May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a reminder of the important role that mental health plays in our overall health and well-being. Edward Dickerhoof, LPCC-S, practice lead and clinical coordinator of Aultman Medical Group Behavioral Health and Counseling Center, discusses how to confront emotions and move through grief and loss.

A mental health struggle can often begin with a monumental loss. It can be the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or career, the loss of a relationship or other significant losses.

Some people develop resilience and recover, but for others, life becomes difficult, their functioning declines and they struggle with depression and anxiety like they never faced before. Well-meaning friends try to help them “get over it” and often say things that just add to the pain.

I like to keep things as simple as possible. We have two basic challenges. The first is to cope with the loss – to adjust to a world that is very different and will never be the same.

This involves feeling one’s feelings and learning to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. It often involves talking to others and the process of sitting with feelings that we have never experienced. This part hurts. It often involves living in a world that we never imagined and that we did not choose.

The second challenge is to re-engage meaningfully in life. We recover because there are no other good choices. We figure out how to live meaningfully again.

Re-engaging involves two specific tasks. The first is to redefine ourselves in light of the loss. We discover “Who am I now?” and work toward a new healthy identity. There is no specific timeframe for this, but it is essential for recovery.

The second task is to re-engage with the people in our life. This involves seeing others and accepting condolences, but most importantly, it involves reconnecting with people and determining who we want to be in our trusted inner circle. It involves determining the right people and the right distance in these relationships. This is a journey where we can grow and reconnect meaningfully.

There is no way to make grief and loss easy. It can be incredibly painful. But if we are working on these two challenges, we make progress. If not, we may suffer long-term mental health struggles that settle in and take over our lives.