Love with nowhere to go: dealing with grief at uni

Are you struggling to fight grief at uni? You are not alone.

Rebecca Wright
7th November 2022
Image Credits: Pixabay

Dealing with grief is hard but dealing with it while trying to juggle university is near impossible. Here are some things that help me.

I lost my dad last year, as the coronavirus pandemic was ending. Just as it felt like everything was coming to a close, it felt like the ground gave way beneath my feet. It was the first time I have ever really experienced the ‘world crashing down’ feeling. It doesn’t matter if you lost someone last week, last year, or ten years ago – grief isn’t something that disappears over time and ignoring it won’t make it go away. As ugly as it is, it is trying to help you. Inviting grief into your daily life instead of locking it away in a box is the road to consistently coping.

Grief is an outpouring of love, and it should be treated as such

There are things in my daily routine that help on the worse days when things are getting overwhelming. For example, I have a scrapbook of my favourite pictures of us together, and ones from before I was born – it’s a nice thought that he had an entire life, and more, before I came along. Looking through this, and the process of making it, was incredibly cathartic and helps me come to terms with this big change in my life.

Another helpful thing is making a playlist of their favourite music – you might learn something new about them by listening! My dad introduced me to The Kinks, The Sex Pistols, and The Clash. The bond we shared over music is as real and alive as ever, and it lives on in the playlists I listen to.

There are a million things you can do in memory of someone you love – write down your favourite memories together, keep their pictures around, there are so many small ways to keep someone’s memory in your life. Perhaps, the most important thing of all when dealing with grief at university, is to talk. Chew your friend’s ears off with stories and ramblings about them. I promise that they want to hear. Call your loved ones for a “do you remember when…”, make their favourite foods, have a cry and get yourself back up again.

Grief is an outpouring of love, and it should be treated as such. It is not embarrassing, and it does not make you weird. Talk about it and invite people in!

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