Grief & loss~20 minGrief therapyMeaning reconstruction
The story of my loss
Put your loss into words — what happened, what it meant, and what's hardest now — at your own pace.
Making sense of a loss is one of the strongest predictors of how well people adapt to it (Neimeyer and colleagues). Putting the story into words, in your own time, helps you understand what the loss means for your life now.
Go at your own pace, and skip anything that's too much today. If the death was sudden or violent — an overdose, a suicide, an accident — you don't need to write about how it happened; that's best worked through with a grief or trauma counselor. If you're thinking about suicide, call or text 988. If grief feels unbearable or isn't easing at all with time, a grief counselor can help.
1. Who or what I lost
2. What they meant to me
3. What happened — as much or as little as I want to write
4. What I miss most
5. What's hardest right now
6. Anything left unsaid or unfinished
7. How I'm making sense of it — or what I still can't make sense of
8. How this loss has changed me, or how I see life
9. Who knows how I'm really doing — and who could