From Grief Hangovers to Resilience

I’m a nerd for language. When I hear something I like, I soak it up like a sponge and then share it with my communities where it may have a relevant or meaningful impact. I’ve shared words from other leaders like Confidential Grief (Dr. Lena Salpietro), noble poverty, conscious closure, metaprocessing, and Vicarious Healing (Alejandro Castro Croy). As a writer and published author, I’m also someone who attempts to put language to things I’m working on or working through, such as leadership trauma, Adverse Psychological Events (APEs), financial gatekeeping, and one that resonated with students recently: grief hangover.

In March of this year, the anniversary month of my client’s death by suicide, I took a deep dive into grief and loss books (see that blog here). It opened my eyes to what we do well as a society (minimal), and the things we could do better for the bereaved (vast). But even before that journey, I was attempting to find language for the experience of revisiting something unbelievably painful. 

In 2023, when I began writing about my client’s death for a published book, I described to close colleagues and friends that I was putting myself into a “grief hangover” every time I sat down to write. It was the best language I could come up with to describe the feeling, which captured a resurgence of grief and tenderness as I sat down and relived the events before and after her death.

A week ago, the language of ‘grief hangover’ was shared with students to capture the experience of a client goes deep into painful events in therapy after weeks of surface-level processing, but then hesitating the next session due to the sheer magnitude of emotions and activation they felt. It’s exhausting for them and why wouldn’t it be? After all, we are wired to avoid pain and sometimes the therapeutic work has pain associated with it. So what helps us lean into the experience of a grief hangover rather than avoid it?

In 2023, what helped me was the mantra I said to myself repeatedly that “this is going to help more people than it’s going to hurt me.” And here in 2026, it may be that we have to feel the full spectrum of emotions or feel nothing at all. For clients, normalizing the impact of deep processing or trauma work can be validating to their experience. Naming the grief hangover by saying it can feel worse before it gets better may be appropriate. Resourcing our clients to do that deeper work is required. Of course we want to get their consent every step of the way and provide psychoeducation of the therapeutic process. And hesitation after a heavier session shows us a protective part that is attempting to keep them from further pain. It makes sense.

Enter resilience.

One definition of resilience is the capacity to bounce back and move forward after significant stress, failure, trauma or hardship. There of course isn’t an argument for bouncing back from grief because it’s not appropriate nor is it realistic with this simplicity. But what we may consider is the possibility of post-traumatic growth and resilience after loss.

For clients, this may mean taking a strengths-based approach to acknowledge their efforts to embrace change and growth. For them to recognize the usefulness of change in their lives and it outweighing the pain and stuckness they may be experiencing in the present. Encouraging clients to come up with their own mantra or self-talk that empowers them to keep showing up. 

Working with clinician survivors, I have witnessed the resilience and am in awe of it. A therapist’s ability to grieve the loss of their client, overcome vicious self-talk, navigate the hits to their confidence and competence, and still find purpose and meaning in the work is inspiring. It’s also a messy road for most of us to get there. Working towards resilience means doing our own grief and loss work, connecting with community, and eventually—if we are lucky—make meaning from the experience. Grief hangovers are part of the process.

So perhaps it’s embracing the language of a grief hangover when we find ourselves tender, depleted, or raw in the experience. There’s an opportunity to resource ourselves so we can bounce back from each hangover itself. Wherever you are on the journey, just know that you aren’t alone in your experiences of grief, grief hangovers, and post-traumatic growth. I hope you can receive the gentle reminder to take it one moment, month, or season at a time.

The Human in the Helper: You cannot heal what you don’t reveal

Dr. Kendal Wellington Humes is a trailblazer. As a doctorate-level psychotherapist in private practice, he’s recently taken on the task of building a behavioral health program from the ground up in academia, as it’s first department chair. He’s had a busy few years, however they haven’t been without challenges. “I’m winning and I’m losing irreplaceable things.” In the past 8 years in Colorado, Dr. Kendal has experienced the loss of a parent, godparent, pet loss, and two painful divorces. “My private practice has kept me alive,” he shared.

“People see my progress but not my process,” Dr. Kendal reflected. He’s no stranger to wanting to excel since he’s achieved four degrees and multiple letters after his name before his mid-thirties. Educational and career achievements provided him a sense of purpose and control when his personal life felt rocky. “No one can take that from me,” he reflected.

Dr. Kendal named the pressure he feels to succeed. “I can’t afford to be mediocre. I’m Black. I’m an immigrant. I’m tall. I’m dark-skinned. And I’m openly gay. I don’t have the privilege of being mediocre.” He’s achieved quite a bit in his career so far, working in community mental health, offering supervision, starting a private practice, and now working in academia. He spoke of the bittersweetness of achieving success while grieving. “People are celebrating the successes but not the losses. Transparency can be weaponized.” Dr. Kendal also spoke to the pressure mental health professionals feel to have things all figured out. “We get the message that we should know better. We should be better.” As a mentor to younger generations of therapists and professionals, It hasn’t stopped him from sharing the hardships as well as the victories.

“I’ve been through divorce. My father died.” Dr. Kendal has experienced depression and he’s felt immense grief. “I didn’t feel like I could give people an honest answer about how I was doing. People don’t always understand what sacrifices have to be made for the successes they see.” Dr. Kendal also recognizes he’s hardest on himself. When experiencing divorce, he found himself saying, “I can’t even heal my own person. I can’t heal my own shit.”

Now Dr. Kendal is all about seeing both sides. “I can see the good and the bad. You cannot heal what you don’t reveal.” He describes his approach as strengths-based and holds onto some humor, even when things get heavy. “I have a strong sense of self. I had to forgive myself.” Dr. Kendal has similar ideas for others going through immense pain in their personal life. “Keep moving. Fall on your back instead of your face. When you fall on your back, you can still see what direction you need to go.”

As for himself, Dr. Kendal’s purpose has become clearer thanks to added perspective and deeper insight from the losses he’s experienced. “Sometimes letting go will put you right where you need to be. Stop fighting.” He’s attempting to take the changes in stride, knowing he has more people to meet and engage in his journey as a psychotherapist. “I’m a wounded healer,” he named. “Failures can be a win too. How will failures help us grow?”

Things happen to us as humans, even as we support our clients as professional helpers. Do you have a story you want to share the mental health community? Email us at croswaitecounselingpllc@gmail.com to learn more about the Human in the Helper Series!

The Human in the Helper: My clients didn't know

Sharon loves using humor in her therapeutic work, which serves her well considering she works with a variety of clients including children to older adults. It’s also helped her navigate almost four years of medical challenges. “I had three medical issues in a row!” Sharon shared. She reflected on needing serious medical care that felt disruptive to her work-life balance for several years. “It was hard. Sometimes it was great to be with clients because I needed to think of things other than the pain.”

Even as Sharon was attempting to navigate her pain, most of her clients didn’t know she was going through so much. “Clients would be shocked to know what I went through. They had no idea. I had to think about if it would hurt or help clients to know,” she said. This was possible due to her offering telehealth sessions where clients couldn’t see the medical changes or recovery equipment in her life at that time. Sharon went on to describe how she didn’t want to reinforce attachment traumas for certain clients or cause them to worry about her, resulting in clients attempting to caregive her rather than focusing on their own stuff in therapy. “We have to be curious about if honesty is helpful, or if it just makes it about us, “ Sharon warns.  It helps us reflect on the purpose of self-disclosure when things are happening in our personal lives, exploring the impact on our client work from multiple viewpoints.

Sharon isn’t saying that clients come first, however. When it comes to medical care and health and wellness needs, she recommends therapists treat themselves likes CEOs. “Be the CEO of your business where your needs come first, then your client care.” She named how making her health a priority actually helped her get better, and allowed her to serve her clients better when feeling well again.

An important part of Sharon’s recovery in needing medical care was her own support system. She reflects on how embracing vulnerability and sharing her struggles with colleagues helped her reduce her caseload with thoughtful referrals when she was feeling tapped out. She named gratitude for a spouse who encouraged her to do what needed to be done in order to get better.  “There’s a strength in saying there’s no way I can get through this on my own.”

Sharon is celebrating that she’s in a better spot with her health today, and recognizes that the lived experience of multiple medical concerns has made her a better clinician in some ways. “Having to sit in the question of ‘is this it?’ myself allows me to sit in this heaviness with clients.” Whether it’s aging, end of life, or the loss of a loved one, she feels prepared to slow down with clients and feel the big emotions that come with mortality and loss. She continues to hold passion for her client work and gratitude for her experiences, and names a willingness to keep her health a first priority amidst her calling as a clinician. “As long as I can take a break from any surgeries or medical crises in 2024,” Sharon grinned.

Things happen to us as humans, even as we support our clients as professional helpers. Do you have a story you want to share the mental health community? Email us at croswaitecounselingpllc@gmail.com to learn more about the Human in the Helper Series!