Why does grief feel like a roller coaster? After the initial shock of losing someone that you love, it is common to feel that your moods have become very unpredictable. You may feel fine in one moment and then curled up crying the next. Two researchers, Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, developed the “Dual-Process Model of Grieving”. According to this model, people have two categories of tasks that need to be worked on during the grieving process – some tasks that are loss-oriented and other tasks that are restoration-oriented. They state that a person can not attend to both at the same time. The loss-oriented process includes sadness, anger, guilt, yearning, and other work that is focused on the loss of the person. The restoration-oriented process includes feeling happy, mastering skills the other person may have done for you, comfort or relief with role or identity change, and having a meaningful connection to the person you lost despite their physical absence such as through joyful memories or sharing their “spirit” with others.
What is the purpose of this bouncing back and forth? Well, a person can only take so much of the tough stuff in one sitting, but the tough stuff is necessary to grieving in a healthy manner. Without the more difficult emotions and the hard work that comes with the loss-oriented grief work, the grieving process could be delayed or become more complicated. This does not mean that everyone experiences all of the difficult emotions. There is no check list of feelings that a person must experience to work through their grief. Rather, the work is on a personal level of dealing with the thoughts and emotions that surface for you that is so important. But it is equally as crucial, when you feel that you are able, to know that the restoration process is necessary as well. Some people can be critical of themselves for feeling happy or laughing while in the grieving process. Allow the ups and downs to occur, work through them, and know that the pain of this process can be somewhat dulled by the back and forth of the roller coaster we call grief.