Title: Why Losing a Parent Hurts So Much, No Matter Your Age | Psychology Today
Headings: Why Losing a Parent Hurts So Much, No Matter Your Age
David Sack M.D.
Why Losing a Parent Hurts So Much, No Matter Your Age
Complicated grief often results in attempts to self-medicate.
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Grief Interventions: When You Need Help Recovering from Loss

Content: This is not to say that people don’t experience feelings of grief if they lose a parent they didn’t feel close to, get along with, or know well—that loss may still be felt quite deeply. Survey data on the long-term effects of parental loss indicate that filial bereavement can impact both mental and physical health, with men being more likely to report physical health issues. Data also show that gender influences the impact of parental death—men who lose their father appear to experience the loss more keenly than daughters, while women who lose their mother appear to be more deeply impacted than sons. Grief Interventions: When You Need Help Recovering from Loss
Research into attachment theory and bereavement theory has led to the development of grief interventions that help people heal from a loss. Grief interventions are most effective when they focus on the bereaved individual’s personal resources and capacity for enhancing their own resilience, as well as on palliative care from primary care providers and family members in the months after the loss. When a person experiences complicated grief or sustained grief —grief that persists long after the months following a death—additional interventions and evaluation for mental health issues may be warranted. Since everyone processes loss in their own way and on their own individual timeline, it can be difficult to recognize when and if feelings of loss have developed into complicated grief. Also known as persistent complex bereavement disorder, this more protracted form of grief is usually marked by emotions so severe, painful, and long-lasting that a person cannot seem to accept the loss and move forward to resume life, even many months or years afterward. article continues after advertisement
The stages of recovery after the death of a loved one typically involve allowing yourself to experience the pain of your loss, which gradually gives way to accepting the reality of it and finding a way to move forward.