There are times when grief begins long before death, loss, or life transitions. It can begin at diagnosis, in a scan room, during a conversation that quietly alters the future. Even when thinking about transitions such as the end of breastfeeding, a child starting school, perimenopause, or divorce. The term ‘anticipatory grief’ describes the emotional pain and physical symptoms that arise when a loss is expected but has not yet occurred.
For many people, this form of grief can feel confusing and even shameful, because society often conditions us to believe that grief should come only after loss. Yet, this is not premature or pathological, it’s a natural human response to the awareness that life is about to change in irreversible ways — and it may be our nervous system’s way of preparing us for what’s ahead.
What Is Anticipatory Grief?
Anticipatory grief refers to grieving before an actual loss occurs. Instead of mourning someone who has already died, or a situation that has already changed, people grieve the future they won’t get to live, the relationship that’s changing, and the moments that will never arrive.
Dr. Alan Wolfelt, director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, describes anticipatory grief as an emotional response that arises during what he calls the “in-between time”.
He explains that during this period, people begin to mentally rehearse life after loss, even though the loss itself has not yet happened. Because we’re not socially prepared to recognize this experience as grief, he notes that reactions can feel unsettling, confusing, and painful.
Experiencing grief before a loss doesn’t mean that you’ve stopped hoping or caring. It means your mind and body are responding to the reality that something deeply meaningful is at risk of being lost.
Situations Where Anticipatory Grief Commonly Occurs
Anticipatory grief often arises in situations involving prolonged uncertainty, inevitable endings, or life transitions that signal an irreversible change. While it is most commonly associated with terminal illness, it also appears in many deeply human experiences where attachment, identity, and expectation are intertwined.
For many women, it can happen during reproductive and relational transitions such as pregnancy loss of any kind, ending breastfeeding, children going to school, menopause, hysterectomy, or facing the anticipated death of parents or a partner.
One example is learning at a twenty week scan that your baby has a condition incompatible with life, and choosing to continue the pregnancy, knowing the baby will die shortly after birth.
In these situations, parents often experience intense anticipatory grief, mourning the future they had already imagined, while still carrying their baby and continuing daily life.
Other situations where grief before a loss commonly occurs include caring for a loved one with dementia or severe cognitive decline, or living with a life limiting diagnosis yourself. In these experiences, people often describe grieving in layers, as abilities, roles, and shared routines slowly disappear.
Why Does It Happen?
Grief before death happens because human attachment doesn’t wait for final separation. When a meaningful bond is threatened, the nervous system begins to respond immediately.
Dr. Mary Frances O’Connor, professor of psychology at the University of Arizona and author of The Grieving Body, explains that grief is not only emotional, but also biological. She notes that the brain struggles to reconcile the presence of a loved one with the knowledge that they will soon be gone.
This internal conflict often produces anxiety, sadness, and emotional exhaustion, along with physical symptoms such as disrupted sleep, tightness in the chest, changes in appetite, muscle tension, headaches, or persistent fatigue.
These signs can sometimes resemble depression, which makes them difficult to identify and validate. Alongside the physical experience, common emotional responses include guilt, anger, fear about the future, numbness, mood swings, and even moments of relief followed by shame.
Dr. O’Connor emphasizes that naming the experience matters. She states that acknowledging grief before death helps people understand their circumstances, and become more compassionate toward themselves.
Who Experiences Anticipatory Grief?
Grief before death can be experienced by anyone facing a significant and expected loss including people diagnosed with terminal illness, parents continuing a pregnancy after a fatal prenatal diagnosis, partners and children caring for someone who is dying, and caregivers whose relationships shift dramatically due to illness or disability.
This pre-loss grief often carries a quiet hope that preparing in advance might soften what is to come. We imagine the conversations, rehearse the goodbye, or try to brace ourselves emotionally.
Dr. Peggy Morton, a clinical associate professor at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University, explains that even when people repeatedly imagine and prepare for a loss, they cannot fully predict how it will feel when the loss actually occurs.
This speaks to a central tension within anticipatory grief, where the mind may try to rehearse and prepare, yet the emotional and bodily impact of the final loss can still arrive with unexpected intensity. She shared from personal experience that despite years of anticipating her mother’s death, the actual loss was still overwhelming and surprising in its depth.
When to Seek Support
Grief before a loss can be supported in different ways, depending on what is needed.
Early Support
Early support for people experiencing anticipatory grief often begins with simple, stabilising practices. These include gentle self-care rituals like a warm bath, regular nourishing meals (stable blood sugar equals a more regulated nervous system), or curling up with a book; creating small moments of rest; and more intentional nervous system practices like mindfulness & breathing exercises are also supportive practices.
Grounding exercises or time in nature – even standing with your feet directly on the earth/grass/sand can be incredibly balancing. Journaling, or conversations with trusted people add to this toolkit.
These simple practices can help ease feelings of overwhelm and reduce the risk of deeper emotional or physical exhaustion. For some people, this level of support is enough to move through anticipatory grief with more steadiness and balance.
Deeper support
Although grieving before a loss is a natural human response, support becomes essential when grief begins to interfere with daily functioning, caregiving capacity, or emotional wellbeing.
If your grief feels overwhelming, persistent, or difficult to carry alone, deeper support can be helpful. This may include bereavement counselling, structured grief work, somatic bodywork, or facilitated workshops that provide guided reflection and embodied processing.
In these settings, grief is not something to solve, but something that can be gently explored and held with support.
Health professionals emphasise that seeking support before a loss doesn’t mean you’re coping poorly or giving up hope. Instead, it can help reduce feelings of isolation, clarify emotions, and make space for what’s already present.
At The Tomorrow House, our Making Sense of Loss and Grief workshop provides a gently structured space to explore life transitions and liminal periods including the time before a loss. Our workshop deepens grief literacy, introduces the supportive and healing power of ritual, and offers embodied learning that also supports steadiness during change.
In addition, the workshop also includes guided reflection, journaling, meditation, and nervous system regulation practices.
Because anticipatory grief deserves care, language, and community, long before the loss arrives.
*If right now you feel acutely overwhelmed, unsafe, or unable to cope, please reach out for immediate support. Many countries offer free 24/7 crisis helplines staffed by trained counsellors and mental health professionals. Local health services can also direct you to the appropriate number in your area.
Read more: 7 Cycles of Grief & The Needs of The Mourner
References:
Dunn, J. (2025, October 17). Is it healthy to grieve before a loss? The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/well/anticipatory-grief.html
Healthdirect Australia. (n.d.). Grief before death: Understanding anticipatory grief.
National Center for Biotechnology Information. (n.d.). Anticipatory grief. PubMed Central.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9713164/
Heart to Heart Hospice. (n.d.). Understanding anticipatory grief: Coping before a loss.
https://hearttohearthospice.com/blog/understanding-anticipatory-grief-coping-before-a-loss/
ScienceDirect Topics. (n.d.). Anticipatory grief.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/anticipatory-grief
Written by Aurelia Lois, Samantha Leggett, and Caroline Siane (The Tomorrow House team)
