Speaker 1: Hello, and thank you for being here with me today
Speaker 1: on grief. Let's make sense of this shit. I'm Dylan.
Speaker 1: If you tuned in because something sudden and unexpected took
Speaker 1: someone you love, I want you to know your pain
Speaker 1: is real and it makes sense that it feels this way.
Speaker 1: Sudden loss often arrives without any chance to prepare, and
Speaker 1: that absence of warning can leave you disoriented for a
Speaker 1: long time. Many of you found this episode right after
Speaker 1: a recent event that changed everything in a single moment.
Speaker 1: Since that happened, you might have been searching for something
Speaker 1: that fits how you're actually feeling instead of what others
Speaker 1: expect you to feel. I appreciate you showing up here
Speaker 1: because it tells me you're ready to sit with this
Speaker 1: on your own terms. We'll keep a calm and steady
Speaker 1: pace for the next thirty minutes. There is no need
Speaker 1: to rush through any part of this while we talk.
Speaker 1: You can pause the episode whenever you need to. Although
Speaker 1: grief moves at its own speed, we can still choose
Speaker 1: how we approach it today. Because sudden loss leaves so
Speaker 1: many questions without answers, we will focus on what that
Speaker 1: experience is really like and how it shows up in
Speaker 1: daily life. However, we won't pretend there is a quick
Speaker 1: fix or a set order to follow. Instead, we'll look
Speaker 1: at small steps that have helped others find a little
Speaker 1: steadiness when everything else feels unsteady. Meanwhile, you can decide
Speaker 1: what parts of this conversation feel useful to you right now.
Speaker 1: The truth is Coping with this kind of grief often
Speaker 1: starts with simply acknowledging that the rules changed without your permission.
Speaker 1: Sudden loss arrives without any notice at all. It is
Speaker 1: the kind of death that happens in an instant, leaving
Speaker 1: no room for preparation or final words. You might have
Speaker 1: spoken to that person just hours before, and then everything
Speaker 1: changes in ways you never imagined possible. The absence hits
Speaker 1: right away because nothing led up to it. This experience
Speaker 1: stands apart from other kinds of grief because the shock
Speaker 1: runs so deep. When a loss is anticipated, there is
Speaker 1: sometimes a chance to adjust, even in small ways, but
Speaker 1: sudden loss offers none of that. Instead, disbelief often takes over. First,
Speaker 1: your mind struggles to accept what has happened because there
Speaker 1: were no signs pointing in that direction. The body can
Speaker 1: feel frozen in place while the world keeps moving around you.
Speaker 1: Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health have observed
Speaker 1: that this type of grief can sometimes lead to prolonged
Speaker 1: grief in those who face it. The feelings do not
Speaker 1: follow a straight path, and that is okay. They show
Speaker 1: up in daily life through moments of confusion or wave
Speaker 1: of emotion that catch you off guard while you are
Speaker 1: doing simple things like making coffee or walking down the street.
Speaker 1: One minute, you might feel steady, and the next the
Speaker 1: weight returns. Because the loss never asked for permission to enter,
Speaker 1: many people describe a sense of unreality that lingers for
Speaker 1: weeks or longer. You reach for the phone to call
Speaker 1: them out of habit, only to remember in the same
Speaker 1: breath that they are gone. These small reminders add up
Speaker 1: because they interrupt the ordinary rhythm of the day. Sleep
Speaker 1: might come in fits or not at all, and concentration
Speaker 1: on routine tasks can fade without warning. Relationships around you
Speaker 1: may shift, too, since friends sometimes do not know what
Speaker 1: to say when the loss came so abruptly. I remember
Speaker 1: the first weeks after my own sudden loss. The quiet
Speaker 1: in the house felt louder than any noise could. I
Speaker 1: kept expecting the door to open at the usual time,
Speaker 1: and each time it did not, the truth settled a
Speaker 1: little more. That personal connection stays with me. When I
Speaker 1: think about what listeners might be carrying right now, it
Speaker 1: reminds me that the path forward does not require you
Speaker 1: to rush or to explain everything to anyone else. Instead,
Speaker 1: the focus stays on noticing how the grief lives in
Speaker 1: your body and your schedule. Some days the disbelief softens
Speaker 1: just enough for a memory to surface without the same
Speaker 1: sharp edge. Other days it returns full force, and that
Speaker 1: pattern is part of the process rather than a setback.
Speaker 1: Because the loss had no build up, the mind keeps
Speaker 1: searching for reasons that may never appear. This search can
Speaker 1: feel exhausting, yet it also shows how much the person
Speaker 1: mattered over time. Small anchors help create steadiness even when
Speaker 1: the larger questions remain unanswered. A short walk outside, a
Speaker 1: familiar song, or a conversation with someone who listens without
Speaker 1: trying to fix anything can ease the intensity for a while.
Speaker 1: These moments do not erase the absence, but they create
Speaker 1: space to breathe inside it. The National Institute of Mental
Speaker 1: Health Findings suggests that support from others makes a difference
Speaker 1: when grief stretches on, and that matches what many people
Speaker 1: report in their own lives. What matters most right now
Speaker 1: is giving yourself room to feel whatever arrives without judgment.
Speaker 1: The shock and the disbelief belong to this kind of loss,
Speaker 1: and they do not mean you are doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: As we continue, we will look at ways to meet
Speaker 1: those feelings in the middle of ordinary days. When my
Speaker 1: sister died in a car accident on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon,
Speaker 1: the call came while I was standing at the kitchen
Speaker 1: sink rinsing dishes. The voice on the other end sounded
Speaker 1: far away, and the words refused to line up into
Speaker 1: anything that made sense. I kept asking the same question
Speaker 1: over and over because nothing about that moment felt real.
Speaker 1: Within an hour, the house filled with people I barely recognized,
Speaker 1: yet everyone moved like they had a list to complete.
Speaker 1: Phone calls had to be made to relatives who lived
Speaker 1: out of state. Someone wrote down addresses while another person
Speaker 1: started a pot of coffee that no one drank. I
Speaker 1: remember signing a form at the hospital without reading a
Speaker 1: single line because the room kept tilting and my hands
Speaker 1: would not stop shaking. Although the paperwork seemed endless. The
Speaker 1: practical steps still felt separate from what had actually happened.
Speaker 1: We had to choose a funeral home and decide on dates,
Speaker 1: while my mother sat in the corner repeating the same
Speaker 1: sentence about how my sister was supposed to call her
Speaker 1: later that night. Meanwhile, the refrigerator kept filling with cast
Speaker 1: roles from neighbors who did not know what else to offer.
Speaker 1: I tried to thank each person at the door, yet
Speaker 1: the words came out flat, and I could not remember
Speaker 1: any of their names five minutes later. Because the accident
Speaker 1: happened so fast, there were no last conversations to replay,
Speaker 1: only a growing list of things that would never be said.
Speaker 1: The first night passed without sleep for any of us.
Speaker 1: We sat in the living room with the lights on
Speaker 1: because turning them off made the empty spaces too obvious.
Speaker 1: Someone suggested we looked through old photos and we spread
Speaker 1: them across this example. Yet none of us could decide
Speaker 1: which ones to keep or where they should go. Instead,
Speaker 1: we kept sorting the same stack again and again, while
Speaker 1: the clock moved without any of us noticing. By the
Speaker 1: second morning, the unreality had not lifted. I walked into
Speaker 1: my sister's room to find a sweater she had left
Speaker 1: on the chair, and I stood there holding it for
Speaker 1: what felt like hours, because putting it away would have
Speaker 1: meant excepting that she would not come back for it.
Speaker 1: Practical chaos continued to pull at every direction. We needed
Speaker 1: to notify her employer and cancel appointments, while also locating
Speaker 1: a copy of her insurance policy that none of us
Speaker 1: had ever seen. Friends offered rides and meals, yet every
Speaker 1: offer required another decision that my mind could not hold.
Speaker 1: Although people kept telling us to rest, there was no
Speaker 1: place in the house that felt quiet enough. The phone
Speaker 1: rang constantly with questions about service times and flower arrangements,
Speaker 1: and each time I answered, I had to force my
Speaker 1: voice to sound steady. Since none of us had planned
Speaker 1: for anything like this, the smallest tasks took twice as
Speaker 1: long and still left us unsure whether we had done
Speaker 1: them correctly. By the end of those first forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: daily functioning had started to slip away. I could not
Speaker 1: remember whether I had eaten or when I had last
Speaker 1: changed clothes. Getting up to answer the door required more
Speaker 1: energy than I could gather, and even simple sentences took
Speaker 1: several tries before they came out right. The house remained
Speaker 1: full of voices and footsteps, yet the emptiness underneath everything
Speaker 1: grew heavier with each hour. I kept thinking that if
Speaker 1: I could just make it through the next phone call
Speaker 1: or the next form, the feeling would pass, but it
Speaker 1: did not. Grief after sudden death often shows up first
Speaker 1: in this same mix of shock and scattered tasks, before
Speaker 1: the deeper weight settles in. Patterns appear across many stone stories,
Speaker 1: where the first days feel like a blur of logistics
Speaker 1: that only later give way to quieter moments of missing someone.
Speaker 1: We will take a quick break here, and when we return,
Speaker 1: we can look at how those early days connect to
Speaker 1: what comes next. After those first forty eight hours, when
Speaker 1: everything felt like it was falling apart, many of us
Speaker 1: notice anger rising up without warning. It might come when
Speaker 1: dealing with the details left behind, or when thinking about
Speaker 1: how this could have been avoided altogether. Guilt often walks
Speaker 1: right alongside it, bringing questions about what we could have
Speaker 1: done differently, even though we had no control over what happened.
Speaker 1: Because the loss came so suddenly, these emotions can feel
Speaker 1: more intense than in other situations. There's no time to
Speaker 1: brace for the impact, so the body and mind react
Speaker 1: with stronger waves of feeling. A study published in the
Speaker 1: Journal of Abnormal Psychology in twenty twenty two measured cortisol,
Speaker 1: which is the stress hormone, and found that people who
Speaker 1: experience sudden loss often show elevated levels for longer periods
Speaker 1: compared to those who had some warning. This doesn't mean
Speaker 1: something is wrong with how you're responding. It simply points
Speaker 1: to the real physical effect this kind of shock can have.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's important to know that grief
Speaker 1: doesn't follow any particular order or schedule. You won't find
Speaker 1: a list of stages here that you need to check
Speaker 1: off one by one. Instead, the experience unfolds in its
Speaker 1: own way for each person, sometimes looping back or skipping
Speaker 1: ahead without any clear pattern. Some days, anger might dominate,
Speaker 1: while on others guilt takes center stage, or perhaps a
Speaker 1: quiet numbness sets in for a while. All of these
Speaker 1: responses make sense given the sudden nature of what occurred.
Speaker 1: Since the event arrived without any preparation, the mind keeps
Speaker 1: searching for reasons or ways to rewrite the outcome. That
Speaker 1: search can fuel the anger and the guilt in equal measure. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the body stays on alert because the surprise never had
Speaker 1: a chance to soften. Researchers noted in that same Journal
Speaker 1: of Abnormal Psychology study from twenty twenty two how cortisol
Speaker 1: stayed higher in sudden loss cases, which lines up with
Speaker 1: what many describe as feeling constantly on edge. Yet none
Speaker 1: of this creates a requirement for how long those feelings
Speaker 1: must last. Grief moves at its own pace, and that
Speaker 1: pace varies widely from one person to the next. You
Speaker 1: may find moments when the anger softens into something quieter,
Speaker 1: only to have it returned later when a reminder appears
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. Guilt can follow the same uneven path,
Speaker 1: showing up during ordinary tasks like rinsing dishes or driving
Speaker 1: past a familiar place. The absence of any fixed timeline
Speaker 1: means there is no point at which you should expect
Speaker 1: these emotions to be finished. Instead, they tend to change
Speaker 1: shape gradually as the days continue. For instance, the practical
Speaker 1: chaos of paperwork and calls may keep pulling attention outward,
Speaker 1: while the inner questions about why this happened stay present
Speaker 1: in the background. Both can exist together without one canceling
Speaker 1: the other. What matters here is giving permission for the
Speaker 1: feelings to be exactly as strong or as mild as
Speaker 1: they are on any given day. Since sudden loss removes
Speaker 1: the chance to say goodbye or prepare in advance, the
Speaker 1: anger and guilt often carry extra weight. They reflect the
Speaker 1: deep unfairness of the situation rather than any personal failing.
Speaker 1: Acknowledging that distinction can bring a small measure of steadiness
Speaker 1: even when the feelings themselves remain difficult. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the study findings remind us that these responses have a
Speaker 1: physical basis, which makes them feel more overwhelming. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: the elevated cortisol reflects a real stress reaction, not a
Speaker 1: sign that healing is delayed. Over time, many people notice
Speaker 1: the intensity lessons not because the loss becomes smaller, but
Speaker 1: because the system adjusts to carrying it. There is no
Speaker 1: single moment when this adjustment begins, and it does not
Speaker 1: happen on anyone else's schedule. Listeners may recognize these patterns
Speaker 1: from their own recent weeks, while others may still be
Speaker 1: deep in the first wave of shock. Either place is valid,
Speaker 1: and neither requires comparison to an expected course. The reality
Speaker 1: is that grief after sudden loss resists being sorted into
Speaker 1: neat categories or predicted durations. It shows up in the
Speaker 1: body through fatigue or restlessness, in the thoughts, through repeated
Speaker 1: what if questions, and in daily life through moments when
Speaker 1: ordinary routines feel impossible to resume. All of these pieces
Speaker 1: belong to the same experience, even when they seem to
Speaker 1: contradict one another. Because there is no required timeline, you
Speaker 1: can release any pressure to measure progress against an invisible standard. Instead,
Speaker 1: noticing what is present right now becomes the only step
Speaker 1: that fits. Anger may sit beside moments of unexpected calm.
Speaker 1: Guilt may ease during a conversation with someone who understands,
Speaker 1: and then return later without explanation. These shifts do not
Speaker 1: indicate doing it wrong. They simply reflect how the mind
Speaker 1: and body adjust after an event that offered no warning.
Speaker 1: The Journal of Abnormal Psychology findings from twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: underscore that the stress response itself can linger, which helps
Speaker 1: explain why the emotions feel so persistent at first. Yet
Speaker 1: that same research also shows individual differences in how long
Speaker 1: the elevation lasts, which again points away from any universal rule.
Speaker 1: As this understanding settles, the space opens for sharing what
Speaker 1: your own experience has looked like so far. If something
Speaker 1: here connects with a part of your story, I would
Speaker 1: value hearing it. Your account of how the anger or
Speaker 1: the guilt has appeared in these early weeks can add
Speaker 1: to this example for others who are listening right now,
Speaker 1: that anger can show up right next to the disbelief
Speaker 1: that so many people describe when they reach out after
Speaker 1: a sudden loss. Over the past few weeks, several listeners
Speaker 1: have sent notes about what those first days felt like
Speaker 1: for them, and two of them stand out because they
Speaker 1: echo each other in quiet ways. One person wrote that
Speaker 1: their spouse had a heart attack while they were both
Speaker 1: watching television on a Friday night. The note said everything
Speaker 1: after the ambulance left felt like it was happening to
Speaker 1: someone else. They kept walking into rooms and forgetting why
Speaker 1: they had gone there. At the same time, the hospital
Speaker 1: and the funeral home kept calling with forms that needed
Speaker 1: signatures and decisions about what kind of service to plan.
Speaker 1: The writer said it was as if their body was
Speaker 1: moving through the motions while the rest of them stayed
Speaker 1: frozen in the living room where it happened. Another listener
Speaker 1: shared that their brother died in a work accident with
Speaker 1: no warning at all. The note explained how the first
Speaker 1: forty eight hours blurred into one long stretch of phone
Speaker 1: calls and people showing up at the door. They mentioned
Speaker 1: feeling responsible for telling extended family members, yet every time
Speaker 1: they tried to say the words out loud, their throat
Speaker 1: closed up. Practical things kept landing on their lap, like
Speaker 1: what to do with the car or how to handle
Speaker 1: the bank accounts that were still in both names. The
Speaker 1: writer ended by saying they kept expecting someone else to
Speaker 1: take over and make it all stop feeling so unreal.
Speaker 1: Both messages carry the same two threads that appear whenever
Speaker 1: sudden loss enters this example. First comes that deep sense
Speaker 1: of shock that makes the world feel distant and slightly
Speaker 1: off balance for days or even weeks. Second comes the
Speaker 1: steady press of ordinary tasks that refuse to wait while
Speaker 1: the mind catches up. These reactions sit right at the
Speaker 1: center of what happens when everything changes without notice. They
Speaker 1: are not signs that something has gone wrong inside a person.
Speaker 1: They are simply the way the mind and body try
Speaker 1: to manage an event that arrived without any preparation at all.
Speaker 1: When I read notes like these, I remember how ordinary
Speaker 1: it is to feel pulled in two directions at once.
Speaker 1: Part of you knows the facts, while another part keeps
Speaker 1: waiting for the day to start over. That split can
Speaker 1: leave anyone feeling scattered or even a little lost inside
Speaker 1: their own house. It does not i mean the grief
Speaker 1: is too big, or that healing will take longer than
Speaker 1: it should. It simply means the loss was sudden and
Speaker 1: the system that usually helps people adjust never got the
Speaker 1: chance to ease in gradually. Many of us carry an
Speaker 1: idea that we should be able to handle the details
Speaker 1: right away because other people seem to expect it. Yet
Speaker 1: the truth is that shock and practical pressure often travel
Speaker 1: together for a while. One listener might spend an afternoon
Speaker 1: sorting through mail, only to realize they have no memory
Speaker 1: of what they read. Another might agree to a meeting
Speaker 1: with an attorney and then sit in the car afterward
Speaker 1: wondering how they even got there. These moments are common
Speaker 1: because the brain is still sorting through what happened while
Speaker 1: the calendar keeps turning. It helps to notice that none
Speaker 1: of these experiences erase the love or the connection that
Speaker 1: was there before the loss. They simply sit beside it
Speaker 1: for a time. People often worry that if they cannot focus,
Speaker 1: or if they feel numb, they are somehow falling short.
Speaker 1: In reality, the system is doing exactly what it needs
Speaker 1: to do to keep a person upright, while the deeper
Speaker 1: feelings find their own pace. What becomes clear when these
Speaker 1: stories arrive is that small, steady steps tend to surface
Speaker 1: once the first wave of shock begins to settle. Listeners
Speaker 1: often mention writing down one task at a time instead
Speaker 1: of trying to hold the whole list in their head.
Speaker 1: Others talk about asking a single trusted person to sit
Speaker 1: with them while they make a phone call. These choices
Speaker 1: do not remove the pain. They simply give the day
Speaker 1: a little structure when everything else feels loose. Over time,
Speaker 1: some of the same people who wrote in those early
Speaker 1: weeks later share how they began to notice brief windows
Speaker 1: where the fog lifted for a few minutes. They might
Speaker 1: remember a detail about the person they lost without the
Speaker 1: memory knocking them flat. They might complete one errand without
Speaker 1: needing to rest afterward. Those windows do not arrive on
Speaker 1: a schedule. They show up when the nervous system decides
Speaker 1: it is safe enough to lift a little more reality
Speaker 1: in hearing these experiences reminds us that moving forward after
Speaker 1: sudden loss rarely looks like a straight line. It looks
Speaker 1: more like a series of small returns to the same
Speaker 1: tasks until they start to feel less foreign. The shock
Speaker 1: fades in its own time, and the practical load becomes
Speaker 1: lighter as support shows up, or as new habits form
Speaker 1: around the empty space. None of it requires anyone to
Speaker 1: rush the process or to pretend the pain has already
Speaker 1: changed shape. It simply asks for patients with the pace
Speaker 1: that each day actually offers. From here, the next step
Speaker 1: is to look at a few approaches that have helped
Speaker 1: others create that bit of steadiness when the ground still
Speaker 1: feels uneven. When that anger or disbelief shows up without warning,
Speaker 1: it can feel like the ground shifts again right under
Speaker 1: your feet. One way many people find a bit of
Speaker 1: steadiness in those sharp moments is through a simple breathing
Speaker 1: pattern called box breathing. You breathe in slowly for account
Speaker 1: of four, then hold for four, breathe out for four,
Speaker 1: and hold again for four. For complicated grief at Columbia
Speaker 1: University has looked at how this pattern helps interrupt the
Speaker 1: rush of physical tension that often comes with sudden loss.
Speaker 1: It gives the body a short, structured pause so the
Speaker 1: mind can catch up instead of spiraling further. You can
Speaker 1: do it sitting in the car, waiting at a light,
Speaker 1: or standing in the kitchen. When the wave hits, the
Speaker 1: key stays in, keeping the counts even and gentle, rather
Speaker 1: than forcing anything. Over time, the practice becomes familiar enough
Speaker 1: that you reach for it without thinking twice, because the
Speaker 1: body learns the rhythm faster than the thoughts do. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a daily walk offers something steadier that does not ask
Speaker 1: you to feel any different than you already do. Step
Speaker 1: outside at whatever time works and move at your own pace,
Speaker 1: with no destination in mind. Leave the phone behind if
Speaker 1: that feels possible, or keep it on silence so the
Speaker 1: water stays yours alone. Notice the air on your face
Speaker 1: or the sound of your steps on the pavement, yet
Speaker 1: release any expectation that the walk will lift your mood
Speaker 1: or bring clarity. Some days the walk lasts five minutes,
Speaker 1: and other days it stretches longer because the body sets
Speaker 1: the limit, not a checklist. The point remains simply showing
Speaker 1: up for the movement itself, even when nothing else seems
Speaker 1: to shift. Because grief does not follow rules. This ritual
Speaker 1: works best when it carries