Is it normal to feel completely disillusioned with your life whilst grieving?

[DJC110995]

My best friend died of pancreatic cancer last week and I've been experiencing heavy amounts of grief towards his loss. Over the last couple of days, it's begun to shift towards my perspective on my own life and my current situation. As a result, I've found myself becoming disillusioned with things that I thought that I loved.

I thought that I loved my job and that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life but now I've found myself rethinking everything and wondering whether I even have the passion for it anymore. I'm 26 years old, I still live with my parents, I don't have a relationship and I feel like I don't have a set direction in life.

Is it normal to experience feelings like this? Will they pass eventually or are they trying to tell me something?

[whirled_up_girl]

I think that's normal actually. When my aunt died a few years ago it made me realize how short life was and that if I wanted to make a major change, I better do it before my time ran out. Now, I'm not saying that you need to make a change, but sometimes losing someone tragically can make a person take stock in their own life. In my case the changes happened slowley, and I didn't rush into anything.

I don't know if your familar with the seven stages of grief (there are different interpretations of this theory) but it helped me to understand why I was feeling this way and how to handle the emotions. Hang in there! I might not know exactly what your going through but I believe that it will get easier to work through with time, as it did for me.