Grief Shock — Part I: Overload
Grief Shock
A Personal Account of Nervous System Overload After Loss
After Leilani passed, something began to creep in. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Slowly.
It wasn’t the crying. That had already come.
It wasn’t the logistics.
It was quieter than that.
Grief shock doesn’t usually announce itself. It creeps.
I was still functioning — still publishing, still writing clearly, still working.
On the outside, I looked intact.
On the inside, something felt off.
I was sharper. Shorter. More reactive. More alert. Less buffered.
I could hear my own voice when I spoke, but it didn’t feel fully connected to me.
It wasn’t a single breaking point. It was accumulation.
It also didn’t help that a situation at work had just unfolded — one that should not have happened in the first place. The environment itself wasn’t toxic, but being moved under a supervisor whose approach quickly became confrontational created unnecessary strain.
There was an inability to separate logic from emotion. I was verbally attacked over something that had no solid footing. It was aggressive and unnecessary. Upper management told me she had been coached, but I was not moved. By that point, the damage was done. She had lost my respect.
That compounded everything. I was forced into a position where I had to choose between my integrity and a paycheck — a position I should never have been placed in, one that could have been remedied. Instead, it wasn’t.
Before that, the job had simply been stressful. After that incident, it became destabilizing. Then came the financial ripple — thoughts of instability, and the instability itself.
As the accumulation built, it reopened a wound I was already carrying.
My mother.
That’s how grief shock began. Not with collapse. With pressure.
The Self-Checkout
The first clear sign wasn’t dramatic.
It happened at a grocery store.
I was at self-checkout when something minor glitched — a small delay, the kind that normally earns a shrug.
An employee began speaking to me rudely while my back was turned.
I turned and told him to address me properly.
He said he apologized, but it felt dismissive — like it was meant to end the interaction rather than correct it.
I pointed that out.
I told him to remember my face and that the next time he saw me, I might not be so kind.
I didn’t explode.
But the intensity was disproportionate.
Baseline me registers inconvenience and moves on.
This felt charged.
I walked away aware that my threshold had lowered.
The Sandwich Shop
A few days later, it escalated.
I went into a sandwich shop to buy food for my father and me.
I asked about specials.
The employee responded sharply.
I let it pass.
I asked about pricing.
He pointed behind him.
I asked about the bread.
Another correction.
Something snapped.
I told him to watch how the **** he was talking to me. To watch his tone.
He responded that no one ever complains about his attitude or the way he talks to customers.
He said it in a way that suggested it didn’t matter to him — as if other people simply let it pass.
I told him maybe some people do let it pass.
But one day he was going to run across the wrong person.
I told him I, for one, do not like being spoken to that way.
He was still holding the knife he had used to cut the bread.
He didn’t need to be holding it at that point.
I told him I didn’t care that he was holding a knife.
That’s when he started putting it down.
He didn’t escalate further.
I did.
And then I stopped.
But it was too late. The atmosphere had shifted. My system was already lit.
By the time he adjusted his tone and started preparing the sandwich, I didn’t want it anymore.
Not because of the sandwich.
Because the system was already activated.
I told him, “**** your sandwich.”
And I walked out.
The Next Day
The following day included normal life.
I discovered a fraudulent charge on my bank account.
I resolved a phone service issue.
I saw my chiropractor.
I ran errands.
None of it dramatic. All of it routine.
But under grief shock, routine carries more weight.
Bandwidth shrinks. Decision-making feels heavier.
Not overwhelming. Just heavier.
Grief shock doesn’t require catastrophe. It reacts to accumulation.
Yesterday — Before the Campground
Yesterday, before heading to the campground, I tried again to regulate.
The Alarm
While sitting in a massage chair at a mall trying to relax, an alarm from a nearby store started going off.
It went on long enough that I yelled across to have them shut it off.
They did.
But something had already been revealed.
Even in a relaxation setting, my nervous system wouldn’t downshift.
Everything felt amplified.
The Shirt
Across from the massage chair was a store.
I bought a Metallica shirt.
It was impulsive.
It also felt grounding.
Familiar.
Normal.
Even dysregulated, the system looks for anchors.
Human Contact
Later, without planning it ahead of time, I decided to stop and see Robert.
This wasn’t scheduled. It wasn’t pre-arranged.
I just felt it was time to talk to him and tell him what was going on.
This is the place where I previously worked — where the covert narcissist situation occurred.
We went to the cafeteria. I asked about a plate. It was more than I wanted to spend. I declined.
They gave it to me anyway.
Turkey. Mashed potatoes. Corn. A roll.
It was one of my favorite meals.
Robert handed me sparkling waters I like — also one of my favorite drinks.
Unexpected kindness.
That mattered.
I also saw Eva. She works with him.
She’s someone I’ve come to connect with. She’s experienced loss.
We’ve shared our experiences — not clinically, but emotionally and spiritually.
She noticed my Metallica shirt.
We talked about bands.
Her upcoming AC/DC concert.
Ozzy and Black Sabbath were brought up by her, not me.
I mentioned the 55th anniversary of Paranoid.
We discussed politics slightly — probably territory we shouldn’t go too far into — but it stayed light.
We can agree to disagree in some areas.
It was a good visit.
It was a moment where I felt my 5 move to 5.25, maybe 5.5.
Small lift. But measurable.
Robert recommended I see a counselor.
I told him I don’t have counselor money.
He pointed me toward a zero-cost solution.
I now have an appointment Monday morning.
It was good that I stopped by.
I’ll probably do that comedy stand-up set this week or next with him.
The Dollar Store
On the way, I stopped at a Dollar Tree.
There had been tension with the clerk during a previous visit.
She greeted me.
I responded firmly.
She commented that I seemed angry.
I told her there were residual effects from our last interaction.
She apologized.
Her tone shifted.
I acknowledged that everyone has bad days.
We left it there.
Even dysregulated, I could repair.
That mattered.
The Camping Plan
Goose Island it is.
The camping trip wasn’t an impulsive escape.
It was a structured attempt to regulate.
Originally, I planned to stay five days.
Then I reduced it to three.
When I booked it, I committed to two.
I stayed one.
That wasn’t instability.
It was calibration.
Before heading out, I picked up watermelon, bananas, and boiled eggs.
I also brought almonds, pumpkin seeds, and walnuts.
Walnuts look like little brains.
I had heard they’re good for the brain, so I went with it.
I packed intentionally:
Water.
Protein.
Fruit.
Nuts and seeds.
Books.
Yoga mat.
Two tents — one for sleep, one for restroom use.
And a ukulele I grabbed from my mother’s room.
I also took a pillow from her bed.
I don’t know why I grabbed it.
I just wanted her there.
Music felt like a bridge between grief and regulation.
When I unpacked the ukulele, I realized it was broken.
It must have been one of the ones she was planning on repairing. She did that often.
I felt disappointed.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly.
I put it back in its case.
Setting up the tents and gear was a challenge.
But I saw it as something my mind might need.
The motion.
The focus.
The present-moment engagement.
By nightfall, the temperature dropped into the 50s.
Not freezing.
But cool enough to keep the body alert.
The cot I purchased aggravated my back.
I developed a cough, itchy throat, and runny nose from being out in the cool air.
Those weren’t signs of collapse.
They were data.
The Spiral
By nightfall, my groundedness hovered around 5–6.
I kept trying to climb to 9.
That didn’t help.
Shortly before my mother passed, she had started an uncharacteristic argument with me.
Now my brain connected it.
She wasn’t herself.
I’m not myself.
Is this how decline starts?
It wasn’t logic.
It was stress looking for certainty.
Grief shock heightens anomaly detection.
Neutral things feel weighted.
What Actually Worried Me
The irritability wasn’t my main concern.
The logistics weren’t my main concern.
The dissociation was.
That feeling of hearing my own voice but not feeling fully inside it.
That was the part that unsettled me.
The Turn
I used an EMDR app.
Earbuds in.
Thirty uninterrupted minutes.
I skipped the trauma targeting.
I ran the bilateral tones — five sets, pause, five sets.
Within minutes, something changed.
The dissociation corrected greatly.
I felt present again.
Not 10.
But steady.
A good 7–8.
Chasing 10 works against you.
It’s like thrashing in deep water.
Floating works better.
Last year, after my mother passed, I used bilateral stimulation during that grief.
It helped then.
It helped again.
One night to figure out how to heal my brain was worth it.
Best $4.99 I’ve spent in a long time.
The Return
I left the campsite the next day.
I contacted Goose Island and received a refund for the days I would not be staying.
Warm bed.
Sleep.
Chiropractor the following morning.
I took medication to address the cough, itchy throat, and runny nose.
Groundedness: 7–8.
Steady.
The system still worked.
It just needed recalibration.
What Grief Shock Is
Grief shock is nervous system overload after loss.
It can look like:
- Irritability
- Dissociation
- Lower tolerance
- Hyper-monitoring
- Pattern-seeking
- Fear of personality change
It feels psychological.
It is physiological.
Loss activates stress chemistry.
Sleep disruption amplifies it.
Cold exposure amplifies it.
Overstimulation amplifies it.
Warmth helps.
Food helps.
Human contact helps.
Rhythm helps.
Sleep helps.
Grief doesn’t erase you.
It overloads you.
And overload can be managed.
I wasn’t becoming someone else.
I was recalibrating.
And that’s enough.
This needed to be written.
Not for dramatics.
But to document grief shock in real time and show what can help when it creeps in.
If someone finds themselves at a 5 or 6 and thinks they’re losing themselves, they’re not.
The system is overloaded.
It can recalibrate.
This is proof.
And the work is not done.
I’m still doing the work.
A comedy set soon — new neural pathways, new experiences, enjoyable moments. Even if it isn’t enjoyable, it’s still a new neural pathway.
I have an upcoming counseling session.
I plan to follow up with another EMDR session.
This isn’t a finish line.
It’s maintenance.
I wrote Grief First Aid Kit because it was something I needed. It doesn’t cover grief shock the way I’m describing it here, but it was my attempt to build structure around loss when everything felt unstable.
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