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My Grief Is Deep: Can You Help?
Grief doesn’t follow a schedule. You can lose someone months ago and still find yourself unable to get out of bed, eat a full meal, or make it through a conversation without falling apart. Most people expect it to ease up with time, and when it doesn’t, they start to wonder if something is wrong with them.
At Mind Space Wellness, LLC, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Caroline Bjorkman, DO, works with people whose grief has become too heavy to carry without support.
Grief doesn’t just go away
Grief is a natural response to loss, and there’s no right way to experience it. But there’s a difference between grief that moves through you, even slowly, and grief that stops you from functioning. Prolonged grief disorder affects an estimated 10% of bereaved people and is now recognized as a clinical diagnosis.
The signs tend to include:
- Intense longing that doesn’t ease with time
- Difficulty accepting that the loss happened
- Bitterness or anger that hasn’t softened
- Pulling away from relationships and activities you used to care about
- Feeling like part of your own life is missing or pointless without the person
Dr. Bjorkman helps patients understand whether what they’re experiencing falls within the range of expected grief or has reached a point where clinical support can help.
How therapy helps you process grief
Talking about loss with a therapist isn’t the same as venting to a friend. Psychotherapy provides a structured space to process what happened, work through complex emotions, and identify the thought patterns that keep you stuck. Dr. Bjorkman uses evidence-based approaches that address grief directly rather than just managing its symptoms.
Depending on where you are in your grief, therapy helps you sort through the emotions that feel too complicated to process on your own, including feelings toward the person you lost and the ways your life has changed without them.
When to consider medication for grief
Grief and depression share a lot of the same symptoms — persistent sadness, disrupted sleep, loss of appetite, difficulty concentrating, withdrawal from things you used to enjoy. For some people, grief triggers a depressive episode that therapy alone can’t fully address.
Dr. Bjorkman evaluates each patient carefully before recommending medication. When grief has tipped into clinical depression or is severely impairing your ability to function, medication can reduce the intensity of symptoms enough to make therapy more effective and daily life more manageable.
She monitors how it’s working and adjusts the approach over time, because grief isn’t a static experience and treatment shouldn’t be either.
You don’t have to be in crisis to reach out
A lot of people wait until they’re completely overwhelmed before asking for help. If your grief has been heavy for a while, that’s enough of a reason to make an appointment.
Contact our offices in Fort Lee, New Jersey, or on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to schedule an appointment with Dr. Bjorkman and our team, or book online today.