What is considered to be a normal mourning period when a family member dies? How can we determine this and what factors may alter this period? Why does mourning ever end? Or does it not?
Last year my paternal grandmother died, the second person I have known to die (the first being my maternal grandfather 18 months earlier). This occurred the day before my mid-year exams commenced for my final year of school (a big deal in Australia, counting towards, on average, 30% of my grade for each subject). My family is a silent and separated one and there is little to no expression of feelings as a group other than anger or awkward and stilted happiness. When she died there was no discussion of the matter, how we felt or crying within the family. Informing me of the death came in the morning before school, my mother coming in as she did every morning and telling me "It's time to wake up. Also, Granny died last night." That was it for the discussion of the death, other than to be careful in discussions with my father as he was "on edge". We were told not to tell our friends as my grandmother was known amongst the school community and it was to be a family-only funeral (her husband and their sons and their families only) with a separate service to be held at a later date for friends and more distant family which her husband decided not to attend.
I held back my emotional response at the time as I needed to complete exams and also because I was obliged to keep the death a secret. Two weeks later when exams finished and the second service had been held, I went to a friend's birthday party at which I got extremely drunk (albeit not intentionally) and after hitting my head in my drunken stupor told everyone she had died, after which I began to cry inconsolably. Since then I have never talked about that party or her death at all, however have found myself overwhelmed with grief randomly over the course of the past year. We weren't close to her, and I am not regretful about that, nor wracked by guilt that I readily admit this.
Is my reaction (and that of my family) normal?
