The Parts of you that show up in Grief

Looking at grief through a parts work lens allows all of the conflicting and back-and-forth feelings you experience regularly to co-exist. Grief has a way of touching every corner of who we are. It doesn’t show up as one clean emotion, and it definitely doesn’t look the same for everyone. That’s because when we’re grieving, different parts of us step forward — each with its own feelings, fears, and ways of coping.

And just like there are different types of grief — complicated grief, anticipatory grief, traumatic loss, disenfranchised grief, ambiguous loss — there are also different parts inside of us that respond to that pain.

None of these parts are wrong.
None are dramatic.
None are weak.
All of them make sense.

Here are some of the most common parts that tend to show up, and why they show up the way they do.

The Numb Part

This is the part that goes into autopilot. The one that keeps you busy, focused on tasks, or emotionally flat.
This part often shows up in:

• Traumatic grief, where the nervous system is overwhelmed

• First responders, who are trained to compartmentalize

• People who had to be the “strong one” growing up

Numbness is not a failure to feel.
It’s protection. This part has good intentions. Maybe it wants you you to be able to function without feeling the overwhelming pain caused by your loss. Maybe it learned that throwing yourself into work kept those intense emotions from taking over. Maybe it just wants to help you manage and stay in control.

The Angry Part

This part gets loud when the loss feels unfair, preventable, or senseless — or when the pain underneath feels too big to touch.
It tends to show up in:

• Complicated grief, especially after sudden or violent loss

• Disenfranchised grief, where people weren’t supported. This might include the loss of a pet, a relationship, a pregnancy, a job. Sometimes when a loss is related to stigma (they died by suicide, HIV/AIDS, etc.) there is a lack of support for the person grieving.

• Caregivers who carry guilt or exhaustion.

Anger is often the part that says, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” even if you never speak those words out loud.

The Guilty or “What If” Part

This part replays moments on a loop:
“Should I have done more?”
“What if I had noticed sooner?”
“Why didn’t I say something else?”

It’s especially common in:

• Anticipatory grief, where you’ve been preparing for loss

• Sudden loss, where there was no time to say goodbye

• Parents, who feel they should somehow control the uncontrollable

This part isn’t here to punish you.
It’s trying to make sense of something that has no clean explanation. This part may want you to feel a sense of control or to make you more hyper-vigilant in the future to prevent this from happening again. Our parts have good intentions, but they are not always equipped to help us and can lead us down a path of anxiety.

The Protector Part

Sometimes this part looks like perfectionism.
Sometimes like over-functioning.
Sometimes like shutting down.

It tends to show up even stronger when:

• You’ve been through multiple losses

• You grew up needing to be “the responsible one”

• You’re a first responder or spouse who is always in crisis mode

Protectors don’t want you to crumble — even though crumbling is often what grief needs.

The Young/Inner Child Part

This is the part of you that feels small, scared, lost, or abandoned.
It comes forward in moments when the loss taps into older wounds — the kind you may have been carrying long before this grief.

It shows up in:

• Those who experienced childhood trauma

• People who were parentified early on

• Those who lost someone who felt like their “safe person”

This part often holds one of the rawest emotions. It comes with the sobbing, the longing, the “this isn’t fair” cry.

The Meaning-Maker Part

This part tries to understand, to find signs, to rewrite the story, to bring order to chaos.
It tends to surface in:

• Ambiguous loss, where closure doesn’t exist

• Spiritual individuals seeking comfort

• People who cope through understanding and knowledge

This part isn’t trying to minimize the loss.
It’s trying to give you something to hold onto.

Why These Parts Matter in Grief

Whether you relate to some of these parts or can think of others, we can understand that grief brings forward different parts of us. Once we realize this, we can stop judging ourselves for “not doing it right.”

There is no “right way.”

You might cry one day and feel nothing the next.
You might crave connection one week and want total isolation the next.
You might swing between anger, guilt, hope, and longing — sometimes all in a single afternoon.

You might be angry at your loved one for dying one day and feel numb the next.

You’re not “all over the place.”
You’re grieving.

And your parts are working overtime to help you survive it.

You Don’t Have to Untangle This Alone

In therapy, especially with IFS (Parts Work), we gently get to know each part that is asking to be seen throughout your grief.
We explore what each one is protecting, what each one needs, and how they’re trying to get you through something unimaginable.

And slowly, compassionately, we help your system find balance again.

Grief changes us.
But it doesn’t have to break us.