Grief, Trauma, and Your Nervous System: When Loss Feels Like Too Much

Grief and PTSD can feel really big and clinical on paper, but for most of us they show up as “Why am I like this?” So I want to talk with you about it the way I wish someone had talked with me.

Over the last few years, between my own losses, work with my grief therapist, and a lot of late‑night reading and trainings, I’ve learned something that helped me breathe a little easier: grief and trauma are different, but they often live in the same body. Grief is the ache of missing someone and learning to live in a world without them. PTSD is what can happen when the way they died or what you lived through overwhelms your nervous system and it gets stuck in survival mode.

In real life, that can look like this: part of you is simply missing your person, and another part feels like it’s still bracing for impact. Maybe you have moments where you can remember them with tenderness, and other moments where one image, one sound, or one date slams you back into the worst day of your life. You might notice nightmares, a racing heart, feeling jumpy, wanting to avoid certain places or conversations, or going totally numb and disconnected. If that’s you, it doesn’t mean you’re “grieving wrong.” It means your body is still trying to protect you.

Something my therapist said that stuck with me was, “Your nervous system doesn’t know this is over yet.” That helped me stop fighting myself so hard. The flashbacks, the panic, the sudden shutdowns - they weren’t proof that I was failing. They were evidence that my body loved my person and genuinely believed it had to stay on high alert to keep me safe. That doesn’t make the symptoms easy, but it does make them a little less shameful.

Here are a few small things I’ve tried, or that I use with the people I support, that might be worth experimenting with - no pressure, just options on the table:

• Grounding in the “right now.”
  When my mind is replaying the worst moments, I gently bring my attention to the room I’m in: naming a few things I see, hear, and feel. “I see the window, I hear the refrigerator, I feel my feet on the floor.” It’s not about pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s about reminding my body, “This second is different. Right now I’m here.”

• Letting one safe person close.
  After loss, especially traumatic loss, it can feel safer to pull away from everyone. I’ve learned that I don’t need a whole crowd - I need one or two people who can be present without trying to fix me. Sometimes that looks like texting, “I’m having a hard grief day, can you just sit with me on FaceTime?” or sending a voice memo instead of finding perfect words.

• Tiny doses of movement.
  There were days when my body felt frozen or buzzing. Big workouts were too much, but small movement helped: a slow walk around the block, stretching while the kettle boils, rocking in a chair. Little bits of rhythm can give all that pent‑up energy somewhere to go.

• Making intentional space for grief itself.
  Trauma can take up so much room that grief - the love, the remembering - gets pushed to the edges. Setting aside even ten minutes to light a candle, write to my son, or listen to a song that connects me to him has helped me feel less like I’m just battling symptoms and more like I’m also tending to the relationship that still matters so much.

  

  There are also times when “DIY” tools just aren’t enough, and that’s not a failure - it’s a sign that what you’ve lived through is a lot. If you find yourself feeling unsafe most of the time, using substances to get through, or thinking about not wanting to be here anymore, that’s your system waving a big flag that it needs more support. Trauma‑informed therapists, grief counselors, groups, and crisis lines exist because being human is simply too much to carry alone sometimes.

If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in these words, I just want you to know: you’re not dramatic, broken, or behind. You’re a person whose world has been torn open, doing your best to live inside a nervous system that’s trying very hard to protect you. You’re allowed to ask for help. You’re allowed to need a lot of help. And you’re allowed to take this at the pace your body and your grief can manage - not the pace the world expects.

Warmly,
Jamie

If today’s Toolbox stirred something in you, you are not alone in that. You are welcome to linger with these ideas at your own pace and come back to them as many times as you need.

You can explore the full archive of Friday Toolbox newsletters here, with past reflections, practices, and gentle education on grief:
The Grief Table Friday Toolbox Archive

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All The Grief Table Links and Resources