grief and depression

My old therapist (who I had seen for almost 4 years) retired 2 months ago. I am still having these intense waves of grief about his absence in my life. In some ways, he knew me better than anyone else in my life ever has. Tonight, I happened to think about him, and I started crying.... and I've been crying for about an hour. I'm trying to deal with the grief as it comes up, instead of stuffing it (which is tempting, as I feel pretty silly about still caring this much.) Right after it happened, my grief over his retirement was one of the triggers that threw me into a bad depressive episode. I'm generally in a better place, but am still really missing this therapist. I also don't feel like there are a lot of people I can talk to about this. I'm not sure my new therapist would be able to hear this without thinking it is somehow about her. My friends, who were supportive at the time, would likely think I am even more insane than they already think I am if they knew that I was still having crying spells about this.

Anybody else out there have any wisdom about either the relationship between grief and depression, or about how you survived losing your therapist?

I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to change p-docs...
Well, you are the paying "customer." She is supposed to be a professional maintaining just enough emotional distance to be rational while at the same time providing empathy (though it doesn't always work out that way in real life). You should be able to tell her about your grief.

Regardless, I'm sorry you're going through this.

Hi Gardengal
The 2 arent related. You dont take Ad for grief. It is a normal reaction to loss. We as humans are made like this. If the grief goes on longer than 6 months, you should see a PDoc. You should also reach out to people (which you are already doing on this board)
dawnhopeful