Is This Grief or Am I Just Losing My Mind? (Spoiler: It’s Both)
I need to write this out because I am living this myself right the #%# now.
At some point in grief, almost everyone has the same unsettling thought:
Am I okay? Like… actually okay?
Because suddenly, you’re doing and thinking things that don’t feel like you. You walk into a room and forget why you’re there. You reread the same sentence five times and still have no idea what it says. You cry at a commercial about laundry detergent. Or worse, you don’t cry at all, and that somehow feels even more alarming.
You might even find yourself Googling symptoms at 2 a.m., half-convinced you’ve developed a neurological condition overnight.
Let me save you a little time (and a lot of late-night chat gpt conversations): You’re not crazy. And you’re not sick. (Well I won’t confirm that one, I’m not a doctor) But grief does make it feel like you are.
So….it’s both.
Grief isn’t just emotional. It’s neurological, physical, cognitive and spiritual. Sometimes all at once. It’s like your entire internal operating system was removed, shaken up, and reinstalled without a user manual. Of course things feel glitchy. (Sorry my IT background comes out now and then)
Your brain is literally trying to process a reality it doesn’t want to accept. The person you lost still exists in your memory, your habits, your muscle memory. You might still reach for your phone to text them. You might expect to hear their voice in the next room. And then….you remember.
Again.And again.And again.
That repeated remembering? It’s exhausting. It’s disorienting. It’s why you feel foggy, forgetful, and sometimes completely untethered from yourself. (HI I’M LITERALLY LIVING THIS RIGHT NOW AND IT SUCKS SO HARD)
And then there are the emotional whiplashes. (Nikki. Please make this stop)
One minute you’re fine, answering emails, making dinner, maybe even laughing at something dumb. The next minute, you’re hit with a wave so strong it feels like it came out of nowhere. Your chest tightens, your throat closes, and suddenly you’re crying in the car, gripping the steering wheel like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.
It can make you question your stability. Shouldn’t I be more consistent than this? Nope!
Grief doesn’t do consistency. Grief does unpredictability. It shows up uninvited, ignores your schedule, and has absolutely no respect for your plans to “pull it together.” (jerk)
And let’s talk about the intrusive thoughts for a second. The “what ifs,” the “if onlys,” the mental replays of things you said or didn’t say. These loops can feel obsessive, like your brain is stuck on repeat and you can’t find the off switch. That’s your mind trying (and failing) to make sense of something that doesn’t make sense. Grief asks questions that don’t have answers. And your brain, being the overachiever that it is, keeps trying anyway.
Then there’s the identity piece. The subtle but profound feeling that you don’t quite recognize yourself anymore. The things that used to matter don’t hit the same. The version of you that existed before this loss feels… distant. Almost like someone you used to know. And that can be one of the scariest parts.
Because it’s not just them that’s gone, it’s the version of you that existed with them.
So if you’re sitting there wondering whether you’re unraveling, here’s the honest answer: You’re reconfiguring. (Or defragging for my fellow IT nerds) And yeah, it’s messy as hell.
Grief strips things down to the bones. It shakes loose your assumptions about life, about control, about what’s fair and what’s not. It forces you to carry something you never asked for, and it doesn’t give you a clear map for how to do it.
Of course you feel disoriented.Of course your thoughts feel scattered.Of course your emotions feel bigger, weirder, harder to contain.
That doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind, it means your mind is trying to hold something enormous.
Reality check: while grief can absolutely mimic anxiety, depression, and even symptoms that feel like you’re “going crazy,” there are times when extra support is needed. If your thoughts feel unsafe, if you’re completely unable to function, or if the fog never lifts even a little, please reach out. You don’t have to muscle through this alone.
For most of us, this strange, surreal, “what is happening to me” feeling is a very normal part of a very human response to loss.
So the next time your brain feels like scrambled eggs and your emotions are doing gymnastics, try this instead of panicking:
Pause.Breathe.This is grief.
Not a personal failure, not a sign you’re broken, not proof you’re losing it. Just grief, doing what grief does best: Turning your world upside down… while quietly, slowly asking you to learn how to live in it again.
And hey, if you want to be in a group with others that get it, come join us over in the Good Grief Society!
