Grief expert David Kessler explains traumatic grief, which keeps your nervous system stuck in survival mode for weeks or months. Unlike ordinary grief that fluctuates, traumatic grief causes persistent feelings of being shattered, severe sleep and appetite disruption, and intrusive replay of the loss. Naming the condition is the first step toward healing.
No one tells us about traumatic grief. Most people have never heard of it. If you're grieving someone and it feels like you're losing your mind, this may be why. Grief hurts. It's devastating. But it eventually begins to move. It shifts. It goes up and down. You feel like you're backsliding or getting ahead. Some days are harder than others, but there's a rhythm to it. Traumatic grief can feel like it's not moving, like it's stuck. If you're experiencing this, you may not be just sad. You're shattered. You can't sleep. You can't eat. You keep replaying the events. Your body can feel like it's shutting down. That's because traumatic grief doesn't just live in your mind. It lives in your nervous system. Your body is still in survival mode, even weeks or months later. And here's the thing no one tells you. It's just not as simple as moving on because it's not just in your mind and heart. It's actually a physical response. And naming it isn't dramatic. It's the first step towards healing.
