When Grief and Trauma Intermingle: A Look at Child Loss and Traumatic Grief

Hello, friends. I’m writing about something our culture rarely names out loud: the intersection of child loss and traumatic grief. If you’re here, your heart is hurting—whether you’re a parent grieving the death of your child or someone who loves and supports that parent. I see you.

Thank you for getting up today. Thank you for choosing to keep going. Every moment you push through honors your child’s memory. Your love overshadows their death. My hope is to give space to both your grief and your love, and to explain how trauma sometimes folds itself into this experience.

Understanding Grief and Trauma After Child Loss

First, we need to start with general defintions of these two terms: grief and trauma. I define grief as a natural response to losing something or someone; Merriam-Webster defines it as 'deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.'

Let's note that grief doesn't have 5 distinct stages, no matter what you've read online. This is a common misconception, due to a misattribution of Dr. Kubler-Ross's work on the 5 stages of dying, which she developed by interviewing 200 chronically ill and dying patients. So, holding yourself to this model (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance) does a disservice to your grieving process. Kubler-Ross reportedly did not think that you needed to go through all five stages in order to get to acceptance. That's just our Western world trying to make sense of the nonsensical again.

Think of grief more like ocean waves. They come and they go, and sometimes there's high tides and sometimes there's low ones, but the water is always present. Your grief doesn't disappear. It recedes and then comes back. And flowing with the waves is better than trying to withstand them.

Trauma is defined, at least by me, as a natural body and emotional response to abnormal events. It's when your body's nervous system is overwhelmed by something happening, and your nervous system then responds any time it is reminded of that occurrence, as if it's happening all over again, even years later. Traumatic grief after child loss might look like never redecorating your child's room, or refusing to visit their graveside, or finding yourself overcome by flashbacks everytime you have to drive by the hospital.

when-grief-and-trauma-intermingle-a-look-at-child-loss-and-traumatic-grief

Grief is like ocean waves.

TL;DR

Grief

• A natural response to losing someone or something precious.

• Merriam-Webster: “deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement.”

• Not a tidy set of “five stages.” Instead, imagine ocean waves—they rise, fall, recede, return.

Trauma

• A natural body-and-mind response to an abnormal, overwhelming event.

• Your nervous system is “switched on” and may react to reminders as if the loss is happening again.

Why Losing a Child Often Brings Trauma, Too

There are no words adequate to describe what the death of a child does to parents. In fact, I saw a post awhile back that said, "We describe people who lost spouses as widows or widowers, people who lose parents as orphans, but we don't have a word for parents who lose children." And it's true. Perhaps child loss is traumatic simply because it's so unlike anything else.

Such losses may be:

• Sudden (accident, illness, tragedy).

• Violent or medicalized (cancer treatments, emergency interventions, due to war or a crime).

• A complete shattering of safety, control, and identity for most parents and caregivers.

  
  

Somatic symptoms—numbness, nausea, nightmares—overlap with PTSD. Add social isolation (“I don’t know what to say to you…”), and many parents slide from raw grief into traumatic grief.. Without people to lean on, lots of folks find themselves making meaning out of their own shame and guilt regarding their child's death, which can solidify in self-blaming messages.

Here's the hard truth, though: Sometimes, children die. And it's not because of a reason, or a plan, or anyone's fault directly. Sometimes, truly sad and devastating losses occur, and we, as people, just try to make it through them, the best we can.

7 Signs of Traumatic Grief After Child Loss

Grief and trauma can walk hand-in-hand after the loss of a child, but they aren’t always easy to tell apart. Many grieving parents wonder, “Is this still grief—or is something else happening to me?” The truth is, traumatic grief can look and feel very different from “expected” grief.

Here are some signs that trauma may be layered into your grief:

1. Intrusive Thoughts or Flashbacks

   • Re-living the hospital room, the silence of a stillbirth, the accident scene.

   • Racing heart, sweating, feeling trapped in the memory and in your body, unable to move forward.

   • “It’s like I’m back there again, and I can’t escape.”

2. Avoidance of Triggers

   • Skipping hospitals, baby aisles, certain movies, pregnant friends, the cemetery, etc.

   • Avoidance feels rigid and fear-based, not just “I don’t feel up to it.”

   • “I drive miles out of my way to avoid the OB office.”

3. Hypervigilance & Anxiety

   • Constantly on edge, waiting for the next catastrophe, certain that if you can just be ready, it won't hurt so bad this time.

   • Trouble sleeping or resting; body's alarm system shrieking all. the. dang. time.

   • “Every little noise made my heart race and my breath started to get really shallow.”

4. Emotional Numbness or Dissociation

   • Feeling nothing, watching life from outside your body.

   • Losing time or feeling like 'nothing is real' anymore.

   • Others may think you’re “coping well,” but inside you feel disconnected.

   • “I was just going through the motions.”

5. Guilt, Shame & Shattered Identity

   • “I should have known… I failed my child.”

   • Questioning your worth as a parent, partner, or person.

   • “Now I just see all the ways I failed them.”

6. Difficulty Feeling Safe

   • Trust in your body, doctors, faith, God, or the world feels broken.

   • You may try to control everything… or believe nothing can be controlled, and therefore behave more recklessly than you ever have before.

   • “How can I trust my body when it couldn’t protect my baby?”

7. Stuckness in Grief

   • Grief isn’t linear, but trauma can freeze it—numbness, panic, pain on repeat.

   • Pain may feel like punishment or the only remaining connection to your child.

   • “People say time heals, but I find myself feeling worse as time goes on."

A Gentle Note:

If these signs resonate with you, you're not crazy and you're not broken. It means your grief may be more complex, and your nervous system is doing its best to protect you from unspeakable pain.

This kind of grief needs more than time. It needs compassionate, trauma-informed support—and with that support, healing is possible. We don't move past grief. We move with it. We sometimes float in the waves that come and go, and we eventually find our footing in the sand.

My hope is that every grieving parent gets to experience this kind of healing and support, even if it's not with me. Your love for your child never goes away, and you can also still craft a life worth living, even when it seems like all is lost. If you're looking for personalized support, I offer trauma-informed grief counseling to parents in Oklahoma (in-person) and Vermont (telehealth). You can schedule a consultation here, whenever you're ready.

Take exquisite care of yourself,

Megan