What Grief Does to the Brain: A Widow’s Story Illustrates the Science

Amy Perrill was driving home after dropping off one of her children when something happened that would have seemed completely unremarkable before her husband died: For about 10 seconds, she did not feel sad.

“It was momentous for me,” she tells MyLifetime. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s not there.’”

The grief returned almost immediately—but the moment had been her first glimpse of a life in which having lost her husband, Jay, would not always feel so consuming. “That alone let me know it’s attainable,” she says. “You learn how to carry it, and it’s not that heavy. It’s still here, but not as acute.” 

Jay died suddenly in May 2020, leaving Amy with three children who were 15, 13 and 10. Amy was a nurse who had also handled administrative work for the digital agency Jay founded. After his death, she found herself grieving her husband while becoming the owner of a company she never expected to lead.

“It was such a transition of identity,” says Amy, now co-founder and president of the board for The Widow Collaborative, a Minnesota organization that helps widows find resources and one another. “You’re grieving the loss of who you are, because together you had an identity—and now that identity is gone.”

Some psychology experts say rebuilding after losing a spouse is not about replacing that identity or returning to the person you were before, but it’s about slowly learning how to live in a world that has fundamentally changed.

There is no universal schedule or orderly progression that determines when someone should feel better.

Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona who specializes in understanding how grief affects the brain and body. Dr. O’Connor describes grieving as a form of learning. A person must learn both that their partner is gone and what that absence now means for nearly every part of life.

When people bond, Dr. O’Connor explains, the brain develops an expectation that the other person is part of a shared “we.” After a death, one part of the brain knows what happened, while deeply established habits and expectations continue looking for that person.

That’s why grief can reappear while buying groceries, entering an empty home or reaching for the phone. It’s also why healing cannot be measured in weeks or months or anniversaries.

For most people, waves of grief gradually become less frequent and intense, Dr. O’Connor says, but that happens at an individual pace. Grief may even feel harder during the second year, when the permanence of loss becomes clearer or the experience begins to feel like part of ordinary life.

The question is not, “Should I be over this?” Rather it may be more useful to ask, “How does this feel different than it did before?”

In the first weeks and months, rebuilding may look less like reinvention and more like helping your body get through the day. 

Grief can bring changes in appetite, energy level, and sleep, as well as numbness, confusion, anger and other forms of emotional distress, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Amy remembers brain fog, decision fatigue and a physical ache she could barely describe. She was not sleeping or eating normally. When she visited her doctor, he referred to it as a medical condition. (In 2022, the American Psychiatric Association named “prolonged grief disorder” a formal diagnosis.) “I was taken aback by that,” she says. “But I was like, ‘Well, of course it makes sense.’”

Friends organized meals because she did not have the capacity to feed herself and her children. Her sister and brother-in-law moved into her basement because Amy knew she could not manage everything alone.

Dr. O’Connor recommends creating small points of predictability when normal routines have disappeared. Get up at roughly the same time each morning, even after a difficult night. Keep simple foods available and set an alarm to eat, even something small, when hunger cues are unreliable. Continue medical appointments when possible, because caring for a grieving body also means attending to its ongoing health needs.

“Think about caring for the grieving body almost as you would care for a loved one,” she says, “even though that loved one happens to be yourself.”

You may not discover your new identity through a single revelation. Often, Dr. O’Connor says, people begin doing things first, and a renewed sense of self develops from those experiences.

That may mean making a household decision alone, returning to work with different boundaries or trying something your partner never particularly enjoyed. Dr. O’Connor remembers shopping with her father after her mother died. When he announced that he wanted purple towels for his bathroom, she initially objected; it was painted yellow, and would totally clash. But then she realized he was expressing a preference that had not mattered much before.

He eventually painted the bathroom purple. 

The towels were not a rejection of the life he had shared with his wife. They were one small sign that he was learning who he could be within the life that remained.

For Amy, that learning involved grief counseling, outdoor walks, supportive friendships and eventually, helping other widows. It also entailed a series of dreaded firsts: attending a party alone, buying a car and making decisions Jay once would have helped make.

Each time, the accomplishment was simple, but significant: “You get there and you do it, and honestly ,after the fact you want to give yourself a pat on the back,” Amy says. “Like, ‘Oh, I did it.’” 

Healing does not necessarily mean feeling less love, thinking about your partner less often or reaching a point when grief disappears.

It may mean that grief is no longer the only feeling available.

Dr. O’Connor suggests noticing whether your emotional life has begun to widen. Can you feel sadness while also experiencing connection, creativity, purpose or joy? Can you occasionally become absorbed in something beyond the loss?

Helping others became one way of expanding Amy’s emotional world. She and three other widows began building The Widow Collaborative after realizing how many practical and social gaps followed a partner’s death. Their events invite women to connect over walks, dinners and even the household tasks no one anticipates celebrating—like learning how to snake a drain from YouTube.

Finding a purpose does not make a loss worthwhile. It simply allows grief to exist alongside something else.

Some people may benefit from counseling or additional support, particularly when intense grief continues to significantly interfere with daily life. The American Psychiatric Association notes that prolonged grief disorder involves persistent, severe grief that impairs functioning; the diagnosis in adults is considered only after at least 12 months have passed since the death. Seeking help sooner, however, does not require a diagnosis or mean that someone is grieving incorrectly.

Six years after Jay’s death, Amy still carries grief. She also carries pride in what she has survived and curiosity about what her life may still hold.

“Life really can be good again,” she says. “It can be fun. It can be amazing. It’s not at all what I

thought it would look like, but it can be really good.”

For someone newly grieving, that future may feel impossible to picture. O’Connor suggests adding two small words to that feeling: for now.

You cannot imagine doing this alone—for now. You do not recognize your life—for now. You cannot believe joy will return—for now.

It is not a deadline or a promise that tomorrow will be easier. It is simply a little room left open for what may still change.