Grief And Autism

Grief is different for everyone. People express themselves in different ways. Some people will remain quiet and other people want to talk about it. It’s their way of going through the motions of the grieving process. When you have autism, showing emotion is a challenge. Just because we don’t show or share what we’re feeling, it doesn’t mean we’re not grieving. We have our own way of expressing ourselves. We have our own coping strategy.

There are going to be times where someone with autism may act out because they don’t understand what is happening. They know that there is something, but depending on where someone is on the spectrum, they may not understand grief or death.

For some people with autism, coping with the abstract nature of death can be difficult. Autistic people may not react to loss or express grief in real time. A delayed reaction might appear week or months later and take the form of unusual behavior changes such as dysregulation, mood swings, and aggression, social and emotional withdrawal, spurts in stereotypy or repetitive behaviors, increases in creative activities such as drawing, painting, or collecting.

There are going to be times where the grief doesn’t kick in right away. It’s not going to happen overnight. We may not even grieve at all, but that doesn’t mean we don’t care, it’s just we need time to fully understand the situation.

Grief doesn’t follow a timetable. There are no prescribed stages that chronologically lead us through grief. The grieving process can be thought of as more of a rollercoaster than a timeline because the experience is full of ups and downs. A new loss might bring up grief from a prior loss, and the reaction to the new grief might be very different than the reaction to the prior loss.

There’s going to be confusion on why someone was there one day and gone the next. You just have to be patient. You can’t rush or pressure someone on the spectrum to respond in the way you want them too. They’re going to need some time to figure out what to do. Help them to understand that it’s okay to be mad and sad. They have every right to feel the way they feel.

In my experience with dealing with grief is that I like talking about the person. I don’t ramble on for hours at a time, but every once in a while, I like to bring them up in conversation. I feel like if I say their name and talk about them no matter how long they’ve been going, it keeps their memory alive. Even if it’s someone I’ve never met, I like to remember them by talking about them. Some people leave an impact on me and talking about them is my way of grieving. It’s how I deal with the situation.

I know there are people who don’t want to deal with it all, they'll get upset when they hear a name. They want to forget it ever happened, which is understandable, their feelings are valid, but it feels like they want to erase that person from their memory like they never existed. There is no right or wrong way to grief.

How we grieve is not a measure or indication of how much we love the person who died, it’s simply our personal response to the loss.

Going through the emotions over losing someone can take a lifetime, especially if its someone like partner. You’re going to have some good days and some bad days, but that doesn’t mean you should stop grieving tomorrow. You are going to have triggers. There are going to be times where something is going to make you think of someone and it’s going to bring back those emotions.

There are so many different ways for someone with autism to grieve. Let them do it in their own way. They may not react in the same way as you do. They’re going to need time. All you have to do is be there for them and help them with their emotions and answer any questions they may have.