November 2022 – PLC Blog

The many faces of grief

Everyone has a picture in their minds about what grief looks like.

What is your picture?

Here are some comments I have heard over the years:

It is so difficult to sleep, I usually toss and turn until 2-3am.

I sleep so deeply and struggle to get up before 10am.

I had a drive to write special cards for all my friends and family. I didn’t want to do it at home, so I went to the beach and sat in the sun while I made the cards.

I felt so restless and couldn’t sleep. So I spent the night out in the shed chopping up old pallets to reuse the wood.

I just wanted to escape so I went out in my boat.

I can’t seem to stop getting angry with people. Anything makes me angry. People are avoiding me because of it.

I so wanted to talk to my sister. So I wrote a message to her and put it inside a balloon and let it loose. I just watched it floating higher and higher and imagined my sister was reaching out to grab it.

I went to bed, pulled the covers up over my head and didn’t come out.

I haven’t been able to leave the house for weeks. Everything is so overwhelming and scary.

I cleaned the house thoroughly. No room escaped. I even moved the furniture and cleaned behind it. I removed individual books from the book shelves and dusted them thoroughly. Nothing was left untouched. As I cleaned I cried and cried. Eventually my tears ran out and the house was spotless.

I just couldn’t bring myself to get in the shower so I didn’t shower for days.

I couldn’t stand being at home with my thoughts so I went back to work.

As the day drew to a close, I walked to the swings in my local park and sat for hours just swinging.

I went to the gym, all day, every day. I worked and worked to get out the pain. And I jogged there and back home, on the odd occasion I actually went home.

I put on a façade of “everything’s alright” when I was out and with other people. But once I got home I just cried and cried.

I avoided seeing people. I was so embarrassed by the way the tears would just come. We are supposed to be tough. Plus I hated seeing the compassion in other people’s eyes.

I went and talked to my son’s friends. We even shared a joint together. It felt so good to connect with them. It felt like he was there too.

I would drop the children at school and come back home. I couldn’t bring myself to go into the house where she wasn’t so I sat outside in the car willing myself to go inside and crying.

I was given her chair and I used to sit in it and imagine I was sitting on her lap being cuddled.

I see him everywhere and my spirits soar, then I get closer and realise it isn’t him. It is devastating.

I can’t bring myself to drive past the place where he died. I know I have to some day, but for now I just can’t do it.

I planted her favourite rose in the garden. It is flowering now and I sit and watch them and go outside and smell them. When I do that I feel she is here with me.

I still can’t believe he is gone. I wake up and turn to him to say good morning. Then I remember.

I just want to talk to her. We spoke every day. This silence is so hard. I used to tell her everything. Now who do I tell things to?

To finish up, here is a lovely quote I found online:

“Small things can trigger a fresh wave of grief … a smell, a look or perhaps a song … within seconds you are flung into a time machine and are transported back to the ‘moment’ when time stood still, and the world had crashed at your feet.” Zoe Clark-Coates from sayinggoodbye.org

NEED HELP?

Grief is never easy and sometimes you need someone to talk to. 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

How Grief Helps With Your Loss

Did you know that you have a wonderful, highly effective tool to help you when you lose someone you deeply love?

Inbuilt.

Always available.

Requires careful handling and to be able to do its thing.

What is it?

It is Grief.

Grief is a tool that allows you to change your identity in light of your loss.

It is also a tool that allows you to get to know yourself, the Who Am I self, better. Because losing someone will change who you are and you need to know who you are in order to live.

HOW DOES THIS WORK?

Loss of someone you deeply love is disorienting, devastating, painful, confusing, life upending and self concept destroying.

How do you recover from that?

You do that through grief.

Yes, grief is distressing.

But it also motivates you to work to live. To learn how to live with the reality of the loss of the person you loved so much.

A NOTE OF CAUTION

To live after someone you love dies does not involve ending the relationship with the person.

You will most likely continue to relate to that person.

• You will remember them,

• You may allow yourself to be influenced by their interests, values and the way they loved to live their life,

• You may find your own way of being, recognising the benefits that person brought to your life.

Of course, they are no longer there so you will not be able to go places with them, or do the things together you used to do.

But you can remember the things you did together and the places you went. And you can learn new ways of being.

HOW DOES GRIEF HELP?

The pain of grief, the emotions you feel, help you to understand the things about your relationship with that person that mattered.

It helps you to understand what was important about that person.

Loss takes away your sense of who you are, because who you are was related to the person who is no longer with you.

Grief allows you to explore who you are now. It allows you to consider the things that matter to you including your values, life plans and way of living.

Grief allows you to restructure your life so that you can continue living.

NOTE: GRIEF IS NOT EASY

The pain of losing someone you love will always be hard and hurt.

Grief is not easy. But then change never is.

Learning to live without the person you love is change.

Living is something you are going to continue to do.

Learning how to do that is Grief’s gift to allow you to explore how to live.

GRIEF IS A JOURNEY BEST WALKED WITH OTHERS

Remember this journey is not one you will do on your own.

You may have family and friends who will support you.

You may also wish to get more specialised help from 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

3 Important things to understand about being human

1 Your life is yours alone to live. No one else can live it and no one else totally understands what you are experiencing. They may have some understanding but never total.

2. You are not designed to live your life alone.

3. Loving others means you will encounter loss and grief in your lifetime.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

In your life you will experience grief. No one else will totally understand what you are experiencing, although some may make an effort to listen to you.

Others will tell you they “know exactly what you are feeling” (which they don’t).

Others will expect you to “be over it already”.

You may feel pressured by past experiences of grief to be over it. Maybe you have even told others the same thing. Now you are on the receiving end and learning fast the reality of grief.

THE REALITY OF GRIEF IS OFTEN PRETTY AWFUL

Experiencing grief brings with it many paradoxes. One is that you need the support of others, but you don’t want to mix with others.

The thought of having to explain yourself to others is overwhelming.

The thought of others not listening to you or trying to shut down your grief is daunting.

Add to that the fact that it is exhausting having to interact with others while dealing with such a difficult time.

BEING ALONE

You are very likely to want to be alone.

Being alone is okay. We all need alone time to reset and recharge. Alone time allows you to process things you are feeling. It allows you to be able to cope with the demands of interacting with other people.

There is alone time and there is social time. There is the support of others and there is time to process alone.

In the early days of your grief you may well want to be alone. That is okay. There are a number of overwhelming emotions to deal with. You need time to reflect. You also need time to grieve. To honour the emotions.

ANOTHER PARADOX.

Alone time is important.

But too much alone time is harmful.

Initially you may want to be alone, or you may want to be surrounded by people.

Sooner of later you will find yourself preferring alone time.

People will tell you that you shouldn’t be alone and will put pressure on you to go out more.

Only you can know what is right for you.

It is okay to go out and enjoy yourself without your loved one. It is also okay to stay at home and continue to process their loss.

My general rule of thumb is to make a decision to go out occasionally but also to make a decision to allow yourself to stay home occasionally as well.

IT IS ALWAYS HELPFUL TO HAVE SUPPORT WHEN YOU ARE GRIEVING

Having someone to bounce ideas off, to help you on those days when you can’t get it together, to give you hugs when you need them, to allow you to cry when you want to, is really helpful when you are grieving.

If you feel you are not grieving “properly” then it is helpful to seek a grief trained counsellor. I see a lot of people who make the appointment to see me because they believe they are not grieving properly. In most cases, they are grieving in a completely healthy way.

If you are concerned it is helpful to seek counselling.

If you feel you don’t have support and you really need it, it is helpful to seek counselling.

If you see me I can help you explore what is right for you and to feel more secure about what feels right for you at this stage in your life.

HOW TO CONTACT ME FOR HELP

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

Anguish and Grief

Many people who come to see me describe their grief.

They talk about collapse as a result of unbearable and traumatic swirls of emotions.

This has occurred when their loved one has died, when they have found out their loved one’s death is imminent, even some time after the loss of their loved one.

The feeling they were experiencing was anguish.

Anguish is an almost unbearable and traumatic swirl of shock, incredulity, grief and powerlessness. A feeling so overpowering that it affects the entire body. Anguish causes a crumpling in on yourself, even a collapse.

This extreme state has been little researched. As though researchers cannot bear to be close to such an extreme and awful feeling.

You only have to look at the synonyms for anguish to get an understanding of how horrible a feeling it is:

• agony

• grief

• heartache

• heartbreak

• misery

• sorrow

• suffering

• torment

• woe

• affliction

• distress

• torture

• wretchedness

It most definitely is not:

• delight

• happiness

• health

• joy

• comfort

• relief

• contentment

• joyfulness

These words are the opposites of anguish.

Anguish has been described as extreme pain, either of body or mind; and excruciating distress.

It is important to acknowledge that anguish affects all of the body. It involves a crumpling on yourself both physically and emotionally. Many in states of extreme anguish fall down or are unable to remain standing.

From a neuroscientific perspective it happens when your fight/flight mechanism triggers you to act but you cannot actually get away so cannot act. In a state of anguish you will sweat, have a rapid pulse and feel that you are suffocating.

You will also feel intense psychic discomfort and will feel defenceless and powerless to deal with danger.

It is terrifying to experience anguish. And also devastating.

Should you experience it, know it is okay to do so. Yes it is scary, but you will survive it. You will be changed by it, but you will survive it.

The photo accompanying today’s blog has included some images that describe anguish. The most iconic of those is the painting of the Ewe protecting her dying lamb and seeing the crows gathering around to tear its carcass apart.

Anguish certainly feels like that.

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