Grief made me lose track of time. Am I normal?

Grief affects so many things – including your ability to keep track of time. Has this happened to you?

Losing track of time is #perfectlynormal in grief.

As you look back on your day, you may not be able to articulate what you’ve done or accomplished. When asked, you likely cannot give any evidence of having done anything. Much of the work of early grief is done inside your heart and mind, not in outward actions. That you have no idea what day it is, or can’t remember when you last ate, makes perfect sense. It’s in those lost, seemingly unproductive moments that your body and mind are attempting to integrate your loss: it’s almost like an awake sleep cycle. Your mind goes offline so it can heal

How about you? Have you lost track of time or looked back and wondered where the day went? The more we talk about this stuff, the more we tell the truth about what grief is really like, the more people realize they’re not alone.

Grief is hard. It impacts every aspect of life, big and small. There are so many things grieving people experience, things they do or don’t do, that they (or the outside world) might think are unusual or weird, but are actually perfectly normal. You aren’t weird. You’re grieving.

The problem is, people often don’t realize they’re normal until they discover they aren’t alone in feeling a certain way or doing a particular thing. And feeling alone makes grief even harder than it already is.

Because it’s such a relief to find out we’re not alone, we’re creating a series of posts acknowledging as many of those things as we can, one #perfectlynormal thing at a time.

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These posts were created using personal contributions people just like you and from our awesome Grief Revolution patrons. My patrons get to see everything we create before anyone else, suggest topics to cover in future projects, participate in live Q&A sessions, and more. Join the Grief Revolution at patreon.com/megandevine/tt