You sit in your grief Frozen It is as though an icy reminder of winter has invaded the autumn You suddenly find yourself in.
You sit in the icy numbness. Then the numbness passes.
And you are tossed around by the autumn winds Blowing their cold breath Causing all to hunch forward and rush to shelter. Leaving you alone in your grief.
You stand there In the midst of the swirling leaves Reds, oranges, yellows and brown. Echoing your own swirling emotions And you long for the time when you felt only numbness.
Then you sighed And settled in for the long haul of the winter of your grief. The days when it was icy and still. When snow muffled every sound And the world seemed deserted.
Just you and your pain.
As you stood on the edge of the ocean. Antarctic blast hitting you with its icy needles The waves whipped to a frenzy by winter storms You remembered that all healing comes in waves.
The intensity varies. Sometimes you can feel almost normal. Other times you feel like you can’t go on. You are out there in the white caps Drowning.
And then you realise you will heal Eventually. You look around and notice the gradual budding of leaves at the ends of branches. You look at the ground as tiny flowers emerge from their bulbs.
The wind comes warm and you dance in the beauty of it. Then the wind blows cold and you are back in the thundering waves Drowning.
Be okay to feel what you are feeling. To feel those exhilarating days of warm breezes And those terrifying days of drowning.
Allow it to take time. Don’t rush.
You will be fed up with grief Long before it is finished with you.
Allow the pain. In that pain is growth. In that pain is the way to learn how to live with your loss.
A day will come when you will stand on the edge of the ocean The sun will dance on the gentle waves A warm wind will gently caress you And you will feel at peace.
Nan Cameron 24/7/2023
Can I 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
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful 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
In my blogs I often talk generally about issues. But every so often someone comes to see me who wants their story told. Today’s blog is one of those.
I am going to refer to this beautiful woman whose story is being told as Adele. I have changed some details to protect her anonymity.
ADELE’S STORY
Adele lost her daughter due to a sudden illness a number of years ago. This is her story of loss.
The first thing Adele spoke about is how her loss turned her into a person who lived as an alien on a planet she once felt was home.
She spoke about feeling that everything in her life was detached and she was no longer walking on the planet but floated somewhere on the other side of a heavy curtain she couldn’t get through.
BECOMING ONE OF THE ‘OTHER PEOPLE’ BAD THINGS HAPPENED TO
One day she was at a fundraising event for her daughter’s illness and saw some women talking, then pointing at her and looking horrified. She realised she had become a mother who lost her child. The other. The one that was someone else. Except now she was someone else.
She told me she remembered a childhood friend whose little brother had died and the memories of him on the wall. She remembered the family’s grief. Now she understood it.
She also understood that when your child dies, you die too.
She understood very clearly that there is the you before loss and the you after loss. Those you’s are two totally different people.
LIVING IN A SOCIETY THAT RUNS FROM DEATH
One of the most distressing things she found was the way our society handles death.
She realised people expected her to recover from her loss swiftly and move on.
She chafed under the idea that grief was a journey, although at the end of our sessions, she admitted it was a good description for part of her life journey. At the time she came to see me she felt she was trapped in a labyrinth deep underground. A dark, damp, dismal place from which there was no escape and where you kept going around in circles as you desperately tried to find a way out.
Adele felt the word journey did not describe her reality as she struggled to survive the death of her daughter. She felt that describing grief as a journey suggested it would some day come to an end. She didn’t believe that would ever happen. When we discussed life as a journey with the end point being death she was more accepting of that term. She was ready to accept that grief was a part of that journey, but not the end point.
THE NIGHTMARE THAT CONTINUED
For Adele, the death of her daughter was like a nightmare from which she never woke up. It was there all day, every day. It was as if her leg had been amputated but no one could see it. She looked the same but inside she was a completely different person.
One of her difficulties was that her daughter had died in the wrong order. Her grandmother and mother were still alive. She should have buried them before her daughter. In fact she shouldn’t have buried her daughter at all. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around.
PROLONGED GRIEF DISORDER
Adele came to see me because her daughter told her she had prolonged grief disorder and needed to see a grief counsellor.
As a baseline for any progress she may make, I gave her a questionnaire that asks questions about her grief. One question talked about grief lasting longer than 6 months. She was puzzled by this. I explained that in the Diagnostic Manuals prolonged grief is a “disorder” where the grief lasts six months or longer than expected according to social or cultural norms.
This horrified Adele. She was appalled that our society considers grief should be over in 6 months. She was appalled that people thought that grief should ever be “over”. She was appalled and shamed that her grief was considered to be a disorder.
I agree with her. Many grief counsellors agree with her. The inclusion of prolonged grief disorder at 6 months after the bereavement was a very controversial move.
BEING CHANGED PERMANENTLY
Adele felt she had been permanently changed by her daughter’s death. She felt pressure from others to go back to the way she was. But she felt she could never do that. Her daughter’s death had so dramatically changed her that she realised she would never be the same person she was when her daughter was alive.
Grief is normal. It is a natural reaction. It is well recognised in all cultures and societies. The turning of a normal process into a disorder is worrying and unhelpful to people in that situation.
FEELING LIKE A FAILURE AS A PARENT
One of Adele’s biggest difficulties was the feeling that she had failed as a parent. She felt she should have done more to keep her daughter alive. She should have been able to protect her. She should have sought help sooner.
Adele also felt she should have been the one to get sick and die.
A BOND THAT TRANSFORMS BUT NEVER ENDS
There has been a lot of research about what is know as continuing bonds. It is where the bond you have with the person who has died continues after death, but is changed to reflect the changed circumstances of the relationship.
The greatest fear of anyone who is bereaved is that they will forget about their loved one. They will forget their smell, their smile, their face.
That is difficult and the realisation that those memories are fading is very real and distressing.
For all his faults, Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, acknowledged that grief never goes. The pain of losing your loved one will continue for as long as you live. Over time people find the sharpness of the pain softens a little, but the pain is always there.
PARENTING YOUR CHILD’S MEMORY
One day Adele came in with a beautiful way to remember her daughter. She had read in her research about a therapist telling a bereaved mother that “you will parent her memory”. She loved that. It gave her hope and something to hold on to.
Over the course of her visits with me Adele learned how to continue to live her life. She learned how to live with the pain of losing her daughter. She learned how to remember her daughter, how to honour her, how to continue to remember her smile and her face.
Most importantly for Adele, she learned how to parent her memory of her daughter.
DO YOU NEED 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
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
