What Remains: The Brain After Loss

When we lose a loved one, they leave behind many physical belongings. Some of the most precious things I own now once belonged to my grandparents or father. But the most precious thing they leave is not physical, of course, but it is the memories we hold of them. And while it can be equally sad and beautiful to think back on the ones that left, it is also often accompanied by some sense of impaired  memory. The feeling that you cannot quite pull it all together; the before, during, and after of their departure. This phenomenon holds for many grieving individuals, especially in the first year after a big loss. Many report feelings of not being able to clearly think about what happened and experiencing a sort of brain fog (Mills, 2022). It becomes hard to think about… anything, really. Many go back and forth between working on autopilot, feeling out of touch with what happened, and phases of deep sadness, unable to get every day tasks done (Shulman, 2021). That also describes my experience since my fathers passing last year.

I sometimes think forgetting parts of that time, to me, was a kind of survival technique. Only when my head was free and certain memories blurred a little did I feel like I could actually function again. And, in a way, that seems to match what science tells us about grief: that our brain protects us by narrowing what we can consciously hold, giving us just enough space to get through the days. Dr. Lisa M. Shulman notes that the brain interprets traumatic loss as an actual threat to survival. To cope, the system automatically “defaults to protective survival and defense mechanisms”. In fact, she explains that “grief is a normal protective process, an evolutionary adaptation [meant] to promote survival in the face of emotional trauma” (Shulman, 2021).

This shift is what helps explain the confusing quality of memory after loss. Contrary to what one might expect, it’s not just the bad memories that are blurry. For me, I sometimes feel as though it is the everyday things that pass through me. I sometimes find it hard to recall what I did the last couple of days, and I’m uncertain if it’s due to me aging or due to my brain still processing a highly stressful period of my life.

But science suggests that this disruption of routine memory is almost certainly tied to the lingering stress of grief. Chronic stress is known to reduce nerve growth and memory because the brain is completely focused on the immediate goal of survival. This focus means that the brain is not efficiently processing or storing routine, daily information. Dr. Shulman confirms that long-term grief disrupts the diverse cognitive domains of memory and attention, as well as the speed of information processing. That feeling of struggling to recall the last few days, or experiencing “brain fog,” is therefore a well-documented cognitive effect of emotional trauma and loss on the brain (Shulman, 2021).

In my experience, the “brain fog” felt like going through an autopilot phase. A phase where I made small and big decisions with ease, but was out of touch with my emotions. And even though so much happened around me, I was getting on with my life, working down my to-do lists and distracting myself. The decisions I made did not always make sense. Why would I decide to dive into writing my bachelor’s thesis, work two jobs, date someone new, and go on a huge trip so shortly after my father passed? Because it made me feel afloat. And then it didn’t… and I questioned and judged every decision I made, felt all the sadness of the grief, and felt a loss of control like never before. And then I bounced back into autopilot and did a thousand things at once again. 

This chaotic cycling between intense activity and sudden paralysis is a common response when the brain is stuck in survival mode (Shulman, 2021). I found the “autopilot” phase I described to correlate with neurological findings that show how chronic stress throws the brain’s flexible operating systems out of balance (Békés et al., 2023). When the brain is overwhelmed, the goal-directed system which is responsible for rational, careful planning temporarily shuts down, while the habit-based system (Basal Ganglia) becomes overly dominating (Békés et al., 2023). This allows new patterns and routines to form easily (Békés et al., 2023), reinforcing the feeling that the mind is operating on a “default setting” (Shulman, 2021). The irrational ease of diving into a thesis or two jobs reflects this dominance, while the crash afterward may be the necessary moment of pain and reckoning. This cycle of action and collapse was described by Békés et al. as the brain’s attempt at dynamic oscillation, constantly switching between restoration-oriented coping (the distractions and new activities) and loss-oriented coping (the emotional pain and questioning) to prevent emotional overload (Békés et al., 2023). Ultimately, this rush of activity is part of the difficult, required process of learning “How do I live in the world now?” (Mills, 2022).

It sounds logical that something so emotionally distressing would have these effects on a person. But this phenomenon, that some have termed grief brain, is not just an emotional response, but also a deeply biological reaction to the stress of loss. When a loved one dies, our brain interprets it as a huge safety threat (Shulman, 2021). This extreme response is rooted in how we form attachments: the brain encodes a close bond by creating a neural representation of a “we,” meaning the loss is literally experienced as if a part of us is missing (Mills, 2022). Suddenly, nothing in life seems secure. This survival focus causes temporary changes in the brain, with chronic stress disrupting critical cognitive domains like decision-making and the speed of information processing (Shulman, 2021). How could we plan anything when things can go so wrong anyway?

Luckily, for most people, the effects of even long-term chronic stress are reversible (Shulman, 2021). The vast majority of us are quite resilient and find a way to restore meaning to life (Mills, 2022). However, some people suffer from these symptoms for several years when the natural process gets “derailed,” a condition now termed Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) (Békés et al., 2023).

In my case, I feel like my brain already operates a bit like before my father got sick again. I’m still sad and things may never feel the same but that is okay, those are fitting feelings for what happened. Personally, I find a lot of peace in the fact that I feel so many similarities to the person I lost, and will continue to carry them with me through life, even in their absence. The pain of seeing a loved pass is intense, and logically taxes our cognition, but life continues, and so, ideally, does our cognitive development towards a normal memory system after loss. 

Lastly, I would like to mention, that I was inspired to write this piece, by joining a mourning group for students in Amsterdam. Hearing how other people my age described their stories of losing close relatives, made me recognize a lot of similarities so my experience and made me feel understood and seen in many ways I did not know would feel relieving. If you are reading this and have lost someone dear to you yourself, I can really recommend looking into mourning and grief self-help groups in your area.