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Grief & Fatigue
"Anytime someone you loved died, the world was
suddenly smaller and less interesting and you, too, were diminished.
They said that these events gave you perspective but that
was sentimental. Perspective was what you had before the death,
and after it you were so heavy-hearted and blurred of mind
that you could not decide the simplest things..."
- Ward Just, The Weather in Berlin: A Novel
Grief
For profound grief it would not be unusual for the healing process to take one and a half to two years. There will forever be a part of your heart that feels the loss. Healing does not erase the pain. Healing means an ability to return to your own life.
Grief has an intensity of emotions that everyone must learn to cope with. Movement through the feelings is what keeps each of us mentally healthy. The whole world has stopped for you because of the loss. Slowly, very slowly the world will return to your awareness.
Learn to sit beside your experience of loss. There will be ten minutes when you don't think about it, then two ten minute periods in one day and those ten minutes will grow to fifteen or twenty, and then you'll be surprised a whole hour has gone by and you didn't cry.
Then you'll find yourself smiling at something, and don't shut down the smile because it feels like a betrayal. The smile is a sign of movement. Movement is too often disregarded by the grieving person because to embrace it becomes twisted into the false idea it would be to dishonor the loss. What emerges is a myth " I can keep them alive by being miserable." Moving on slowly over time is a gift no one should turn their back on.
William Worden in his text on grief counseling offers four stages when
someone has suffered a loss. The first is to accept the reality of the loss, the second is to feel the pain and adjust to your life without the other, the third is to emotionally relocate that person and the final part is healing which is when there is more comfort and less pain.
Grief is not well respected as a process in our culture. There
are many different ways to grieve and the time frame is very
different for each person. Our hearts carry the wounds of
grief differently. Pay attention to how you remember them.
Find someone to share your memories with and take time to
describe the details. Create a ritual of candle lighting or
choosing special pictures to hang. I was able to create a
panel for the Aids Quilt, which was very healing.
Profound grief can take many forms. The loss of a child is
one of the most difficult trials a person can face, and yet
for the children who are still alive it can be crucial for
a parent to find their footing again.
Not being loved by a parent can be difficult to bear for a
lifetime, it can either set the stage for mental illness or resiliency.
The element of surprise usually makes grief harder to deal
with.
The resonance of 9/11 is in part due to the shock and surprise
of what happened. If a parent dies and it is expected that is more manageable. A suicide can be a very complicated grief because suicide is both a surprise and often a very angry
act. Guilt can make all grief impossible to cope with. Get help to decontaminate the guilt. Don't walk around with secret damage.
Grief needs to be honored. In America we give people about
a week and a half to talk about it. None of us want to face our own mortality so we step away from grief in others. As W.H. Auden
said it "Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic." Many times therapists
are in the necessary role of being a witness because no one
else is honestly available.
It is terrible to feel too alone with grief. Not having a partner to share with can make the loss more unbearable.
This is why the divorce rate is high after the death of a child.
There are many aspects to grief that add to whether or not grief is bearable. It is very important to not offer platitudes about the future to someone grieving. Grief is all about remembering the past, with a giant hole in the present while the future is completely unimaginable.
Truly being able to wail is very helpful to making grief more
bearable. The ability to allow deep noises that may not even
sound human gives weight and substance to the locked up emotions.
Imagine my surprise more than 20 years ago that no one really
wails at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Wailing or keening honors the grief within.
Reading a 2006 NYTimes book review by Thurma Lynch about Sandra Gilbert's book Death's Door reminds us that "death's door is always ajar." Gilbert "is properly doubtful of the 'closure' notion." Closure is a very misleading word. Therapy is a place where the pain of grief is witnessed. In a culture that shuts the grief process down, therapy can be helpful.
While it is odd to believe that closure is even possible, it is possible to carry their memory without sacrificing your own life vitality. It is crucial to find a way to care about yourself while you grieve.
"Grief is not a process of forgetting. It is a process of learning to cope while we remember." - Doug Manning
Books
A Grief Observed
by C.S. Lewis
How To Go On Living When Someone You Love Dies
by Therese Rando Ph.D. An excellent book for grief.
Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us How to Live
by Marie de Hennezel
I Wasn't Ready to Say Goodbye: Surviving, Coping and Healing After the Sudden Death of a Loved One
by Brook Noel & Pamela Blair
Landscape without Gravity: A Memoir of Grief
by Barbara Lazear Ascher
Making Toast
by Rodger Rosenblatt
Red Hook Road
by Ayelet Waldman
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
by Harold S. Kushner
Movies About Grief
 Rabbit Hole
Nicole Kidman & Aaron Eckhart portray a happy couple who's life does a 360 when their son dies. She is inconsolable & raw with anger.
 Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School
A husband recovering from the death of his wife. Fate helps him begin to move on with dance.
 Broken Wings
An Israeli family truely suffers from the loss of their father, Truely devastating for the mother & four children left behind.
 12 and Holding
How 3 twelve year olds deal with the death of their friend/brother. Again, each one handles their grief very uniquely.
 The Son's Room
Learn how each family member struggles with grief in their own way. It is a very honest portrayal of the unbearable pain of the death of a child.
In Pittsburgh we have two organizations that do not charge for their services, Highmark Caring Place a place for grieving children and Good Grief Center.com
You can read more about grief at my blog.
Fatigue
The antidote to exhaustion is whole heartedness.
-David Whyte, poet
The above quote says it all. When you pursue what matters to you,
you are nourished by the energy. Fatigue can grow from a life
too saturated in routines like work, watching television,
eating, and sleeping. Determining meaning in your life is
important work. It is work that will require your attention
for a lifetime because meaning will constantly change. This
is illustrated delightfully in the Broadway play "Avenue
Q" which uses Muppets to describe
20-somethings searching for purpose.
I asked my daughter at 15 3/4's what was hard about
being a teen and she responded, "Deciding what's important."
I laughed with delight because that's forever work, not just
the challenge of adolescence. Routines that stifle creativity,
imagination, and chance should be suspect. Responses such
as chronic fatigue or the disease of depression or anxiety
can be signs that the soul is weary.
Feeling constantly exhausted might be a message from your soul that you are running
away from life by being too busy. It's easy to get lost in doing too much which drains
our energy so we are too depleted to do the work of connecting with others.
Sleep hygiene really is important to living well. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time.
You are rested when you wake up without an alarm clock. Don't take naps for longer than 20-25 minutes.Try to
keep your bedroom as a place for sleep, sex or rest.
Something to consider: on March 7, 2011 the National Sleep Foundation took a poll and
discovered that 95% of people report using some technology device an hour before bed.
Lauren Hale, one of the researchers says this is a problem because the devices are "...often
light-emitting, which can suppress the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and make it harder
to go to sleep at night....and the psychological effect of being stimulated."
Are You Tired and Wired?: Your Proven 30-Day Program for Overcoming Adrenal Fatigue and Feeling Fantastic Again by Marcelle Pick
Follow this link for 15 Tips on sleep from Case Western Reserve
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