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Online grief support

If you've clicked through to this page, it's likely you're either:

• looking for some guidance or help for yourself,
• or wanting some suggestions to pass on to someone dear to you who is grieving,
• AND you're wondering if online grief support is going to provide what's  needed.
   

Why use online grief support?

• because you don't want to worry your friends or your family with your problems, especially if they are grieving themselves
• because talking about difficult subjects is often easier when the person you are talking to is not part of your immediate community. (You are unlikely to meet them in your local supermarket checkout line!)
• because you want the convenience of receiving counseling in your own time, in your own home. 
• because it's just as effective as traditional face-to-face therapy. For proof please see this 2008 study* comparing results between face-to-face and internet intervention (online) therapy. 
  *A Comprehensive Review and a Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Internet-Based Psychotherapeutic Interventions, Azy Barak, Liat Hen, Meyran Boniel-Nissim & Na'ama Shapira, Journal of Technology in Human Services Vol. 26 , Iss. 2-4,2008
• and because it costs significantly less than the average face-to-face counseling session. 

Understanding grief

When you're grieving there may come a time when you want to say OK, alright. I need help. Enough is enough. I want to stop feeling like I do, and I can't do that by myself. This grief is too much for me to carry alone any more.

Maybe that's where you are now. And maybe that's making you feel frightened, or angry, or crazy, or perhaps you're running on empty, feeling nothing. 

There is no official recipe stipulating the exact ingredients for grief. And just like we don't fully understand what is involved until we experience it, neither do we know how long it takes, before we can say we're through the most intense period of it.

That's why talking with someone who fully understands, and is professionally trained can be very useful and reassuring.

There is no right way to grieve

How we experience grief is unique.

Today there might be rocks where your heart used to be. Tears may spring from nowhere, and the thoughts in your brain might be stuck on a loop spinning around, and around, and around ...

Tomorrow it could be different.

Despite what well-meaning friends or family might tell you there are no "right" ways to grieve. And neither are there "right" stages which everyone must pass through.

We are unique therefore our experience of grief is unique. We may not progress tidily from this stage to that and, collect our lives back ready to be fully lived once we pass through the last one.

The reality of grief is tough

Grieving is a zig, zag, slip, sliding journey.

Some days it can be hard to eat, to breathe, sleep, brush your hair, get out of bed, get dressed, answer your phone, have a shower or go to work.

It can be tough to find a reason, or the energy, to do things you once regarded as so ordinary you did them without thinking. Is this you? Perhaps right now you are tired and experience life as a grey blur, sucked of color.

We both know, it will never be the same again. That's true. The person you loved, who meant so much to you, is gone. Hard though it is, that's reality.

However there is help and you could use it to find your new 'normal'.  You could talk your situation through with a professional.

Benefits of online grief support 

When you connect with a Betterhelp.com counselor you: 

• are meeting a fully trained, professionally qualified therapist who has been selected especially to match your needs 
• can meet them in the privacy of your own room
• can meet them anytime, anywhere via video conferencing, live chat, a phone call or messaging 
• can meet them as many times as you want
• spend much less than you would on typical face-to-face session.
  You pay between $35 - $70 USD per week for unlimited access to your counselor. A typical face-to-face sessions may cost between $150 - $250 USD for a single session.
• can talk about what you choose, when you choose
• can be anonymous if you want
• can change your counselor if you are not happy with the one that's been assigned to you

For more information, please visit the FAQ page.

Talk to a professional counselor

You could get started today because:

• you know it's time to manage the pain you experience 
• talking with well-meaning friends hasn't fixed it
• you are causing your family, and yourself, worry
• sharing and venting on an online forum hasn't been enough
• conflicting and confusing advice is causing anxiety and more problems

There is no shame in talking to a trained counselor.

After all you visit a medical doctor when you are physically unwell. When your car needs a tune up you take it to the garage, and when your plumbing fails you call in the plumber. This is the same thing.

In talking to a professional therapist you are taking the most appropriate action to help solve your problem.* 

Are you ready to begin?

Let's move forward

* Just checking, do you need immediate help?

Please seek immediate help from a doctor or medical practitioner if you are experiencing:

• thoughts about deliberately harming yourself
• thoughts about suicide
• physical pain that you can not explain.

Do not wait. Betterhelp.com is not an emergency care service which is what you need right now. Please look after yourself. Make the call! 

However if you are not in crisis, and ready to move on, your next step toward living fully once more, could be to get started.