@livewellwithsophie
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@livewellwithsophie I expected losing my dad to be devastating. I expected the sadness, the tears and the feeling that someone I loved had gone. What I didn’t expect was how many other losses would come afterwards. There’s actually a name for it: secondary grief. It’s everything that changes because of your loss, and for me, one of the hardest parts was watching people quietly disappear from my life. At first, I thought I’d done something wrong. I wondered if I’d become difficult to be around or whether people had simply stopped caring. Looking back, I don’t think that was it at all. The reality is that grief changes you, and not everybody knows how to respond to the version of you that comes out the other side. Some people don’t know what to say, so they say nothing. Some expect you to be “back to normal”. Others pull away because your loss reminds them of something they’re not ready to face themselves. And then there’s another part no one really talks about. When you’ve watched someone you love die, it changes your perspective. Your tolerance for things that once felt important becomes so much lower. You stop pretending. You stop settling. You start protecting your energy because life suddenly feels far too short to spend it on the wrong people or the wrong things. I think that’s why grief can feel so isolating. You’re not just learning to live without the person you’ve lost. You’re learning to live as someone completely different. If you’ve experienced this too, I just want you to know you’re not imagining it, and you’re certainly not alone. Sometimes the people who leave aren’t the greatest loss. Sometimes they’re simply a reminder that grief has changed the direction of your life. And eventually, you realise something else. The people who stay through the hardest version of you are often the ones who were always meant to be there. ❤️
