Time to Talk Day: Why Finding the Right Person to Talk to Matters

Thursday February 5th is Time to Talk Day, an important reminder that conversations about mental health and emotional struggles shouldn’t be off limits. Opening up is crucial, but when you’re going through something difficult, who you talk to can make all the difference.

When we lose a parent as an adult, people often assume we’ll cope better. We’re grown, independent, perhaps even parents ourselves. Yet many clients tell me that this particular loss hits harder and deeper than they expected. It’s not just the absence of the person, it’s the shifting of the ground beneath us.

How Long Will Grief Last?   

It’s one of the most common questions people ask in therapy: “How long will this grief last?”

It’s an understandable question, and a heartbreaking one. When we’re in the depths of loss, we long for someone to tell us how long this pain will last, when we’ll feel ‘normal’ again, and when life might stop hurting quite so much.

“I feel so guilty.”
It’s a phrase I hear often in therapy, and rarely from someone who’s done anything wrong.

There’s guilt for not being there at the end, guilt for surviving, guilt for laughing, for forgetting for a moment, for moving forward, for feeling ok, even briefly. It’s as though part of the grieving mind believes that feeling bad is a sign of love, or that to suffer greatly is somehow to stay loyal and not forget them.