The Week After a Loss

The checklist

• Eat something every few hours — Grief empties the tank, and forgetting to eat makes all of it harder.
• Drink water and lie down — Your body is doing heavy work even when you are sitting still.
• Decide nothing big this week — No moves, no clearing out, no promises; they will all keep.
• Give one person a real job — A meal, a ride, a call made on your behalf; people want something to do.
• Say no to what you cannot face — Turning down a gathering is allowed, and it needs no explanation.
• Let the crying come when it comes — Grief does not keep to a schedule, and holding it back costs more.
• Keep one thread of routine — A shower, a walk, feeding the cat; one fixed point steadies a shapeless day.
• Reach out if it turns very dark — If you are thinking of harming yourself, call or text 988 at any hour.

Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.

How to use it

Run through it once a day, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.

With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.

Checklists like this one

Reading that goes with it