How Is Grief Experienced by People Who Have Lost a Loved One to a Natural Disaster or War?

People who have lost loved ones to a natural disaster or war often experience intense and overwhelming grief due to the sudden, violent, and unexpected nature of these deaths. The sudden, violent, and often chaotic nature of these deaths frequently shatters the survivor’s assumptive world, leaving them to navigate shock, numbness, or a sense of disconnection. In the context of war, this grief is frequently compounded by feelings of injustice, moral injury, betrayal, and sometimes intense anger directed at systems or governments. In some circumstances, grief may be present alongside a specific psychiatric diagnosis, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or prolonged grief disorder (PGD).

Survivor’s guilt is often a universal response to this experience. It may be event-based or existential in nature. Event-based survivor’s guilt manifests as painful interrogation and rumination surrounding the specific moments of the disaster, such as “If only I had made them leave five minutes earlier,” or “Why didn’t I shield them from what was happening?” It is often accompanied by shame over perceived failures to protect others, regardless of the circumstances or the reality of one’s powerlessness in these situations. Existential survivor’s guilt is less about the specific event and more generalized, such as an intense sense of unfairness that we can continue in our daily routines and milestones while others cannot.

One of the most significant complications of these mass casualty events is the higher likelihood of ambiguous loss. When bodies are unrecovered, unidentifiable, or destroyed due to the force of the disaster or the nature of an attack, the bereaved are deprived of the confirmation that anchors the grieving process. Without a body to view or a grave to visit in these instances, it can make it difficult for some people to distinguish the difference between “missing” and “dead”. Some people struggle greatly with cognitive acceptance of the true finality of death in these circumstances.

Supporting survivors of these events often requires more than general grief counseling since there is trauma, secondary losses, and collective losses. Beyond the death of the individual, survivors often grieve the loss of a home, a neighborhood, community history, and a sense of safety. Some grieve the loss of cultural or national identity, while others grieve the loss of a future. Specialized support groups, trauma-informed therapy, and community memorial rituals are important in navigating grief and rebuilding life after loss, but not everyone has access to these resources. Additionally, when validating emotions and experiences, survivors often need protection from intrusive narratives. In disaster and war, survivors often become public symbols of tragedy or are subjected to media scrutiny and political narratives, so a key part of support is found in helping them reclaim ownership of the story surrounding their loss and allowing them to grieve privately, even as the community watches.

Sources

“Managing Grief After Disaster Events”. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/disaster_events/for_providers/managing_grief.asp 

“Dreading Yet Hoping: Traumatic Loss Impacted by Reference DNA Sample Collection for Families of Missing People”. National Library of Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9013849/