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Dealing with Grief

Living Through Grief 
By John Kennedy Saynor 

The death of someone you love is the beginning of one of the most painful times of your life. It is a time when your life comes unglued. You feel like you have lost your anchor, you have lost direction, and nobody cares. When you lose someone or something of value, the natural response to that loss is to grieve. You may grieve the loss of relatives and friends, pets, your home, friends who move, jobs, financial security, and possessions through fire, theft, or flood. You may also grieve the loss of youth, health and energy as you age.

WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES GRIEVING THE LOSS OF A LOVED ONE SO DIFFICULT?

1. The extent of the loss. When the one you love dies, you also lose your dreams and hopes for the future, a friend, someone who understands you, someone who really cares about you and someone who shares your past. When a spouse dies, you lose intimacy, possibly financial security, the driver, the carpenter, the cook and perhaps someone to argue with! Much is lost and it may take you months to understand the extent of the loss. 

2. The wide range of emotions. You may experience a range of emotions you have never known before. Anger, fear, or intense loneliness may be emotions that are foreign to your life. Experiencing any emotion for the first time may be frightening for you.

3. The intensity of the emotions. Not only do you experience new emotions, you feel them with an intensity that makes coping more difficult. These emotions can erupt like a volcano inside us. This increases the difficulty you may have sorting through your emotions and coping with them.

4. Each death is unique. The losses involved with the person who has just died are unique. No matter how many deaths you may have experienced in your life, this loss will be unique. The loss is unique, and so is the grief.

5. Lack of understanding. A grieving person will often ask, "Why do I feel the way I do?" Quite simply, most of us don't understand grief or its effect on our lives. Hopefully, the following will help you to understand what you are going through and how you can work through it.

FIVE BASIC FACTS ABOUT GRIEF
1. Grief is a process that takes a lot of time, energy and determination. You won't "get over" your grief in a hurry.

2. Grief is intensely personal. This is your grief, don't let others tell you how you should be grieving.

3. Grief is an assault on your entire being. It will affect you physically, emotionally, socially, mentally and spiritually. There will be days when you won't understand yourself or your reaction. 

4. You will be affected by this loss for the rest of your life. As time goes by, you will have new insights into what this death means to you. 

5. Grief has the potential for being transformative. You will change, your values may change and you will see life from a new and different perspective.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE?

Sadness: This will be one of the saddest times of your life. You may feel overwhelmed at times. You may be afraid that you will never laugh again.

Loneliness: It may be that you have never been this lonely before. Evenings and weekends may be the most difficult for you.

Anger: Those who are left are often angry at the doctors for not being able to do anything. You may be angry at God for not intervening. You may be angry with family and friends for not supporting you like you thought they would. You may also be angry at the person who died for leaving you!

Confusion: Grief is one of the prime causes of stress. You may experience some confusion, memory loss and inability to concentrate. This is temporary and you are not "losing your mind", stress. 

Guilt: Almost everyone finds something to feel guilty about after someone has died. It is normal to feel guilty about things you wish you had said or done. Feelings of guilt may be justified. Most often they aren't. Most of us do the best we can with our lives.

Loss: The death of one you love often involves the death of your dreams and the loss of your future as you thought it would be. You may feel completely lost. This feeling is often accompanied by intense anxiety over what the future holds.

Relief: If the death has followed a long illness, you are probably relieved that it is finally all over. This is quite normal and there is no need to feel guilty about this.

Thankfulness: It may be that you are a person for whom this death was truly "a blessing". It's okay to feel that way and to be genuinely thankful for the person who died and for the time you had together. It is true you will have days of sadness, loneliness and tears but gratitude and thankfulness are great healers.

HOW CAN YOU HELP YOURSELF?

In the end, you will find that you must make a conscious decision to work through your grief. It will be very painful at times, but you will begin to notice signs of healing. Here are some tips others have found helpful:

1. Learn all you can about grief. At the bottom of this page there is a list of books you may find helpful.

2. Give yourself permission to grieve. To feel the pain and accept the reality of your loss.

3. Be patient with the process. It takes a long time. In many aspects of your life, you may expect immediate results. Grief is different. Take time, and be patient with yourself. 

4. Get plenty of rest. Your body needs it while recovering from emotional stress.

5. Treat yourself occasionally. You're worth it! Things that add beauty to your life will comfort and encourage you. Activities like massage therapy or yoga can work wonders.

6. Find people with whom you can share your loss. Many newly bereaved people find a great deal of support and encouragement from bereavement support groups. You may find it helpful to talk with your doctor, clergy person, funeral director or a counsellor.

7. Take time to reflect on and reassess your life. What did you gain from the relationship you had? How will that relationship sustain and guide you now? How is this experience changing you? The greatest tribute you can pay your loved ones is that you learned and experienced personal growth from them. This on-going influence in your life will help you carry on.

8. Draw on the resources of your faith. Let whatever helps you make sense out of life sustain you at this time. The journey through grief is a spiritual one. Allow your spirituality to become a focus of your life. Listen to the words and music of your spirituality. Let them speak to you and give you courage and hope for your journey. The grieving process has the potential for transforming you. If you can say "yes" to that concept, then life will be renewed. You will live and love again. The memory and the love of your loved one will continue to move you and inspire you for the rest of your life.

ADDITIONAL READING

In Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice, Kenneth Doka offered a very simple definition of disenfranchised grief as an experience when "survivors are not accorded a right to grieve". Can others really deny us our right to feel sorrow and pain? Can they set limits on our bereavement? The answer is, at least in some cases, yes. It happens all the time.
In Disenfranchised Grief Revisited: Discounting Hope and Love, Dr. Thomas Attig claimed this right entitles a bereaved person to grieve when he or she needs or chooses to and in the manner in which they choose. In response, others are obligated to honor the right and refrain from interfering in the experiences and efforts of grieving. 
It's more than "a matter of indifference to the experiences and efforts of the bereaved. It is more actively negative and destructive as it involves denial of entitlement, interference, and even imposition of sanction. Disenfranchising messages actively discount, dismiss, disapprove, discourage, invalidate, and delegitimize the experiences and efforts of grieving. In this way, the people around the bereaved withhold permission, disallowing, constraining, hindering and even prohibiting the survivor's mourning.”
When Can Disenfranchised Grief Occur?
Author Jonathan Vatner shares examples of situations where disenfranchised grief can result:
  • Your ex-husband passes away, for example, and your friends don't see why it matters.
  • An executive is having a serious affair with her married co-worker. When he dies unexpectedly, the expression of her grief is limited by the covert nature of the relationship.
  • A spouse, brother, or son is missing in military action.
  • When death has occurred due to socially unacceptable causes such as AIDS or suicide.
  • A beloved dog, cat or other pet has died.
What Does Disenfranchised Grief Sound Like?
When you are mourning an unrecognized or undervalued loss, you may hear statements like this:
  • When things like this happen, all you can do is give it time and wait it out.
  • Eventually, you’ll get over this.
  • The best thing is to try to put what happened behind you and get back to normal as soon as possible. Try to go on as if nothing has changed.
  • There’s no point in looking for meaning in something like this. Suffering brings us face to face with absurdity. The best thing is to try to forget.
  • Face reality. She is dead. You will have to fill her place with something else.
Sometimes those dealing with grief disenfranchise their own grief with inner talk that sounds like this:
  • Somehow it feels disloyal to laugh or try to be happy. I sometimes feel that I owe it to him to live in sorrow.
  • What can I possibly have to look forward to?
  • I’m kind of embarrassed to admit that in some ways I seem to have grown from the death of my child.
  • How can I ever let myself love again if it all comes to this?
Suffer in Silence No More
The stress of grieving in isolation can be unbearable. If we listen to Dr. Lani Leary, even if you endure the ups-and-downs of bereavement on your own, the grief work you do will still be compromised. She tells us that it is not time that heals. Instead, healing comes with validation: "All grief needs to be blessed. In order to be blessed, it must be heard. Someone must be present, someone who is willing to hold it by listening without judgment or comparison."
In an article entitled "Mourning Becomes Neglected: 4 Healthy Ways to Grieve", author Jonathan Vatner shares these four ways you can reclaim your right to grieve and get much-needed support:
  • Recognize that there is nothing wrong with you. Whatever your feelings are, they're legitimate.
  • Find people who will understand. Search online—there are bereavement support groups for just about any type of loss.
  • Be honest about how you feel. If a well-meaning friend cracks a joke about your deceased ex-husband, explain that this loss is painful for you.
  • Develop a ritual or ceremony to commemorate the person's passing. Visit the grave after the funeral or hold a private one when you can take as much time as you need to express your anguish.
Books to Consider:

CACCIATORE, Joanne, PhD. Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss, and the Heartbreaking Path of Grief. 2017

RANDO, Therese A. How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies. 2017

HAIG, Matt. Reasons to Stay Alive. 2016 

LEDER, Steve. The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Gift. 2021
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