One of the difficulties with hearing "time heals all wounds" — it doesn't; please read our blog post on this topic — is that sometimes people will then expect that, not only will "all wounds" be healed, but that it can be done in a set amount of time.
So how long does grieving take?
The Nature of Grief
Grief recovery itself is an ongoing process that takes work and effort, with numerous steps along the way. And its duration is as unique as every individual, because the ways people deal with their losses are unique to them and their personal situations.
Perhaps one of the greatest erroneous presumptions is that the process of dealing with grief will be orderly, and it will follow a step-by-step process, or that each step will take a specific amount of time.
Just because there's a method for grief recovery doesn't mean it will follow a certain order or be accomplished in a certain amount of time.
Loss is loss, and whether it's loss of trust, loss of approval, loss of a relationship, loss of safety, or loss of a loved one, every single one of these brings its issues to a major grief crisis. And even when we think something is "better," this isn’t true: we can be triggered to re-experience those memories, and bring about a grieving moment again.
That is why grief can remain painfully tangible for decades. If there has been no work done on that loss over a person's life, even while other losses have also occurred, there's a high possibility of being emotionally paralyzed after a new loss. It's not just the latest crisis, but the compounding effect of not facing the other losses, that can cause problems.
A great disservice has been done to the grief recovery process by the propagation of a misinterpreted series of steps created by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Her "five stages" — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — were originally developed to explain stages of dying, not grief. To imply that grieving follows certain stages and therefore should be completed in an orderly fashion over a certain period of time simply isn't true.
Grieving is an individual process that's disorderly at best. The whole point of grief recovery is to take steps toward recovery, rather than focusing on how much time it will take.
If you found this article useful, you may also want to read Russell's article "Time Does Not Heal. Actions Do."