No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. — C.S. Lewis

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.

Author: C.S. Lewis

Insight: When grief hits, we often expect sadness—that heavy, downward pull. What catches us off guard is how much it feels like anxiety. Your chest tightens. You reach for your phone to tell someone something, then remember they're gone. That jolt of loss-that-hits-again mimics panic perfectly. Lewis nailed something most people only discover through experience: grief and fear live in the same nervous system response. Both are about something precious being taken from you. This matters because it explains why grief exhausts us in unexpected ways. You're not just sad; you're also braced for impact, hyperalert, waiting for the next wave of reality to crash in. That's why grieving people often feel jumpy or drained in ways that puzzle them. They're not overreacting—they're genuinely afraid, not of something external, but of the void where someone used to be. The twist is recognizing this can actually help. If you're grieving and feeling anxious or panicky, you're not falling apart differently than you should. You're having a completely normal fear response to an abnormal loss. Naming it as fear, not just sadness, can make space for a different kind of patience with yourself.

Source: A Grief Observed, p. 6, 1961