Month: October 2021

A lot of people I see do not recognise their childhood experience as traumatic.

It is not surprising. We as a society recognise physical or sexual abuse as traumatic. We may sometimes recognise aspects of verbal abuse as traumatic. But we miss many traumas that occur to children.

For the child growing up with trauma, their life seems normal. That child does not necessarily know that what happens in their family is different to what happens in other families. That awareness may not happen until adulthood, if at all.

So what else is Childhood Trauma?

• Being seen and not heard.

• A parent/parent figure denying your reality.

• Being told directly or indirectly that you can’t or shouldn’t experience certain emotions.

• Having a parent/parent figure who cannot regulate their emotions.
o This could be a parent who explodes into anger without warning
o Or it could be a parent who gets agitated and blames those around them, including you, for what is happening or calling you useless, incompetent, a troublemaker and so on.

• Having a parent/parent figure who is focused on their appearance.

• Having a narcissistic parent.

• Having a parent/parent figure who has no boundaries or has poor ones.

• Having a parent/parent figure that swears at you, insults you, puts you down, humiliates or acts in a way that makes you afraid that you might be physically hurt.

• Having a parent/parent figure that pushes, grabs, slaps or throws something at you, or hits you so hard they leave a mark.

• Being chased by an angry parent intent on punishing you and you are scared.

• Feeling that no one in your family loves you or thinks you were important or special.

• No one in your family looks out for each other, feels close to each other or supports each other.

• You don’t have enough to eat, have to wear dirty clothes, your parents are too drunk/high and can’t take care of you.

• Your parents are separated or divorced.

• Witnessing a parent being pushed, grabbed, slapped or having something thrown at them. Or being hit, kicked, bitten or threated with a gun or knife.

• There is someone in the house who is a problem drinker or drug taker.

• There is someone in the house who is depressed, mentally ill or attempted suicide.

• Someone in the family is in prison.

• Being bullied at school and/or at home.

• Having a parent/parent figure who is not attuned to you. (Doesn’t understand when you are sad, or upset, or even happy).

• Being told you are stupid, useless and other put downs.

• Not having anyone comfort you when you are upset or frightened.

The list goes on. The truth is, more people have been traumatised in childhood than haven’t. Some people manage to recover from this and learn skills to help them cope with the world as adults. Other people find coping with life difficult because of the many situations that trigger fear and because of the difficulty they had learning the skills to help them cope with the world as adults.

It is really important to be able to acknowledge that trauma and not feel ashamed of it. It is not your fault if those things happened to you.

It is also important to understand that, with the correct care, you can recover from that trauma.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your childhood trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

Today I am going to revisit what Grief actually is, what is commonly experienced and when you might need to worry that you need extra help.

Most people think Grief is about crying – a lot. This crying is commonly believed to be worst at the funeral and then the funeral is over, you go home and get on with life. So many people tell me they have had friends and family tell them that the funeral is over so it is time to “get over it”.

If that was all grief was, we maybe would cope better, but it is far more than that.

Grief is total emotional, physical and mental chaos. The emotions are many and varied, ranging from total devastation, through guilt, fear, anger and many more.

If you lose something/someone that matters to you then you will grieve. It is normal to do that.

Grief will affect you totally, in every aspect of your self and your life. Your thoughts, behaviours, belief, feelings, even your health are affected by grief.

In addition, the way you relate to others and your world is also changed.

Grief is a normal part of life and many people will cope with grief without requiring outside help. They will find they have plenty of friends and family who will support them. They will be able to continue through life able to cope with the disruption of grief.

Not all people will experience that. They will experience feelings that are intense and persistent. Some may be so overwhelmed they require specialised help.

These different experiences are all perfectly normal.

What might you expect to experience as a result of Grief?

There is a meditation I do when I run groups for all ages. It involves walking through a forest. All the leaves on the trees are turning into autumn colours. But in this forest, it is not just the yellows, oranges, reds and browns. There are also pinks, purples, blues, greens – any colour that exists. As you walk through this forest your feet crunch the leaves on the ground. In the air around you leaves are falling off the trees and floating past you to the ground. Every so often you catch a leaf. These leaves have words written on them. Words that express your grief experience today.

After the meditation I ask people what the leaves had written on them. The answers are many and varied.

Some of the feelings people see on their leaves are: sadness, anger, anxiety, disbelief, panic, relief, irritability, numbness, hopelessness, devastation, confusion, fear, loneliness. There are many more. People experience a wide range of feelings, and they vary from day to day.

Many people also feel very lost after a grief. They find it hard to focus, to concentrate. Making decisions feels like a herculean task. They cannot find the clarity to decide anything. Many feel stuck in a deep, dark hole with no perceivable way out. Many tell me they feel they are going mad.

Many people report difficulty in sleeping. Other complain of headaches, nausea, aches and pains. Others just say they have no energy left.

Some of these physical symptoms are actually caused by the changes that occur in your brain during the first months of grief. Pathways in your brain change in response to the loss you have experienced. These changes take time and require a lot of energy and focus from the brain. This work of the brain can cause pain as well.

Another source of the physical pain is your feelings. Feelings are expressed in the body and can be experienced as pain, particularly when the feelings are around grief.

The important thing to remember is that grief is very individual. You will grieve in a different way to the next person. Some aspects of the grief will be similar, but there will also be aspects that are totally different.

Some people will be very open about what they are experiencing, other people will keep their feelings to themselves.

Culture, belief systems and gender have an impact on how people grieve. Your previous grief experiences will also influence how you grieve.

It is important to remember that grief never ends. There will always be some pain. In time it will become less, but it will never totally go away. The grief will become part of you as you move on through life. You will be changed by that grief.

Grief is about learning to accept the loss of that important person. It is about learning to live with the changes that have occurred to you and your life. The you that emerges from the experience of loss will be a different person to the one that existed before. You will need to learn also to trust again. Trust the world, trust the lives of other people you love, even trust other people.

Many people want to know when this pain will end, or at least become less. The answer is that there is no time limit to grief. Most people find after a few years they are feelings better able to cope, but there are those who still struggle for longer than that.

It is important during this period to look after yourself and make sure you set aside time to attend to your needs. This is particularly important if you are caring for others, such as children. Don’t become so immersed in their needs that you neglect your own. You are more use to your children if you are coping than if you are not.

It is important to put off making major decisions, such as moving house and giving away belongings, for several months until you feel better able to make decisions you may regret later.

You may wish to journal your experiences, if you can focus enough to do that. Many people tell me they found the journaling experience really helpful.

You may like to create a memorial – some people plant a special plant, install a seat, build a pond in their backyard. Creating a memorial gives you somewhere to visit to honour your loved one.

Other people develop rituals that they find helpful. One particularly popular one is to listen to the music your loved one loved.

Being able to express thoughts and feelings is really important. This doesn’t mean you have to express them to another person, you may prefer to journal them, write a letter, put together a photo album, draw. Never overlook the obvious one of allowing yourself to cry.

Other people find they are very restless and find exercising to be really helpful. Combining this with a reflective setting, such as walking on the beach, cycling along a bush track and sitting on a seat to meditate, can be helpful.

Those who have religious beliefs and practices find these observances helpful.

Other people seek out grief support groups, read books, anything that can help them compare their experience with others.

Be sure to take time out for rest and special care, such as a massage, meditation, retreat.

If sleep is a problem exercise, restricting alcohol and caffeine intake coupled with a good sleep routine can be helpful.

You may find it helpful to talk to a counsellor to find support and explore other ways you can process your grief and manage with life.

Don’t be frightened to seek help if you need it.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

I have had many clients over the years who struggle with healing. They find themselves being triggered again and again and find themselves back in that pain and anger place. They feel frustrated at the seeming lack of healing.

But healing is not a straightforward “magic wand” action. It is not a direct process. It doesn’t involve steps that continue in a straight line, it takes twists and turns.

When I worked as a registered nurse, I worked with people on the healing journey of physical injury. Their healing rarely progressed in a straight line. It was more like a spiral. And their healing hurt.

If physical healing is convoluted and painful, why do we expect emotional healing to be straightforward and painless?

If we liken emotional healing to a spiral, it makes a lot more sense. Healing does loop around. Some days you may feel on top of the world. You are free of the pain and functioning well. Other days you seem mired in the pain and dysfunction you are seeking to escape.

Experiencing those difficult days is not a failure or backstep. It is actually an opportunity for you to heal further. If you explore those difficult times, you often find insights you had not seen before. This allows you to recognise and heal sources of pain. You may also encounter a familiar pain you have struggled to heal in the past. But this time, you are further on the healing journey and able to process and heal that pain.

Those days are also an opportunity to practise the new skills you have learned and to discover that you are able to cope much better with these old hurts. In fact being able to attend to them in a new and healthier way is amazingly liberating.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your healing, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz

I see a lot of people who are worried they are not grieving “properly”. Sometimes they have been told by someone else that they are grieving for too long. Other times they see how other people appear to be coping with their grief and feel they are not grieving that way so are not grieving properly.

Grief researcher and theorist William Worden defined complicated grief as “the intensification of grief to the level where the person is overwhelmed, resorts to maladaptive behaviour, or remains interminably in a state of grief without progression of the mourning process to completion.”

He identified what he considered were 4 particular “tasks” of grieving.

These are:

1. Accepting the reality of the loss
2. Working through the pain of grief
3. Adjusting to the environment in which the deceased is missing
4. Emotionally relocating the deceased and moving on with life.

This is not a perfect definition or description of grief, but it covers a lot of what happens in grief.

According to Worden, if one of the above tasks was not able to be navigated successfully, then grief would become complicated. It would either be

• prolonged. This is where the person is aware their grief is not resolving many months or years after the loss event

• delayed. This is where the person’s emotions are not able to be expressed. This can happen even if they had an emotional response at the time of the loss.

• Exaggerated. The grief is so severe that the person suffers from excessive anxiety, depression or anger and this impairs their normal functioning.

• Somatic (body) or behavioural symptoms. Often the person is not aware these symptoms are caused by unresolved grief.

Another theorist, Therese Rando, defines complicated grief as “given the amount of time since the death, there is some compromise, distortion, or failure of one or more of the processes of mourning”.

She identified 6 tasks of grieving. They are:

1. Recognise the loss
2. React to the separation
3. Recollect and re-experience the deceased and the relationship
4. Relinquish old attachments to the deceased and to the old world.
5. Readjust to the new world without forgetting the old.
6. Reinvest energy in the present life.

She noted a number of risk factors for complicated grief:

• Sudden or unexpected death.

• Death from a lengthy illness

• A perception the death was preventable.

• The relationship with the deceased was an angry, ambivalent or dependent one.

• Unresolved grief from other losses

• Loss of a child

• A lack of social support

Grief theorists agree that the “goal” of grieving is creating a new relationship with your loved one that includes them in your continuing life.

If you are grieving “normally” you will experience distressing moods and turbulent thoughts but you will be able to tolerate them and return to some sort of equilibrium. If you are experiencing complicated grief the moods and thoughts will be extreme and will impair functioning to the point where you cannot achieve equilibrium. Of course, this does not apply if you experience this in the first weeks and months after being bereaved.

Two other theorists (Stroebe and Schut) more recently proposed a model where the bereaved person alternates between coping with the loss and making changes in their life to adapt to that loss. That is often described as “loss orientation” and “restoration orientation”. If those processes are out of balance then grief will become complicated.

More recently, it has become standard to describe the final task of mourning as that of seeking meaning in the loss. I see that as being an aspect of finding a way to move on with life.

Things have become complicated by the inclusion in the DSM (a diagnostic standards manual that describes “psychological disorders”) of complicated grief. It is described as depression. There is the suggestion it could be present as early as a month after the death of the loved one. In my experience, and that of most grief practitioners and researchers, that is too soon to be pathologising a person’s grief.

The 7 things the DSM considers are symptoms of complicated grief are:

1. Unbidden memories or intrusive fantasies related to the lost relationship
2. Strong spells or pangs of severe emotion related to the lost relationship
3. Distressingly strong yearnings or wishes that the deceased were there
4. Feelings of being far too much alone or personally empty
5. Excessively staying away from people, places or activities that remind the subject of the deceased
6. Unusual levels of sleep interference
7. Loss of interest in work, social, caretaking, or recreational activities to a maladaptive degree.

These symptoms are experiences of normal grief. The use of the word maladaptive is open to interpretation.

This perception of normal grief experiences as pathological and problematic have meant many people are being pressured to move on quickly from their grief or feel there is something wrong with them if they experience normal grief.

This is where I often work with people to help them see their experience as normal, not pathological, and enable them to move forward with life.

It is okay to remember things frequently. Your life is full of so many things that trigger memories that it would be more worrying if you did not remember things.

As for fantasies about the now lost relationship. Fantasy if a common coping mechanism. As long as you are aware it is a fantasy.

Strong emotions are quite normal as well. Neuroscientists have found that neurological connections to a loved one have to break down and new pathways have to be created. This takes time, commonly considered to be about three months or longer. There are many symptoms of this process including pain, extreme tiredness, confusion, memories that pop up, volatile emotions and so on. You may also find it hard to concentrate. Being with people may also be very tiring and hard to do. The result may be that you spend a lot of time alone and avoiding people. Sleep will definitely be disturbed, as will your general level of interest in life.

So if you experience these things talk to a specialised grief and loss counsellor. You can be reassured of this.

One last thing to mention. Many people report changes in appetite. That is okay. If you are not hungry and don’t eat, and you notice you are losing weight, then it is a good idea to see a counsellor and your doctor. It may be that for a short while you may need to ensure the food you eat is more nutritious to compensate for the lack of food. Similarly, you may find you are excessively eating and putting on weight. If it bothers you, then seek help. If you suffer from Diabetes then your eating patterns may cause problems with your health and it is advisable to consult your doctor about this.

Grief is hard and there are many ideas about what “normal” looks like. Of course we all know that is a setting on many appliances but doesn’t exist in life. If you are ever not sure, it is a good idea to see a grief counsellor.

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au

If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz