How long does grief and mourning last?
Each griever is unique and grieves in their own way and in their own time. The way an individual reacts to grief depends on their personality, prior experiences with grief, the relationship with the deceased, their coping skills and personality. Other factors also affect the grieving experience; the manner of death, whether or not the death was expected (i.e. terminal illness vs. accident) and whether the death was timely (i.e. death of a grandparent vs. the death of a child) and the available support system. Grief takes as long as it takes for the bereaved to process the death and come to an acceptance of the death. Grief ends when it comes to its natural conclusion. This takes a different amount of time for each individual -there is no “set” time frame involved. For some people, grief takes a matter of months, for others it can take a year or two, and in the case of traumatic deaths (murder / suicide) the process can take 3-5 years.
