What my bereavement counsellor said about eating

My grief made everything else harder to judge. I could not tell what was a symptom and what was simply what March was like that year.

Something practical that helped: somebody else deciding what I ate. I could manage food that arrived; I could not manage choosing it.

Somebody in this circle sat with me on a thread for an evening and said almost nothing and it was exactly what I needed.

Here, reading, and glad you posted.

What I found hardest was people asking how I was in a way that required a manageable answer.

My experience is that routine helped more than anything anybody said. Small, repeated, unremarkable things, done at the same times.

I would gently say that if you have not eaten properly for days, that is worth a phone call rather than waiting for it to pass.

What I found was that grief and appetite are tangled in a way nobody had ever mentioned to me, and separating them was not possible.

Toast. For about a month it was toast, and somebody here told me that was fine and it genuinely helped to be told.

Eating went completely for about a fortnight and my GP was more concerned about that than I was, and she was right to be.

What I would say is that this is not the time to be strict with yourself about anything. Mine was, for two months, and it cost me.