So the funeral, memorial service or celebration of life is over, the last of the neighbor's gifted casseroles have been eaten or given away and you've tossed out all the flower arrangements with their overly sweet scented, faded blooms. Now what?
Some of us have dreaded this moment....the one where we suddenly find ourselves all alone with our grief while others have been counting the minutes until they can finally have some privacy to begin their healing process. Again, I must point out that no two grief experiences are the same. Just as we are all unique as individuals, so are our grief experiences. I like to point this out frequently in an attempt to show people that pre-conceived notions and judgements about the grief journey really have no place in our lives if we truly want to heal and grow from our experience. There is no such thing as a neat and tidy list like "the stages of grief". No matter what all the books say, I am here to tell you that it doesn't work that way. While these lists can certainly serve us by providing a sort of "baseline" of things we might expect to experience, the actual grieving process itself is messy and does not necessarily follow rules.
For instance, I remember wanting to be left alone after my son's suicide. I only wanted my fiance near me and occasionally my sister...the 2 people I was closest to at the time. I can recall feeling agitated that I continued to receive "sympathy" cards weeks after the death....as if the community needed to remind me that my son was dead.....as if that wasn't all I thought about, every minute of every day. The irony of this is that a couple of months later I would feel "abandoned" by everyone because suddenly all the cards and calls stopped coming. I felt like I had been dropped off on a deserted island and left there while the rest of humanity went on about their daily lives without me. I felt completely disconnected from everyone and everything.
My daughter's death, on the other hand, followed a long illness. She lived here in my home where I managed her hospice care myself along with a team of loving friends and family members. Since this was an "expected death", the grieving process was one of a kinder, gentler nature. While I still felt exhausted and drained from the months and months of stress I lived with, I wanted people around me after her death. I enjoyed spending time with people who knew her and I loved to hear their stories. It allowed me to see the woman my daughter was through the eyes of others. These were two totally different experiences and I responded to them each quite differently.
For instance, I remember wanting to be left alone after my son's suicide. I only wanted my fiance near me and occasionally my sister...the 2 people I was closest to at the time. I can recall feeling agitated that I continued to receive "sympathy" cards weeks after the death....as if the community needed to remind me that my son was dead.....as if that wasn't all I thought about, every minute of every day. The irony of this is that a couple of months later I would feel "abandoned" by everyone because suddenly all the cards and calls stopped coming. I felt like I had been dropped off on a deserted island and left there while the rest of humanity went on about their daily lives without me. I felt completely disconnected from everyone and everything.
My daughter's death, on the other hand, followed a long illness. She lived here in my home where I managed her hospice care myself along with a team of loving friends and family members. Since this was an "expected death", the grieving process was one of a kinder, gentler nature. While I still felt exhausted and drained from the months and months of stress I lived with, I wanted people around me after her death. I enjoyed spending time with people who knew her and I loved to hear their stories. It allowed me to see the woman my daughter was through the eyes of others. These were two totally different experiences and I responded to them each quite differently.
Picking up the Pieces
So how DO we do it? How do we begin? If you haven't been able to do so yet, I might suggest you take a moment each day to just tell yourself that you will survive this. Just say it.. Write it down some place where you will see it so that you remember to say it every day at least once but the more the better! (Please see GRIEVING PART 1 for more about this.)
Once you have done that, the second step is to ALLOW. By this I mean that we must surrender to the process at some point. Struggling will only prolong our discomfort. How do we allow and surrender? Well that will look different for each individual. I "allow" by telling myself things like, "I am not the first person to face something like this....if THEY can get through it then I certainly can!"
Another part of this process for me was to say the difficult words out loud. After my son's suicide I could not say the word "dead" or "suicide" and found myself flinching when I would hear others say them. When talking about it I could only say phrases like, "When Adam did what he did", or "When Adam decided to leave us" instead of "When Adam killed himself", or, God forbid, "Adam is dead". These words were very offensive to me early on and because I noticed this I decided that part of my surrender to this process required me to face difficult tasks like accepting these strange, new words into my experience. By the time my husband took his own life some 14 years later, I could say those words right from day one so I congratulated myself on how "well balanced" I must be. But then I was blind-sided 3 months later while attending his mother's memorial services when one of his sisters introduced me as "Leo's WIDOW, Vicky". And there it was again.....a reminder that this grief business is messy and does not follow rules.
The Unrecognizable Face in the Mirror
Another empowering step that I see overlooked quite often is accepting the fact that you will not come through this "unchanged". So many of us spend lots of time and precious energy chasing the dream of "having our old lives back" or "getting back to my old-self". You cannot go through the process of losing someone you love without experiencing some change within your lives and yourselves. This comes as a shock to some of us when we look in the mirror one day and do not even recognize the face that is staring back at us. Do not grieve this "loss of your old self" if you can help it. Try to find a way to just allow this process because you are growing through this experience in ways you will not even realize until you are years down the road, looking back. This can be a very frightening feeling. I remember it well. I knew I would change after my son's suicide and I couldn't help but harbor the fear that my fiance would not be able to love the person I would become. I wondered if I, myself, would even like the person I would become. Of course my fears were unfounded, but quite "normal" for so early in the grief journey.
Considering Outside Help
As part of your self-care during your grief journey, you might want to consider getting some assistance from one or more outside sources to help you through the tough parts. For instance, if you are not sleeping you may want to consider seeing your primary care doctor for a sleep aid, or perhaps an anti-anxiety medication is needed. That's for you and your doctor to decide but my hope is that you do not place judgement on yourself for being "weak" just because you ask for a little temporary assistance. I must stress the word "temporary" here as any moderate to long-term use of pharmaceuticals will not help you move through your grief journey but may, in the long run, become more of a hindrance. I am talking about getting help to function in the first few weeks or months so that you do not get run down and end up physically ill.
Some people benefit from grief support groups. I , myself, never could find one that I felt was actually helpful. I went to a couple that were associated with a well known national organization but was disturbed to discover that discussion of Spiritual beliefs were discouraged at these meetings. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how a group was going to "support" me if we couldn't even discuss where my son's soul went after his death. It seemed that this type of group focused on reliving the "story" of the death, grief and loss rather than looking for ways to make positive changes in our overall feelings about the death. (I have this subject on my punch list for future blogs as it is a passionate one for me and deserves a lot more attention than I am giving it here.) I have heard others rave about how life saving their support groups were to them in the early days so it certainly is an option worth looking into. If you find a group that feels like a good fit and you leave there feeling better than you did when you arrived after each meeting, then I am all for it!
Another valuable resource, of course, would be your own spiritual faith. If you are part of a church you most likely will have links to some spiritual support there. Finding support through fellowship is most helpful during times of sorrow. What ever your faith is, practice it more now and you will get through this much easier than those without any spiritual practices.
I get asked a lot about how soon is too soon to contact a psychic medium in hopes of hearing from your departed loved one. Again, this is a subject worth lots of discussion so will most likely take up an entire blog one day but for now let me just say that I don't feel it's a good idea to seek a reading with a medium during the first year after a significant loss. I think it's wise to just worry about navigating the grief storm and rebuilding your life during that first year. Trying too soon could produce disappointments that may create set-backs in your grief journey. If, however, you have a history of sitting with mediums and you feel strong enough about how you are handling the loss, then 6 months might be a reasonable time to wait.
I think the best form of help you can get is from your own inner circle. The fortunate ones have close family members and friends near by to help them with all they are processing. Sometimes, reaching out to support someone else in your own household with THEIR pain actually serves to help us feel better about our own. So if you are able, reach out to a spouse or sibling etc. Just because they might seem to be handling things "better than you" doesn't mean they really are. You wont know how they are doing on the inside until you ask. And sometimes that's all someone needs, just to be asked, "And how are YOU doing?"
Helping Someone You Know
This is a very intense period for those of you who have committed yourselves to staying close to someone who has suffered a traumatic loss. By now, the mind-numbing shock of what has happened has worn off and the brain has begun to let the enormity of the situation in. As your loved one begins to accept the finality of the death that has occurred, they may have a strong need to talk about it frequently. I know it's difficult for others to sit and listen to the "story" over and over. I know that on some level you are feeling like you want to change the subject in order to divert your friend's attention away from the tragedy. But sweeping this under the rug is not actually helpful in the long run. While it might seem like the kind thing to do, it is simply ignoring the "elephant in the room" and sending the griever confusing messages. They may feel like you are sick of hearing about their problems, or worse yet, they may feel like you think they should "be over it" by now. Try open communication. Just ask the griever how they are doing right now and let them know you are there to listen if they just want to talk it out some more. You can go on to ask them if they would welcome a diversion like a trip to the shore or a favorite park. Just make what ever suggestions come to your mind and let your friend tell you what they would like. Follow their lead.
There is one other point to make at this time. Something that seems to make almost all "outsiders" uncomfortable when they come face to face with someone in acute pain from grief..... We need you to SAY THEIR NAMES. WE also need to say their names. I understand how difficult this can be for some, but try to remember that we notice it when people avoid using their names at gatherings. It is hurtful to us because they are still so much a part of our family even though they are no longer here in body. Again, I think most of us understand that a common response is to try and 'protect' us by helping us to forget. But the truth of this matter is that we will never forget. What we are doing is learning to live WITH what has happened and part of that process is to figure out what place our deceased loved one has in the family now. I do not feel that pretending they no longer exist is helpful in any way.
The most important thing here is that you are still willing to stay close and help out. Showing us that you love us enough to spend your time with us during our darkest hours is a wonderful testament to the nature of human love. We can always travel alone through life but experiences are much richer when you have someone to share them with so please know how important your support role is...your griever thanks you, the deceased thank you and I thank you.
Blessings,
Vicky
For Additional Insights into the Grief Journey:
Grieving Part 1...The Early Days
Grieving Part 3...Facing the Holidays
Please visit my website at www.whiteelephantwisdom.com
***Thoughtful discussion is welcome. Please comment below
Once you have done that, the second step is to ALLOW. By this I mean that we must surrender to the process at some point. Struggling will only prolong our discomfort. How do we allow and surrender? Well that will look different for each individual. I "allow" by telling myself things like, "I am not the first person to face something like this....if THEY can get through it then I certainly can!"
Another part of this process for me was to say the difficult words out loud. After my son's suicide I could not say the word "dead" or "suicide" and found myself flinching when I would hear others say them. When talking about it I could only say phrases like, "When Adam did what he did", or "When Adam decided to leave us" instead of "When Adam killed himself", or, God forbid, "Adam is dead". These words were very offensive to me early on and because I noticed this I decided that part of my surrender to this process required me to face difficult tasks like accepting these strange, new words into my experience. By the time my husband took his own life some 14 years later, I could say those words right from day one so I congratulated myself on how "well balanced" I must be. But then I was blind-sided 3 months later while attending his mother's memorial services when one of his sisters introduced me as "Leo's WIDOW, Vicky". And there it was again.....a reminder that this grief business is messy and does not follow rules.
The Unrecognizable Face in the Mirror
Considering Outside Help
Some people benefit from grief support groups. I , myself, never could find one that I felt was actually helpful. I went to a couple that were associated with a well known national organization but was disturbed to discover that discussion of Spiritual beliefs were discouraged at these meetings. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how a group was going to "support" me if we couldn't even discuss where my son's soul went after his death. It seemed that this type of group focused on reliving the "story" of the death, grief and loss rather than looking for ways to make positive changes in our overall feelings about the death. (I have this subject on my punch list for future blogs as it is a passionate one for me and deserves a lot more attention than I am giving it here.) I have heard others rave about how life saving their support groups were to them in the early days so it certainly is an option worth looking into. If you find a group that feels like a good fit and you leave there feeling better than you did when you arrived after each meeting, then I am all for it!
Another valuable resource, of course, would be your own spiritual faith. If you are part of a church you most likely will have links to some spiritual support there. Finding support through fellowship is most helpful during times of sorrow. What ever your faith is, practice it more now and you will get through this much easier than those without any spiritual practices.
I get asked a lot about how soon is too soon to contact a psychic medium in hopes of hearing from your departed loved one. Again, this is a subject worth lots of discussion so will most likely take up an entire blog one day but for now let me just say that I don't feel it's a good idea to seek a reading with a medium during the first year after a significant loss. I think it's wise to just worry about navigating the grief storm and rebuilding your life during that first year. Trying too soon could produce disappointments that may create set-backs in your grief journey. If, however, you have a history of sitting with mediums and you feel strong enough about how you are handling the loss, then 6 months might be a reasonable time to wait.
I think the best form of help you can get is from your own inner circle. The fortunate ones have close family members and friends near by to help them with all they are processing. Sometimes, reaching out to support someone else in your own household with THEIR pain actually serves to help us feel better about our own. So if you are able, reach out to a spouse or sibling etc. Just because they might seem to be handling things "better than you" doesn't mean they really are. You wont know how they are doing on the inside until you ask. And sometimes that's all someone needs, just to be asked, "And how are YOU doing?"
Helping Someone You Know
There is one other point to make at this time. Something that seems to make almost all "outsiders" uncomfortable when they come face to face with someone in acute pain from grief..... We need you to SAY THEIR NAMES. WE also need to say their names. I understand how difficult this can be for some, but try to remember that we notice it when people avoid using their names at gatherings. It is hurtful to us because they are still so much a part of our family even though they are no longer here in body. Again, I think most of us understand that a common response is to try and 'protect' us by helping us to forget. But the truth of this matter is that we will never forget. What we are doing is learning to live WITH what has happened and part of that process is to figure out what place our deceased loved one has in the family now. I do not feel that pretending they no longer exist is helpful in any way.
The most important thing here is that you are still willing to stay close and help out. Showing us that you love us enough to spend your time with us during our darkest hours is a wonderful testament to the nature of human love. We can always travel alone through life but experiences are much richer when you have someone to share them with so please know how important your support role is...your griever thanks you, the deceased thank you and I thank you.
Blessings,
Vicky
For Additional Insights into the Grief Journey:
Grieving Part 1...The Early Days
Grieving Part 3...Facing the Holidays
Please visit my website at www.whiteelephantwisdom.com
***Thoughtful discussion is welcome. Please comment below
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