Recovery – Page 2

The End of a Relationship: An often ignored grief

When someone dies, the living relationship you had with them dies also.

The person you love is no longer in your life and what also dies is the hope of ever seeing them again.

That is incredibly hard, but it is final.

Gone but not dead

When a relationship you are in ends and you part company with someone, they are no longer in your life. However, there is always that small hope that you will see them again.

There is therefore no finality in that relationship.

Often when a relationship ends, there is hurt and acrimony left. So that any time you may see that person it is not the same.

How do you grieve a relationship that has had no finality?

If you add to this the complication of dividing up property and child custody and access arrangements, it gets even more difficult.

The difference between losing someone to death and losing them to a relationship end

There are similarities between losing someone through death and losing someone through the end of a relationship, but there are also differences.

For anyone who has lost a relationship, whether to death or a break up, life has to continue. You still have to go out there and work.

There are still bills to pay. If you have children, there are still their needs to attend to. You can’t just lock yourself away from the world until you feel better.

As I already mentioned, the death of someone involves the death of hope that you will ever see them again. But when your relationship has ended, that hope is still there. If the relationship has become acrimonious, the pain of seeing that person again is compounded.

The hope is there but you hope for the old relationship, not what has now developed. It is like twisting the knife.

It is okay for the bereaved to grieve. But what about those whose relationship has ended?

Another difference between the death of a loved one and the end of a relationship is the recognition given to the pain of bereavement and not to the end of a relationship.

People understand that initially you will feel hurt, but the support you will receive is likely to fade away faster than if you were bereaved.

Plus there are other things to grieve for as well as the end of the relationship.

Am I defective or unloveable?

If someone stops loving you, what does that say about you as a person? Does that mean you are unloveable? Does that mean you are defective? If the other person left you for someone else does that mean you are not worth having a relationship with? Even if you are the one to end it, what does it say to you about your romantic choices?

In a close relationship you define yourself through the relationship. When that relationship is gone, then your definition of self is damaged.

If the relationship end is acrimonious and there are nasty things being said, particularly about you and your parenting ability, it is hard for you to see yourself as worthwhile.

My idea of being a parent just disintegrated

There is also grief at the end of your picture of parenting. You are likely facing co-parenting. No matter how well you and your ex handle that, your picture of what being a parent was has disintegrated. Maybe in time you will build a new picture, but for now that hasn’t happened.

I have to leave my dream home

You are quite likely going to have to leave your family home. If you own it, selling it becomes part of the property settlement. If you are renting, you may not be able to afford to continue to pay that rent on your own.

I struggle financially now

Your financial situation may deteriorate as well. When there are two incomes, then you can often live comfortably. With one income it becomes a lot more difficult.

Grieving the end of a relationship – a summary

When a relationship ends you have many things to grieve:

• The person you loved is no longer in your life.

• You may continue to see them, but the relationship has changed, so there are constant reminders of what was and what you cannot
have any more.

• Where there was love, there may be hurt and acrimony.

• They may start another relationship.

• Your picture of how you would parent your children has disintegrated.

• Your sense of yourself as being a good and loveable person is damaged.

• Your financial status is reduced.

• You may lose your home.

• And so many more losses not listed here.

What can I do about this?

One of the most important things to do is to love yourself. Surround yourself as much as possible with people who will hold you in their love and support you.

Never forget you are wanted. You are lovable. You are not defective.

Remember, emotional pain is processed in the same part of the brain as physical pain. Don’t dismiss your emotional pain. You don’t dismiss physical pain and emotional pain is just as real as physical pain.

Be kind to yourself

You are grieving.

You have lost a relationship, your future dreams, your financial security, your sense of safety in the world.

You spent a lot of time with this person you loved. They occupied your time and your emotions. Their departure leaves a large gap in your life.

Just as with the death of a loved one, your brain has to rearrange its neural networks to adjust to the loss of this person from your life.

Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself time to grieve. Allow yourself days to be upset and not cope well.

Grief takes time, so be patient.

Remember you are grieving and it is okay for you to grieve.

Grief takes time. It must run its course. Things may seem hard right now, but there will be a day when it will feel easier.

Give yourself permission to cry, scream, lock yourself away for a short time.

Be okay with hating your ex, with being angry, with being sad, with frustration and confusion.

To heal, you must first grieve. There is no way of skipping the grief step.

Give yourself some slack to have bad days.

If it gets too difficult to manage then seek help from a counsellor.

The way of the Triskelion

A few years ago I read about applying the idea of an ancient symbol, the triskelion, to your situation.

This ancient symbol has been used in many cultures for thousands of years. In our world the Celtic interpretation of this symbol is
often applied.

For the Celts the Triskelion had many meanings.

One was that it represented birth, death and rebirth. In terms of your recovery from the end of a relationship that has died there is
the rebirth that will come later.

It is also considered that the Triskelion revolves around strength, progress and the ability to move forward and overcome extreme adversity. These can all be goals to aim for as you allow yourself to grieve.

The path of rebirth

As you work your way through your grief don’t expect to find the type of closure you get with death. In death there is an end to things and eventually a sense of meaning.

With relationship endings it is not possible to end things. You have to find your own resolution and your own meaning in the uncertainty of the end of a relationship.

Over time you will heal and be able to remember the good times and process the bad times.

It will be scary, but you can continue to live after the end of a relationship.

In time you may find another relationship. Or maybe you won’t.

The important thing is that you have survived grief. There will always be that pain, but you will be able to live a happy and productive life.

Can I Help?

If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your relationship 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

The Extra Support Needs Of Traumatic Grief

Recently two incidents at sea where people were killed have been mentioned in the media. One was the death of 5 people in a submersible craft deep sea diving. The other was around 600 refugees fleeing war and persecution whose boat sank with the loss of around 500 lives.

For the submersible, the media reports stressed that they would have been dead in an instant, not aware that they were dying. No one talked about the slow drowning death of the mainly women and children trapped inside the sinking refugee boat. Their death would have been one they were fully aware was happening.

It was more comforting to think that they people killed in the submersible died quickly, unaware they were dying. It is horrible to think of the refugees and their slow drowning death.

Your Loved One Has Died a Traumatic Death

When your loved one is killed in an accident, murdered, died lost in the bush or desert, suicided, grief becomes complicated by the way they died. You are mourning two things, the loss of their life, and the traumatic way they died. It makes a difference to the way you grieve.

As well as being traumatic, suicide is a unique bereavement so I will address that in another blog post.

How do you cope with knowing your loved one was killed in an accident? Or worse, was killed deliberately? Were they aware they were dying? What was going through their mind? Did they suffer? Were they calling out to you for help or support?

How Society Thinks You Should Grieve

There are many ideas in our society about how you should grieve. Some, particularly if they are based on personal experience, are valid. Others are completely wrong and cause great harm to those who are grieving.

Much of how we grieve is learned from childhood experiences with grief.

Death As An Existential Concept

I am often called to conduct critical incident debriefs. When I talk to people I always seek to find out about their previous experience with grief, and any customs they practice after the death of someone they know. I also seek to identify those for whom the death I am debriefing them over is the first time they have encountered death.

Death is a massive existential concept. It takes a lot to comprehend its meaning and place in our lives. It is the great certainty of life but also the great unknown. It is something we tend to ignore, until we are confronted by it.

I remember my first encounter with a person dying. It was my grandmother and I was 12. I remember asking myself what death was. For me at the time it meant my grandmother would not ring us up anymore. We would never visit her again. I would never be able to learn more from her. She would not be there.

Other people report different meaning making around death.

Always, there needs to be understanding and patience for those who have never encountered death before.

The Meaning of This Death In Your Life

When I work with the first time bereaved, I always try to help them explore the meaning of this death in their life. I also let them know it is okay to have a multitude of feelings. Such as being confused, to feel it is unreal, to feel angry, sad, numb, restless, frightened and so many more things.

One thing I always work to dispel with people is that idea of grief being one of stages. This idea became popular in the early 70s when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross published a book “On Death and Dying”. I remember reading it in the years after my grandmother died. I found it didn’t match my experience at all. When I became a nurse I found it was more applicable for people who were dying than those who were bereaved. I later found out there is a reason for that. The book was aimed at those who were dying, not at those who were bereaved. The book was embraced as being about bereavement and that has been hard to shake.

Since that time there has been much research which has been more applicable for those who are bereaved. None of these research findings list “stages” as being part of the grieving process.

However, the idea of stages still persists. I still have people come to see me who are concerned because they are not following the stages. They have either formed the idea themselves they must follow stages, or they have been told by others they must follow stages.

What Is Known About Grief?

Grief is a total body experience.

We not only emotionally experience grief. It is there in our thoughts, actions, physical sensations as well as emotions. Grief is physically experienced by our brains as neural pathways in the brain are removed and the remnants altered.

As the core of grief is sadness. There is often disbelief, a sense of unreality, anger, fear, brokenness, confusion, hyperactivity, shut down, crying, numbness, guilt, regret, disbelief, lethargy, loss of appetite, feeling overwhelmed, unable to make decisions, and many more. Moods are unstable and change frequently. Any little trigger can throw you back into deep grief.

The intensity of grief will slowly abate. Most people find that after 18 months to 2 years they are feeling their pain less intensely. In the initial stages of grief, it is hard to focus on anything other than the grief. Although you can if they need to, it is often exhausting to do this. Sometime after a few months it becomes easier to put the grief aside to attend to other things.

This is how grief plays out normally.

What happens when the death is traumatic?

Many of the experiences of grief are amplified in traumatic grief. Some of that is due to your body’s defence systems being activated. You may feel combative as your body tries to fight its way out of the situation. Or you may feel agitated and want to run away. This is your body trying to run from a situation it judges you cannot fight. Or you may feel like you are frozen as your brain tells you there is no escaping this terrifying situation.

Traumatic grief leads to more frequent, more intense reactions. Many people report visions of their loved one being hit by a car, stabbed in a fight or whatever caused their death. They may envisage their loved one lost in the bush (if that is how they died), they may experience the horror of imagining their loved one giving up hope of being found alive. All this is heartbreaking.

The pain of losing a loved one in traumatic circumstances is more intense. The idea that someone or something else has caused your loved one’s death adds an extra layer to your grief. The if only’s are very powerful in this type of loss.

Your World View Changes

All grief causes your world view to change. But traumatic grief has a much deeper impact on your world view. The type of traumatic grief will influence the change in your world view. There is a difference to way you will process death due to, for example, a car accident, murder, faulty equipment, and being lost in the bush.

The manner of traumatic death can also impact on the type of support you will receive. One person I saw some years ago lost her son when he was stabbed. She found that people were judgemental about what he was doing out at night in a party area. Did he have a knife too? Was he drunk? Was he looking for trouble? Did he deserve to be grieved if he contributed to his death by being in a party area?

The Blame Game

When a person dies they die. There is no blame. We all make errors of judgement. For your loved one this may have resulted in their death. It doesn’t make you any less deserving of the grief you are experiencing. Nor does it make their loss any less worthwhile.

Another person who came to see me had lost her sister in a car accident. Another driver changed lanes directly into her car and wiped her out. People questioned if it was her driving skills that contributed to her death, this despite the fact the other driver was clearly in the wrong and admitted it.

Fewer People Are Willing To Offer Support

Many of the people I see who lose a loved one traumatically find that they receive less support. Or there is a lack of understanding of the more intense nature of their grief. There is often a lack of support from other people, who will often avoid the grieving person because they don’t know how to respond to their grief.

If you are experiencing traumatic grief, know that your experience is likely to be more intense and last longer. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t push yourself to “get over it” quickly. If you have friends or others in your community who are supportive and seek to understand, keep in touch with them. Avoid the people who are unhelpful. Allow yourself the time you need to heal. If you need it, seek help from a grief counsellor.

Can I Help?

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

How do you resolve a loss where there are no answers?

As a registered nurse I witnessed many families struggling to cope with a loss that is rarely recognised. That of ambiguous loss.

In the case of these families, something had happened to take their loved one emotionally away from them. The physical body was still there, but their loved one was changed. This occurred due to a number of causes including brain injuries, a cerebral haemorrhage, dementia, stroke, or mental illness.

At that time a friend of my mother lost her husband emotionally due to a stroke secondary to cardiac surgery. Physically he was still there, but emotionally he was a completely different person. The friend found it hard to cope. In an instant the man she married had gone and somebody else with unstable moods and little memory was there instead. Her life changed and she now found herself caring for this familiar stranger. Her old life, the future they planned together, the man she loved. All were gone. Instead there was this stranger whose mannerisms and physical attributes constantly reminded her of the man she loved, but he wasn’t there.

Some years later my mother suffered a similar fate when my father had a stroke and lost much of the man he had once been. She expressed to me often her deep grief and at times hatred and resentment of him. She had lost the man she had once known. All the plans for the future were gone and she felt trapped into a life that she had not chosen.

Working with Ambiguous Loss

Over the years, my counselling work has led me to support many people suffering ambiguous loss.

Particularly hard to cope with is when a loved one goes missing and there is no knowledge of what has happened to them. They have just disappeared. Are they dead? Are they alive? Do you grieve their death, which means giving up hope they will be found alive? Or do you hold on to hope they will one day return, which means never being able to finalise the relationship. You are left hanging in uncertainty.

Of all the different types of loss, ambiguous loss is one of the most difficult. It is also one where there is little support because the loss is not an actual death. The loss does not lead to a network of support as happens with the more final and usual path of death and funeral.

What is ambiguous loss?

Ambiguous loss is a loss that is not clear. A loss that is difficult or impossible to resolve because the outcome of the loss is uncertain.

As I have already mentioned, the loss can include someone going missing, becoming estranged from a loved one, the psychological loss of the person who is alive and in the same body but is no longer the person they once were.

In all these situations the relationship lacks resolution. Is the person still living? Why has the relationship with this person you love ended? Is it possible to restore the relationship? How do I manage with the person I loved being physically there, but not emotionally there?

Closure in the case of someone being physically lost

The idea of “closure” is often mentioned in relation to sudden death due to accident, murder, assault. Those bereaved that way will say there is not such thing as “closure”. And they are right. Knowing how someone died does not usually bring closure.

But when you don’t know if the person is dead or alive any definite answer brings a “closure” because it makes it possible to work on something definite. If they are dead, then you can grieve. If they are just estranged from you, then you can grieve.

How do you resolve ambiguous loss?

The uncertainty and lack of resolution around this loss makes it extremely difficult to ever find resolution.

While there is no definite answer there is always hope. In this situation hope is agonising. There is the pain of the person no longer being there and the hope they will someday be there. You can never close the wound of loss when you don’t know if the loss is final.

Counselling is one of the best ways of learning how to move forward in life with such a loss. Moving on from counselling to good support systems is important, as is ensuring you get enough self care.

Can I Help?

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

In the wake of your loved one dying, are you struggling to make sense of and cope with your feelings? Grief Counselling can help.

Without fail, everyone who comes to see me after the loss of a loved one tells me they have had so many different messages about how they should be behaving and how to cope.

I have found that in my own experience.

In the wake of my mother’s death, I tried to talk to my siblings about her and how I was missing her and their response was to tell me I needed to “see someone”. A year later, one of my siblings contacted me by email and told me he missed her. By that time I didn’t miss her any more. I guess I could have suggested he “see someone”. I just didn’t reply. I didn’t feel my response would have been polite. Grief is hard to deal with and can cause friction between all those grieving the loss of a particular person.

I have lost count of the number of people referred to me by their GP in the weeks following the loss. In their referrals they describe the understandable grief as “pathological”. They also suggest the use of anti depressants!

Although grief counselling can be helpful. There is no obligation to see anyone about your grief. If you want to talk to someone who understands grief, will reassure you that you are not going mad and is objective then counselling is great. But you don’t have to.

Acute grief, those early days, weeks, months after a loss is painful. It hurts. Nothing is going to help that. Only time.

Many people who come to see me think there is something wrong with them. They are receiving so many messages from others that they wonder if they have something wrong with them.

Messages you may receive from others about your Grief

Messages such as:

• The funeral is over, you should be over it

• It is wrong to sit at home and not go out, you should be getting on with life

• You should be over the tears by now

• You shouldn’t cry in public, it upsets people

• You need anti depressants

• You should be crying all the time, you obviously are not crying enough

• You shouldn’t want to go back to work now

• You should go back to work now

• You shouldn’t be going out so much, you are not spending enough time grieving (whatever they think it looks like)

• Your unstable emotions have nothing to do with grief, you need to get help

• Your anger, difficulty forming thoughts, difficulty doing things, feeling that your loved one is there, and so on, are problems. You need to get help

• You should be glad their suffering is over/you can have another child/you can find another partner.

There are many more, but these are the most common ones I have encountered.

Everyone’s grief is different. Even if you are grieving for the same person, you will grieve differently.

The way you work through that grief is as individual as you are.

You need to find what helps you. What helped a friend may or may not help you. Try their suggestions if you want to, or decide not to. Either way, you will find your own way of grieving.

When should you see a Grief Counsellor?

• Because you want to.

• You want someone objective to talk to

• You are seeking reassurance you are not going mad

• You want to know what is right for you

• You want a witness to your feelings, one who will not judge or jump in with their own opinion

• You feel you need help

• You feel the way you are coping with grief is not healthy or helpful

• You have been grieving for a long time and you feel you may be stuck and want help to move forward

• You would like to learn some coping skills.

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

The Legacy of Grief

Neuroscientific advances have led to the identification of attachment neural networks in our brains. These networks create bonds with the people in your life.

Grief impacts on many aspects of brain function. From a neuroscientific perspective, grief is the action of the brain to build new networks and dismantle old ones to accommodate the loss of people in you life.

The Impact In Your Life

You recall memories of the person you have lost. So many people report the difficulties of bitter sweet memories.

You used to share information with that person and it helped you gain perspective. It enriched the experiences you shared. Many people tell me they no longer enjoy the things they used to do because the experience of doing something on their own is lacking the perspective of the person they used to do it with.

Grief can leave you feeling no longer in control of your feelings and reactions to things. You may find yourself crying uncontrollably, seemingly unable to stop. You may find yourself feeling angry at anything and unable to stop those feelings. You may find making decisions overwhelming.

Then there is pain. That pain may feel physical but your doctor can find no cause for it. But the experience of physical pain occurs in the same part of the brain as the experience of emotional pain. And your body experiences emotions in various parts of the body. Not surprising then that the strong emotions of grief can cause physical pain.

The Experience of Grief

The pain and confusion are horrible. It is not surprising if you want to run away from them. Equally, you may feel numb and want to do anything to feel something.

All this pain, confusion and numbness can only be managed by moving through it. Eventually the worst of it will over and you will learn to live with what is left.

You are walking a tightrope over the gulf of loss and everlasting memories of that person.

Losing You

Your sense of self is totally disrupted. This is not surprising because you gain your sense of self from your relationships with others. If one who deeply mattered is gone, who are you? You need a new identity.

Identity can be tied with another person in many ways.

The relationship you had with them: partner, parent, child, friend.
Your identity in relationship with that person. Were you a parent and now you are not? Did you care for the person before they died and now they are gong you are not a person who cares for another?
How do you perceive yourself as a parent without a child, or with one less? How do you perceive yourself as a person without parents or a parent? How do you perceive yourself as single? You had a relationship with the person who has died and who you were in that relationship no longer exists.

The Only Way Out

One thing you will eventually discover is that facing grief is the way out of this time of deep grieving.

When you learn to face grief and experience it you will learn how to reorganise yourself and your life to include your grief in it.

What You Can Do

Be gentle, self compassionate and open to seeking help from other people. Don’t turn away those who want to support you. It is okay to occasionally say you need a break from people, but do allow people in when you are able to.

Be willing to learn how to cope. Draw on what you already know and learn new strategies. You may find it beneficial to see a Grief Counsellor to assist you with this.

A Wise Perspective From An Old Woman

I wanted to finish on a wonderful perspective shared with me a long time ago.

A lovely woman who saw me some years ago had experienced much grief during her life. Now in her final years she was coming to terms with the losses of close friends as many came to the end of their lives.

At the end of our sessions together, she reflected on a lifetime of grief and rejoiced that she could remember all the wonder of each relationship and the precious memories she had of those times.

She reflected that at the time each loss was so painful. She had grieved so much for each one. She thought she would never feel better. But she was able to move on with the sweetness of that loss as a precious bitter sweet memory.

Now looking back on her life, she could see how precious each person was and how the relationships had been vital parts of her life. Each relationship had given her life a richness and meaning that far outweighed the pain of losing them. For that she was grateful.

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

So You Think You Are Going Mad? What Can You Expect From Grieving?

There are assumptions about the experience of grief which are wrong and leave people feeling there is something wrong with them. When people reach out to others they are often met with ignorance around their feelings being part of grief. Even professionals can get it wrong.

When I run grief and loss groups, one of the first things I do is to encourage participants to share their experience of grief. For me, when I first attended a grief and loss group many years ago, it was a revelation how many of the things I experienced were well known grief experiences. For the first time in many years I realised I wasn’t mad!

I want other people to realise they are not mad either.

Below is a list of the experiences participants have shared over the years. The participants range in age from 10 to 90. It is important to remember that our experience of grief will change depending on the life stage we are in. So a 10 year old will experience things differently to a 90 year old.

How many of the things on this list have you experienced? Do you have anything to add? If you go to my facebook page Plentiful Life Exploration you can add your own words. The page can be accessed here: (1) Plentiful Life Exploration | Facebook (you will need to join the group to respond).

Below is my list. I would love to hear about your experiences:

Shock
Withdrawal
Confusion
Feeling sick
Insomnia
Disbelief
Voices and visions
Low energy
Numbness
Frustration
Anger
Relief
Depression
Keeping Busy
Weak
Panic
Going crazy
Rejection
Questioning
Loneliness
Preoccupation
Emptiness
Scared
Powerlessness
Aggression
Adjustment
Helpless
Guilt and regrets
Disorientation
Sadness
Emotional outbursts
Fear
Indifference
Crying
Idealisation
I don’t know how to feel
Lost sense of self.
Uncertainty
Can’t stop crying
Embarrassed at crying in public
Lost meaning in life
Unable to cope with everything
lack of concentration
day dreaming
inability to fulfill a grief expectation such as:
can’t cry when I should, can’t cry when I want, laugh when I should be sad
inappropriate laughter
denial
Regression to earlier life stage
Problems with transition from primary secondary or secondary tertiary education
Opposing pressures – family; society; peer group
Conflict : parents, teachers
Loss of childhood role
Body image
Concern for future
Awareness of reality and personal limitations
Concern about popularity
Fear of ridicule
Lack of confidence
Relationship breakdown
Academic performance
Sexuality
Drug & alcohol concerns
Eating disorders
Concern for environment, planet
truancy
delinquency, anti-social behaviour
work deterioration in school

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

Caring For A Grieving Friend And Yourself

When someone we know is in pain, our natural reaction is to try to make them feel better. Some of this response is learned behaviour as this is how our society teaches us to respond to another person’s pain. Some of the response is personal discomfort at seeing another person in pain.

The urge to help someone feel better is frequently the response we choose to the pain we see in another person.

Your Grieving Friend Doesn’t Need To “Feel Better”

When a person is grieving, no amount of “feel better” actions will help them feel better. They are in pain and only time will bring them to a point of being able to feel better.

The Pain Of Isolation

It may not be obvious, or something you think about, but the biggest difficulty for those who are grieving is isolation. The pain of grief is very individual and very isolating. You have lost the person you deeply love and the world for you has stopped. But the world for others has not stopped.

They are feeling terrible pain, but others cannot relate to that. Even others who have loved that person as well will feel their pain differently.

This is terribly isolating.

Isolation is very difficult to cope with at the best of times, but when you are grieving it is worse.

Platitude Peril

Sometimes the very platitudes you have learned to say, because others have said them in the past, make the person who is grieving feel more isolated. Feel that people don’t understand what they are going through.

Some of the platitudes are:

• “They are an angel in heaven now.”

• “At least you had x (amount of time) together”.

• “You can always have another one”.

• “It’s time to move on”.

• “Try to keep busy”.

• “They had a good life”.

These types of statements are really unhelpful and send a strong message that there is something wrong with the person and they need to stop grieving.

Quick, Let’s Pretend They Never Existed

Other people will avoid even mentioning the person’s grief. They will act as though the person never existed. That is so incredibly hurtful. It is as if the person who has died never existed. And that hurts.

For the person grieving, they want to remember that the one who has died existed. That they mattered. That their life was worthwhile. It is very hurtful to act as though their loved one didn’t exist. I have had it done to me and it was devastating to encounter that behaviour.

It Is Hard To Face The Reality Of Death

In this life bad things happen. As we all die, it is a certainty that you will encounter death in your lifetime. Death does not always happen to old people who have lived long, fruitful lives.

It happens to young children, to a young person whose life has ended before it had a chance to begin, to a young parent whose children will lose a parent long before it is time for that to happen, to someone in the prime of life.

It can happen in unfair circumstances due to accidents, random events, even the actions of another.

Safety And Security Is Shattered By Grief

When you love someone you feel safe and secure in that relationship. The warmth and security of the relationship has a deep impact on your sense of well being. Your heart sings with the joy you feel in the relationship with that other person. You are full of love and it feels wonderful.

Then suddenly all that safety, security, joy and love is gone. And it hurts.

That pain. The sadness. The devastation. The confusion and disbelief. All that is natural.

Grief Can’t Be Pushed Away, It Must Be Felt

Grief is a pain that has to be experienced. It can’t be pushed away.

This is why you can’t fix another person’s pain.

They have to experience it and process it.

Yes it will hurt. But suppressing those feelings of pain is a major cause of depression.

The pain has to be experienced. It is the only way the pain can be processed. It is the only way to make meaning of the loss.

What Can I Do To Support My Friend?

In supporting someone you know who is grieving, the support they need from you is to feel less isolated.

This involves just being with them. Don’t try to fix anything. Let them know you are there, no matter what. Let them know it is okay for them to feel devastated, or angry, or like crying or any other reaction they may have.

Just be there. Listen to what they have to say. Don’t try to fix anything, just listen. They need a witness to their pain and you can be that.

Don’t force them to talk. If they want to talk, listen. If they want to be quiet, be quiet with them.

Don’t Forget Self Care

In supporting your grieving friend do ensure you take care of yourself. It is hard to be in the presence of such pain. You may need to take a break every so often.

You may find you need to limit your time with them. That is okay. You have to care for yourself first or you will not be able to care for anyone else.

Let your friend know you can spend some time with them and then leave. Let them know when you can next spend time with them.

If you are struggling with the uncertainty of their grief and the feelings that come up for you around death seeing a counsellor can be helpful.

Can I Help?

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

The Impossible Dream: Wanting The Pain To Go Away But Knowing It Never Will

I often have people come to see me because they want to stop grieving. Maybe you are feeling this way too?

You want to stop crying and needing to excuse yourself when ceremonies unleash sadness.

You want to feel okay in the new home you raced to buy after fleeing the old home and all its reminders. And you thought that if you had strangers come and stay here you would feel less alone. But the presence of strangers only makes it worse.

You want to feel okay that your loved one is missing out on the first grandchild, or their sister’s wedding, or graduating with their friends, or enjoying retirement.

You want to stop feeling guilty that you are still alive and the person you love is not.

You want to run and run and run until you can’t feel that grief anymore.

But you stop and realise grief is still there.

You stop and realise the guilt at being alive is still there.

You stop and realise life is continuing and your loved one is missing out. Will always miss out.

You stop and realise removing the physical reminders of your loved one doesn’t remove the emotional reminders.

And that realisation is so hard.

Seeking to remove the pain

So you come to see me to remove that pain.

But no one can remove it.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

It is painful, searing, heart rending.

You can think the day is going well and then, just as the wind changes, suddenly you are experiencing the raw bleakness of grief.

You can realise you haven’t thought about the one you love while absorbed in doing something. And it hurts.

You want to forget but you don’t want to forget.

You want people to stop asking you about your loved one, but you don’t want them to stop asking.

You don’t want people to acknowledge your grief, but you do want them to.

You are a leaf blown around by the wind. In free fall. You have no control over where your emotions go.

Looking for the calm place

Sometimes it is nice to talk to someone more objective. Someone who didn’t know your loved one. Someone who has no investment in the life of your loved one. Someone who isn’t grieving too. Someone who will just listen. Who understands your pain and reassures you that you are not mad or defective for still feeling that pain. Someone who can help you navigate this barren, tortured terrain.

This is when a grief counsellor can help. There is no magic wand. The grief is still there and will always be there. But you will find a listening ear, a safe place to share and support to find your way to continue living.

I can 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

5 things to do to help work through your grief

Frequently people come to see me because they are concerned they are not “over their grief” fast enough.

There hasn’t been a lot of research around what people believe is the time span of grief. In Britain researchers discovered that 30% of British people believed grief should last 6 months. Most people considered 2 years was as long as grief should be. And 30% of younger people believed it was possible to ‘get over’ grief. Men were three times more likely to believe grief should be brief and was something you could get over.

Research in America found that the majority of those interviewed believed grief should be over in 2 weeks!

If that is the attitude of British and American people, I imagine if Australians were to be surveyed they would come up with similar unrealistic ideas around how long grief lasts.

Unrealistic expectations make grieving harder

The difficulty with such unrealistic ideas is that if you are grieving, people can stop making allowances for your grief and instead express the attitude that you should be over your grief by now. This is very isolating.

When you are grieving, the last thing you need is to be pressured to stop grieving by others.

Grief is universal

It mightn’t seem so, but everyone is going to experience grief at some stage in their lives.

Some people are so expert at shutting down their feelings they can convince themselves, and others, that they are “over it”. But there are often signs that the grief is still there.

Poor health, high stress levels, depression, addictions, unstable emotional reactions, avoidance of memories of their loss and isolating themselves are some of the signs that grief is still there.

One thing that research shows is that allowing yourself to feel those hard feelings is the best way to move through the worst of the painful times.

Grief is …

Grief can be confusing. It can be overwhelming. It can be depressing. It can cause you to be unable to sleep, or to sleep too much. It can cause you to lose appetite or to want to eat too much. It can be cause you to lose your sense of self. It can be so many things you never expected.

One thing about grief is that you will be a different person after your experience with each grief event in your life.

How do you work through your grief?

5 things to do to help work through your grief

Rituals

There are many rituals around death that are really helpful when dealing with loss. Other types of loss don’t tend to have rituals around them so you may have to devise your own. Rituals add meaning to the experience of loss. They help you to focus, acknowledge and process your grief. There are many cultures that have formal mourning periods. These are usually from one to three years.

Talk.

It is really helpful to talk to someone about how you are feeling. Some people find no shortage of family and friends willing to listen and sit with them. For other people it is much harder. This is where a counsellor can help. A grief trained counsellor will be able to offer you a safe space where you can just be with your grief. No judgement. No problem solving. Just the space to express whatever you need to express.

Talking is really helpful to allow you to express what you are feeling, no matter how inane you think it is. Grief impacts every aspect of your life as you adjust everything you do to a life without the person you have lost.

Journal

Journalling is another great way to express what you are feeling. For many people, the act of writing their thoughts down is really helpful. It allows them to put the cacophony of thoughts they are feeling into some sort of order that makes sense.

Often, seeing the words on the page can reveal things you weren’t aware you were feeling.

Writing down your thoughts can be a wonderful way to express to the one you have lost things you wanted to say to them.

Journalling can be a useful adjunct to counselling sessions as a counsellor can help you process things your writing has revealed.

Reflect

Grief shatters your sense of self. This is very challenging when you are trying to move forward and you are feeling a great sense of loss.

Reflecting on what you have said or written can be extremely helpful. Such reflection can reveal the answers to things that have puzzled you. It can help you to understand things that have happened and make sense of your pain.

It can also be helpful for you to identify the many strengths you have. Strengths that you may have forgotten you have due to the trauma of loss.

Release

Cry, scream, shout, throw pillows, walk into the bush and scream into the trees, stand at the edge of the waves and yell your hurts, fears, frustrations, anger and terrible devastation. Howl and moan until you feel there is nothing left.

Tear up what you have written. Burn it, throw it away.

All these and more are ways you can release the emotions you are feeling.

And finally:

Researchers have found that the intense feelings of grief peak at about four to six months after the loss and then gradually decline over a number of years.
When others tell you that “you should be over it by now”, remember that many cultures have formal mourning periods that last years. After a few years the pain may ease and you will become used to it and able to function in life. But it will never end. It will just get easier to live with.

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

The Horror of Parental Grief

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