There was an advertisement I remember seeing when I was younger. It was about people rushing to work in wet weather and looking sick. The jingle ran the slogan “soldier on” and showed the people taking some cold and flu tablet and continuing on with normal activities.
That is what we have been taught for years. To not stop. To soldier on.
EUROPEAN ATTITUDES TO HEALING
15 years ago I was living in Europe. I got pneumonia. I couldn’t “soldier on” because I was too sick to get out of bed, let alone consider going anywhere.
After I recovered, one of my European friends told me to rest for 3 weeks. She was surprised that it had never occurred to me to rest for 3 weeks. That was what you did in Europe. It was generally accepted pneumonia took that long to recover from. In fact it was generally accepted all illnesses took time to recover from.
THE RUSH TO BE OVER THINGS
The incident with the pneumonia made me think about our society and how we rush to be over things. We even feel guilty taking extra time to rest until we are fully better, instead rushing to get back into things as soon as we feel just a little better.
This not only applies to our physical health. It also applies to our mental health; to the traumas and losses we experience.
We apply the same “soldier on” mentality to grief. There is no allowance made for the time it takes to process and recover from a loss event.
RECOVERY IS REHABILITATION
I read an article lately in which the writer described the recovery time as rehabilitation. Rehabilitation’s Latin roots mean to stand, make or be firm again. This means recovery is about being able to stand again.
That is the aim of counselling. To be able to stand firm again.
When you have a physical injury, you usually seek medical help. When you are struggling with grief you may seek mental health help and you may feel you are failing because you aren’t “over it” yet.
RECOVERY TAKES TIME AND EFFORT
If you are recovering from a physical injury, there is an understanding that recovery takes time and effort.
There needs to be an awareness that a mental injury, like grief, requires time and effort to recover and be able to stand firm again.
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
It is important to remember that physical injury recovery does not necessarily involve a complete return to past normal. What happens instead is a return to a new normal.
This is the same process with grief. How can you lose someone you love and not be changed by that? The recovery process in grief involves a return to a new normal.
Recovery is often an improvement in the current circumstances rather than a return to past normal.
PUSHING AT THE LIMITS
With a physical illness, the rehabilitation regime encourages people to push gently at the limits of what they are able to do. This prevents the person being trapped in a shrinking range of movement. What happens when those limits are tested is that the person expands their range of movement.
How do you test the limits of grief? What can you do to gently push at the limits of what you are able to do?
THE BALANCE OF RECOVERY FROM GRIEF
Recovering from grief is a tricky balance. Initially you need to allow yourself time to just be. To allow yourself to catch up with the pace of events.
You need to sit with what has happened. You need to allow yourself the space to absorb the reality of what has happened.
You also need to allow yourself time to cry, experience a range of emotions, push back against what has happened, wonder how you will ever be able to stand firm again.
PUTTING YOUR GRIEF IN PLASTER
If you picture grief as an injury, this is the healing time. It is the time when your grief is “in plaster” and the broken pieces are knitted together.
Notice that broken bones heal because the bone heals itself. The plaster is merely there to hold the bone together in a good position to allow it to heal.
Allowing yourself time to just be is like the plaster around a broken bone. You do the healing, the time to just be gives you support to heal.
BEING LEFT IN PEACE
Hildegard of Bingen, a famous healer of the middle ages, described healing as greening. She believed that to be healed is to be reinvigorated by the same force that gives life to everything, from trees to human beings.
Gavin Frances, a GP who specialises in recovery, describes healing as being like growing a plant. We need the right nutrients, environment and attitude and to be left in peace.
That last phrase is really important. To Be Left In Peace.
PLASTER OFF, NOW THE ACTIVE RECOVERY
At some stage the plaster comes off.
You are now in active recovery time. The time when you undergo rehabilitation.
This is the time of testing limits, of increasing your range of movement.
This is the time when you slowly increase your range of activity. When you step out in the world again.
THE CLASH WITH THE MEDICAL MODEL
The medical model approach to mental health is an extension of the physical health model. It works on the assumption that all treatments should be measurable and reproducible. This leads to one size fits all models for treating mental health issues. It even pathologises grief!
The medical model doesn’t work well with all physical illnesses. It overlooks the fact that human beings are individuals so one size fits all does not work. It also overlooks the part our emotions play in healing.
If the medical model doesn’t work with all physical illnesses why do we think it will work with mental health challenges? Why do we think overlooking emotions is going to lead to healing?
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SUFFERING
It is always important to acknowledge your suffering. And, if you come to see me, I will also acknowledge your suffering. Because you need the validation of others recognising that you are suffering.
Just as with a physical injury, sometimes you need outside help to assist with healing. For a physical injury it might be a physiotherapist.
If grief gets overwhelming a grief trained counsellor is important to see.
It is important to give yourself the opportunity to express all those jumbled emotions around grief. To express the
• “what ifs”,
• the “if onlys”,
• the “I should haves”,
• the guilt at what you did or didn’t do,
• the harsh judgements of your behaviour,
• the anger at yourself, your loved one, the world.
• The utter desolation at losing this important person from your life.
It is important to allow yourself to be human. To allow yourself time to gently try your limits. To accept that recovery is about being able to stand again, not returning to what once was.
Then we can see your grief as “possibilitation”. This is the opportunity to work towards the best possible version of your life.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief recovery and learning to stand firm again, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
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