Understanding the Stages of Grief as a Caregiver

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Five part diagram of grief stages often described for caregivers: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance, which can come in any order and repeat.
Common stages of caregiver grief

Understanding the Stages of Grief as a Caregiver

Grief doesn't happen only after a loved one dies. For caregivers, grief often begins long before death, an experience known as anticipatory grief. Understanding this experience can help you process your emotions and find healthy ways to cope.

What Is Anticipatory Grief?

Anticipatory grief is mourning that occurs before a death or major loss. As a caregiver, you may grieve:

How Caregiver Grief Is Different

Caregiver grief is ongoing and ambiguous, unlike grief after a death:

The Stages of Caregiver Grief

Grief doesn't follow a straight, predictable path. Understanding common phases can help you identify what you're feeling:

#### Denial

#### Anger

#### Bargaining

#### Depression

#### Acceptance

Healthy Ways to Process Grief

#### Allow Yourself to Feel

#### Connect with Others

#### Take Care of Your Body

#### Find Meaning

After Your Loved One Passes

Many caregivers experience complicated emotions after a loved one's death:

Caregivers should give themselves at least a year before making major life decisions. Seek professional support if grief feels unmanageable.

Resources for Grieving Caregivers

CareBridge Navigator's community forum connects you with caregivers who understand. You're not alone in your grief.

What is anticipatory grief, and why does nobody warn you about it?

Anticipatory grief is mourning that starts before a death. Caregivers feel grief while their loved one is still alive. That timing can make grief confusing and isolating.

Anticipatory grief is especially heavy in dementia, as caregivers lose parts of the person they know over years. You grieve the conversations you used to have, the parent who advised you, and the marriage you had. Then you get up and provide care for the person in front of you. Both experiences happen together.

Caregiver grief is not weakness or a failure of love. Naming the experience as grief brings most caregivers their first sense of relief.

Do the stages happen in order?

The stages of grief do not happen in order. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance describe feelings caregivers recognize. Those feelings arrive out of order, repeat, and overlap in the same afternoon.

Caregivers can expect feelings to return. A hospital admission can bring you back to bargaining after months of acceptance. Returning to familiar feelings is not backsliding. Grief does not follow a fixed sequence.

Why do relief and guilt arrive together?

Relief and guilt are both honest feelings. After a long illness, death can bring relief that the suffering is over and relief that caregiving is over. Caregivers often refuse to admit aloud that they feel relieved about caregiving ending.

Relief about sleeping through the night again is not the same as being glad your mother died. Caregivers who share this feeling with one trusted person almost always hear that the feeling is common. Caregivers who never share the feeling carry it for years.

What actually helps while you are grieving?

Where can you get real support?

Hospice bereavement services are free to the family for 13 months after the death. You do not need to have used that hospice's care for the whole time. Ask for these services.

Caregivers experiencing grief tied to dementia can call the Alzheimer's Association helpline at 1-800-272-3900, any hour. Ask your doctor for a referral if sleep, appetite or daily functioning have not improved after several months. Also ask if grief feels stuck rather than slowly changing.

Caregivers having thoughts of self-harm can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Heavy grief is common among family caregivers, and caregiver grief responds to counseling and support groups.

Sources

How this guide was written and reviewed

CareBridge Navigator guides are drafted with writing software and research tools, then checked line by line by Shanda Browning Vaughn, RN, a registered nurse since 2000. Shanda confirms every figure against the official sources listed on the page before a guide is published, and updates the guide when Medicare, Medicaid or VA rules change.

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