Finding Your Support System for Grief

I know now that finding your support system for grief is pretty important. And you should probably try to do it as soon as possible. One of the first things that was recommended for me to do after I lost my husband, Charlie, was finding support. Except for a small amount of reading I did online about widowhood, I did not seek out support for nearly a year after his death. Part of it was that I was too busy trying to straighten out finances and our living situation while caring for our four small children. But another part of me didn’t want to talk about it. I had been living in such painful circumstances for nearly ten years while caregiving and immersed in Charlie’s cancer treatments. For a long time, I just wanted to forget. I was also just relieved because he was finally free from his pain and suffering and we were free from watching him in pain and suffering. Then, of course, I felt immensely guilty for feeling relieved, and that made me want to forget even more.

It wasn’t until I came around to the holiday season that I started to feel some of the reality of what this loss had really done to me. I continued to have nightmares, I couldn’t relate to the rest of the world, I felt lonely and vulnerable, I didn’t know how to be both Mom and Dad, I hated holidays, my brain didn’t seem to function clearly anymore, no one seemed to understand my feelings, and so on. That was when I decided to reach out and find some people to talk to.

Online Support

There are a lot of places online for grief support now, especially after Covid forced so many people to stay in their homes in addition to claiming so many lives. A quick Google search for “online grief support” brings up many options where you can do Zoom meetings with groups where you can meet others suffering through grief or you can do individual therapy through the Zoom platform if you’d prefer one on one.

You can also find the specific type of support you need, whether it’s widowed, or losing a child, or losing a parent, etc…The nice thing about online support is that if you are not ready to leave the house or just be around the physical presence of anyone, you can just plug in from the comfort of your own space. And then when it’s over, you can retreat completely back into your space without too much socialization pressure.

The very first online support site that I ever used was Soaring Spirits International, a site specifically for widows and widowers. This site allowed me to initially read about being a widow and some of the things that I might encounter as one. At the time I was there, there used to be a chat room where you could talk to other widowed people but it doesn’t seem to be there anymore. Instead, there are blogs, online forums, Zoom meetings for newly widowed people, and Camp Widow, which is an event that they host in many different locations annually.

I will list some other online options below under the websites sections. And as I mentioned before, if you’d like to do your own more specific search, just googling “online grief support” will show you many different options. Just make sure that whatever online group you participate in is well moderated.

In Person Support

I mentioned online grief support above because it’s important to let you know all of the options that are available to you. But if I were to make a recommendation, I would recommend in person grief support over online support. Or at least in addition to online support. Ultimately, you need to do what you feel is personally best for you because everyone reacts to grief individually. But I found that in person grief support helped me more initially in those earlier stages after loss.

Being in the actual physical presence of people who understand what you’re going through was far less isolating to me. I’m not a talkative person and I tend to avoid a whole lot of social situations but I wound up finding in person therapy, particularly with support groups, to be immensely comforting. Also, when you are in person, you don’t have to worry about technology glitches where you or someone else is suddenly thrown out of the meeting or off the internet entirely while in the middle of a meaningful conversation. Fighting with your computer for sound or video or both can be unbelievably frustrating under any circumstance but when you are trying to communicate your grief story, it’s even worse.

There’s also another reason I tend to sway a little more towards in person rather than strictly online only, which I will mention in my personal experiences below.

Websites for Online Grief Support

There are a whole lot more than the ones I have listed here but these should give you a good start in your search for support, both online and an in person.

Soaring Spirits International Widowed Village – This is geared towards widows and widowers with online Zoom meetings for new losses within twelve months.

My Grief Angels – This site has a directory where you can search for virtual support by the type of loss.

Grief in Common – Zoom grief support groups as well as individual coaching. This site has fees, it appears to be $0.99 per month or $9.99 for an entire year in order to use the live chat. But they may waive the fee if you’re not able to pay it. The group sessions and individual coaching have an additional fee.

Heal Grief – This site is geared towards young adults (up to age 30, I believe) who are suffering through loss. There are group chats and virtual support calls available

Cancer Care – If you lost someone to cancer, the way that I did, this site offers online grief support groups and understanding.

My Personal Support Experiences

I ventured into some online support in the beginning because I felt safe being at that kind of distance. I wanted to be able to back off instantly if I felt too triggered. I mainly used live chats that were free and all you had to do was register an account in order to use them. I was approaching the end of the first year when I used these and I was starting to get a whole lot of grief triggers, especially since the death date of my husband falls right in the middle of the holiday season. Live chats were a safe, casual way for me to connect with other grievers but allowed me to retreat back into my own space right away. The ones I used were also heavily moderated, so everyone was always supportive and kind.

But after a couple of months, I started feeling like being online wasn’t enough anymore. So, I searched for individual therapy and support groups in my area that I could attend in person. This was difficult for me to do at first, though, because I felt so vulnerable and I didn’t know what to expect. Plus, I had a family member who kept criticizing the idea because she was afraid it would make me think about the death of my husband too much and then I would just be even sadder. But I went anyway and ended up being really happy that I did. The atmosphere there was super friendly and warm. And for the first time, I felt like I could really relate and connect to people through more than a computer screen. I had been feeling so lonely and distant before that. By the way, if you happen to be in the Austin, TX area, Austin Grief and Loss is a fabulous place to go. I no longer do the support groups now because I don’t have the need but I still attend individual counseling there. I started attending again after the loss of my grandmother in 2021, which ignited all of my grief again from the loss of my husband, Charlie in 2016. And sometime, I will tell the story of how I unexpectedly wound up meeting my Chapter Two, a widower, here in my spousal loss group.

Another option I have tried was using Better Help for further online therapy. This place had extra fees which I paid initially for a short time but they seemed a bit pricey to me. They do appear to have some other financial options if you can’t pay anything at all but most services still range between $65-95 per week. They matched me with a therapist who had some grief training. She was very nice but ultimately, I found that even if a therapist has training in grief and loss, if they haven’t actually experienced loss, I eventually start running into issues with some of the things that they say. Things that usually imply that I need to get over it and here’s a checklist of ways to do that. That was one problem I had here, I could only get “matched” with therapists with grief “training” who were wanting me to move past grief and become “normal” again. I couldn’t seem to specify that I needed someone with more than just training. I needed someone with that experience, too.

But the next biggest problem was the fact that therapists at Better Help disappeared on me. I would email the company trying to figure out where my therapist was and I’d never get a response or resolution. And when I looked up reviews, I found that this had happened to other people, too. Some people did have good experiences with Better Help but for me and a few others, therapists just disappeared, most likely due to quitting. It soured me a bit on online therapy because of that. With the kind of distance that being online provides, people can just vanish without a trace and if you’re grieving, this can feel like another loss.

The other experience I had regarding online support was through social media groups such as Facebook. At first, I thought these would be great because they are free and available 24/7. Unlike in person groups and therapy, which usually meet weekly or bimonthly. I joined many different groups on Facebook for widowed people, especially ones like me who were in their 30s and still had young children to raise. And here’s where I learned that you should make sure oneline groups are very well moderated. This can be difficult to do in groups that have thousands upon thousands of members. I found that people were often downright nasty and rude. Several times, I posted some of my grief triggers and asked for support and understanding and I was told that the things that I was crying about were nothing, that they were stupid, and that they had it so much worse than I did. Some people went out of their way to shame me for feeling bad at all. I was shocked. By this time, I had always learned in my in person groups that no one’s story was better or worse than anyone else’s. And all journeys were valid.

So, when I encountered this online hostility in what was supposed to be grief support, I broke down and cried for days and days. I actually second guessed every single part of any grieving thought and feeling I’d ever had. Surely if other grievers thought I was an idiot, then I must be doing something wrong. It took me a very long time to recover from that. It was like someone reached into my grief wounds and twisted a knife with as much venom on the tip as possible. I even second guessed the therapy I was doing with my individual therapist. I wondered if maybe she was secretly thinking I was a whiny, sniveling nitwit as well and was only sticking around because she got paid. I managed to tell her what happened and all of these sudden fears I was having about everything and she was horrified. She fully supported my decision to leave those groups.

So, this experience made me realize that if a group is not well moderated, especially on the internet, this gives anyone, grieving or not, free rein to say or do whatever and most likely, get away with it. That is a problem with being online, I realized. People don’t filter themselves as much as they might if they were in person. This is a problem with any social media, as we read about in the news, when it comes to things like cyberbullying. That distance, that anonymity, allows people to be cruel more easily if they choose to be. It also allows for people to be someone other than who they say are. It occurred to me that even in a grief support group, someone who is not actually a griever but an internet “troll” could have joined with the sole purpose of hurting people who are already hurting. The idea baffles me but it’s possible. And that’s why, on this site, I will always review comments before they are posted because I will not have anyone coming here and saying nasty things to someone else on their grief journey. I will always have supportive comments for you and I plan to make sure everyone else does, too.

But I want to add, this is not to discourage you from online support in any way. It’s only to let you know that you should be extra careful online and make sure that however you decide to seek support, that your choices are safe and extremely well moderated. Groups that are smaller rather than social media groups with 20k members makes it easier for this to happen and also for you to get to know fellow grievers much better. Grief is hard enough, and we often don’t have the support we need in our daily lives, so make sure your support systems actually support you and let go of those that don’t.

Finding Your Families in Extra Ways

Sometimes you can find extra support in other ways that aren’t even related directly to grief. For example, if you have a strong interest in a sport or particular hobby, finding people who share your interests can lead to a support system. I like art and books, so I am part of a book club and I like to participate in art classes or online art communities. Having people support my interests sometimes makes me feel seen and less lonely.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn something new, finding a class to immerse yourself in can also help. For me, my daughter and I decided we wanted to learn ice skating, so we started taking classes together. It turned out to be a great community at the ice rink and we’ve met some really nice and encouraging people there.

Church communities can also be very supportive for people. Maybe you’re part of one now or want to find one. If so, make sure that you feel a sense of “home” or “support” wherever you choose to be.

Have you found a community experience that gives you the grief support system that you need? Did you have a bad experience that you need to hear some support for? Let us know about your experiences in the comments below!