALL of the things you need to do when someone dies (the number of forms I had to fill out!) - updating friends and family about what happened, where the memorial would be, where they could send flowers etc.

I mean no wonder I was exhausted. I was grieving the loss of the person I loved the most and the longest. And on top of that I was just trying to keep me and my mom afloat through the wreckage.

It never occurred to me that other people have also experienced grief fatigue until I talked to other grief-y friends. It turns out, it is extremely common to feel completely wiped out in the early stages of grief. (I’ve also realized it can happen in the later stages of grief, but more on that in a future newsletter).

During the early stages of my grief fatigue, I found this helpful article from What’s Your Grief that discusses why grief can leave us completely exhausted.

What I learned is that 1) I am not weird for sleeping 12 hours a day for several months after my dad died and 2) that there are many reasons why I was exhausted.

The article helpfully lays out 10 reasons why someone may be exhausted when in those early stages of grief (early is of course relative to you!). For me several of the reasons rang true, particularly the hyper-vigilance I felt after my dad died (I was constantly worried someone else I loved would die) and my mind being on overdrive (see above all of the tasks you have to do after someone dies, my to-do list kept my mind completely on all of the time).

I hope dear reader that you find some solace in this article and that maybe you feel less alone in your grief fatigue!

Feel free to share in the comments your thoughts and reactions to the article!

Until next time, big hugs!

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