Widow Brain/Grief Brain. Am I Crazy?!

I was just recalling a time about a month after my husband died where I fully realized that widow brain is a very real thing. It was February in Maryland and particularly cold and I had finally mustered up the strength and willpower to take a short trip to the store to pick up some groceries. At the time I was staying with my parents for context. I stepped out into the cold garage only to be met by my mother’s shocked and horrified gaze as she was bringing in the trash cans. “Uhm what are you doing?” She carefully asked.

I blinked at her and shrugged just assuming the shock was at the fact that I’d managed to drag myself from the cave of my room from which I’d barely emerged since Keith’s death. “Going to the store do you need anything?” I asked as I jingled my keys in my hand. My mother paused for a moment as if really trying to think through her words. Perhaps she was trying to find ways to soften her tone because after all I was the porcelain doll in the room right, ready to break at any moment for any myriad of reasons.

“I need you to put on a shirt.” Came her measured response. “And maybe some pants and sneakers or something instead of shorts and flipflops.” At first, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about until I looked down and realized that I was still wearing my pajama tank top, a pair of shorts and flipflops. It was 20 degrees outside. It was as if it had not occurred to me to put on weather and socially acceptable clothing, as if I’d forgotten that there are people out there and wind and cold and snow and that these things should have informed on my clothing choices. I don’t know what I’d thought I’d put on but I assure you that I was suddenly just as shocked as her.

I thought I was going crazy. How could I have mucked up such a basic day-to-day activity? But that’s grief brain.

I found myself struggling in the coming months with memory issues, brain fog and the sudden inability to focus or even make decisions. Again, I thought I was going crazy. I didn’t even recognize myself and it wasn’t until I spoke with other widows that I found out that this phenomenon was not specific to only me. Millions of people deal with grief brain. It’s an actual thing!

So if you’re feeling like you must be losing your mind or as if you are a different person that you no longer recognize, please know that you’re not alone and that what you’re experiencing is not only normal but its science. After speaking to a therapist, my doctor, and doing a ton of research on the subject I found out that deep grief can temporarily change functions within the brain. These changes affect us on not only an emotional level but also cognitively.

I found this amazing article titled “Healing Your Brain After Loss: How Grief Rewires the Brain” on the American Brain Foundation’s website (www.americanbrainfoundation.org), you should check it out as I’ve placed the full link below. It basically told me that everything I was experiencing was a product of the brain’s main goal after deep tragedy: survival. You see we go through such deep and often traumatic stress in the process of grieving that it has our brain neurons firing off left, right, and center and that helps lead to things such as having problems focusing, recalling things, decision-making, etc. So, no you’re not going crazy, your brain is just running away on the hamster wheel trying to rewire and redirect you in response to the insane amount of stress your under.

 Well great Toni, I have widow brain or I have grief brain. Thanks for the heads up but now how do I fix it? Can I fix it? The answer is that yes you can! In order to counter the stress, we focus on things that take us out of survival mode and into a more secure and calm space. This is where practices such as mindfulness, meditation, counselling and coaching come in.

And I will tell you, if you ever go on the journey with me as a grief coach, you will see that these sorts of practices are a focus for us. No, they aren’t just a focus but an absolute necessity. Is it going to happen overnight? Of course not, but with work it can and will happen. And I’m here to tell you that I now go out in winter with a coat, a normal top, pants and boots, thank you very much so there is hope!

I promise you’re not going to be there forever. I know for me, finding this out was a huge relief. Now that I’m 9 years out I can tell you it gets better. You will come out of the fog, you just need to keep your eyes on the lighthouse in front of you to help you learn to navigate the choppy waters whether that lighthouse is a therapist, a friend, or a coach or maybe all three.

You’re not crazy. And sometimes, that’s all we need to hear.

American Brain Foundation article "Healing Your Brain After Loss: How Grief Rewires the Brain": https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/how-tragedy-affects-the-brain/#:~:text=Grief%20and%20loss%20affect%20the,effects%2C%20such%20as%20brain%20fog.