Complicated Grief. When Loss Keeps Hurting Long After It's Over
You thought time would dull it, but months or years later, the ache is still there. Not the gentle sadness that comes and goes like waves, but something heavier. Something that catches you off guard in the supermarket, in the silence before sleep, in the space where forgiveness was supposed to arrive but never did.
For survivors of abuse, neglect, or family estrangement, grief often doesn't follow the expected path. You might be mourning a parent who was never safe, a partner who caused harm, or an adult child you can no longer reach. The loss is real, but so is the relief. The love was real, but so was the fear. And somehow, you're supposed to make sense of all of it.
This is what therapists call "complicated grief", though the term itself can feel misleading. It doesn't mean you've failed to move on or that you're doing grief wrong. It means your nervous system never got to finish the story. The ending came without resolution, without safety, without the goodbye your body needed to let go.
In this article:
What complicated grief looks like after abuse or estrangement
Why survivors get stuck between longing and anger
Gentle ways to begin releasing what has never found resolution
You might find my blog Finding Peace: Managing Emotions After Your Abuser’s Death helpful.
What Complicated Grief Really Is (and Isn't)
Complicated grief is grief that becomes entangled with trauma. It's not just sadness. It's hypervigilance when you think about the person. It's guilt that loops endlessly through your thoughts. It's intrusive memories that arrive without warning, pulling you back into moments you've tried to leave behind.
This isn't the same as depression, though the two can overlap. And it's definitely not about "not trying hard enough" to heal. Complicated grief is what happens when loss intersects with relational trauma, when the person you're grieving was also the source of pain, unpredictability or emotional danger.
For some people, grief often becomes ambiguous. You're mourning what was never safe or mutual. You're grieving not only the person but the version of them, and of yourself, that never had a chance to exist. The parent who might have protected you. The partner who could have been gentle. The relationship that might have felt like home.
This is completely normal. Your grief makes perfect sense.
How Complicated Grief Can Show Up
Complicated grief doesn't look the same for everyone, but there are common patterns that emerge for those healing from trauma or estrangement.
The Loop of What-Ifs
You replay moments over and over. If I'd said this differently. If I'd set that boundary sooner. If I'd been more patient, more forgiving, more something. The mind searches for the magic combination of words or actions that might have changed the outcome, as if the past is still negotiable.
This loop isn't irrational; it's your brain trying to regain control over something that felt chaotic and unsafe. But it keeps you stuck in a place where healing can't quite reach.
Try this: When you notice the "what-if" spiral, pause and ask what your grief is protecting. Often, it's shielding you from the painful truth that some things were never within your power to fix.
Grieving Someone Who's Still Alive
Perhaps the most disorienting form of complicated grief is mourning someone who hasn't died. An estranged parent. An ex-partner you had to leave for your safety. An adult child who no longer speaks to you. They're alive somewhere in the world, but the relationship is over — or so changed that the person you knew no longer exists.
This kind of grief is often invisible to others. There's no funeral, no condolence cards, no socially recognised space to mourn. People might tell you to "just reach out" or "give it time," not understanding that the separation itself was an act of survival.
Try this: Give yourself permission to grieve this loss fully, even without death. The relationship you had, or hoped to have, has ended. That deserves to be mourned.
If you are affected by parental estrangement, please have a look at this article: When Emotions Run High: Emotional Immaturity in Action.
Shame About Not Feeling "Done" Yet
You watch others move through grief and come out the other side, and you wonder what's wrong with you. Why are you still thinking about them? Why hasn't time worked its supposed magic? Why do certain dates, places, or songs still knock the wind out of you?
There's an unspoken timeline in our culture around grief, and complicated grief rarely fits within it. When loss is tangled with trauma, healing isn't linear. It moves in spirals, with periods of peace interrupted by waves of feeling you thought you'd already processed.
Try this: Your timeline is your own. Healing from relational trauma takes as long as it takes, and comparing your journey to someone else's only adds unnecessary suffering to an already difficult process.
Anger That Won't Subside
Some days, you're not sad at all; you're furious. Furious that they never acknowledged the harm. Furious that they got to live as if nothing happened, while you're left picking up the pieces. Furious that even now, after everything, part of you still wishes things could have been different.
This anger isn't a problem to be solved. It's your body's protest at never being seen, never being protected, never receiving the apology or accountability you deserved. Anger is information. It's telling you that something deeply unfair occurred.
Try this: Let the anger exist without judgment. It doesn't make you bitter or broken. It makes you human, and it's part of how your system processes betrayal and injustice.
The Flatness of Disconnection
After living in survival mode for so long, some people don't feel much of anything. The grief isn't sharp — it's numb. There's a flatness where emotions should be, a sense of moving through life behind glass. You know logically that you've experienced loss, but you can't quite reach the feeling of it.
This disconnection is a protective mechanism. When grief is too big or too complicated to process all at once, the nervous system creates distance. It's not permanent, but it is a sign that your system needs more safety before it can fully feel.
Try this: Honour the numbness as a form of self-protection. Feeling will return when your body knows it's safe enough to let it in.
Feeling relief doesn’t make you heartless. It means your body finally feels safe.
Holding what once hurt.
Why It's So Hard to Move Through
Grief has a natural rhythm: shock, sadness, yearning, acceptance. But trauma interrupts that rhythm. When someone has hurt you, your nervous system doesn't just mourn the loss; it stays in a state of threat. You can't fully grieve someone you also need to protect yourself from, even in memory.
This is compounded when the abuse or harm goes unacknowledged by others. When family members deny what happened, when friends tell you to "let it go," when the broader community doesn't understand why you had to leave, the isolation deepens. You're not only grieving the relationship, you're grieving alone.
There's also the challenge of relational ambivalence. Love and resentment can co-exist. You can miss someone and be relieved they're gone. You can wish they were different and know they never will be. These contradictions aren't confusion — they're the honest complexity of having cared for someone who also caused harm.
Here's the gentle truth: Complicated grief isn't a flaw in you. It's your attachment system still searching for repair. Your nervous system is wired for connection, and when that connection ends without resolution, the system keeps reaching, keeps hoping, keeps trying to make sense of what can't be made sense of.
What Healing Can Look Like
Healing from complicated grief doesn't mean closure. The fantasy of closure, that perfect conversation, that final understanding — often keeps people stuck. Instead, healing looks more like integration. It's learning to hold multiple truths at once: that you loved them and they hurt you, that the loss is real and so is your freedom, that grief can soften even when the story never gets an ending.
There are therapeutic approaches specifically designed for this kind of grief:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) can help process traumatic memories that keep grief locked in the body, allowing the nervous system to move from threat to mourning.
Parts work (like Internal Family Systems) recognises that different parts of you may have different feelings about the loss — one part grieving, another relieved, another angry. Healing happens when these parts can coexist without conflict.
Somatic grounding teaches your body that it's safe enough to feel grief without being overwhelmed by it. This might include breathwork, movement, or practices that help you stay present while emotions move through.
Imaginal dialogue offers a way to have the conversations that never happened in real life, not to change the past, but to give your nervous system the experience of being heard, even if only by yourself.
Beyond therapy, there are reflective rituals that can support healing. Writing unsent letters allows you to say what was never said. Visiting meaningful places can help you honour what mattered. Creating symbolic goodbyes like lighting a candle, planting something, releasing a written intention into water, can mark a transition your body recognises.
But here's what matters most: We can't release what still feels unsafe to feel. Before diving into the story of grief, your nervous system needs to know it's held, that you have support, that the feelings won't destroy you. Embodied safety comes before narrative work. Compassion for yourself comes before understanding them.
When to Seek Extra Support
Some grief can be carried alone, at least for a time. But complicated grief, especially when tangled with trauma, often needs witnessed, compassionate support.
Consider reaching out if you're experiencing:
Persistent guilt that interferes with daily life
Intrusive memories or flashbacks related to the person or the relationship
Avoiding anything that reminds you of them, to the point of limiting your life
Inability to feel joy or connection, even in safe relationships
Thoughts of self-harm or deep hopelessness
You deserve grief support that understands trauma, coercive control, and attachment wounds. Not all therapists are trained in this intersection, and working with someone who gets it can make all the difference.
At Safe Space Counselling Services in Murrumbeena, I work with people navigating the overlap between grief, trauma, and complex family dynamics. This work requires patience, gentleness, and a recognition that your grief is both valid and complicated — and that both of those things can be true at once.
Grief That Transforms, Not Ends
Complicated grief isn't endless; it's waiting for compassion, not closure. It's waiting for someone (including yourself) to say: Yes, this was hard. Yes, you loved them. Yes, they hurt you. Yes, you're allowed to feel all of it, as slowly and messily as you need to.
You can build peace with what can't be fixed. You can honour what mattered while also protecting yourself from what harmed you. You can carry the loss without letting it define your entire life.
Grief changes shape over time. What feels impossible today may, with support and patience, become something you can hold alongside joy, connection, and hope.
If this resonates, you don't have to face it alone. You can contact me via email or phone, or book a session.
📧 Email: kat@SafeSpaceCounsellingServices.com.au
📞 Phone: 0452 285 526
