Bereavement and Grieving
It was my brother's birthday last month and he was all I could think about for days. Family members rang to make sure I was okay. I thought about having a drink for him but wasn't sure I would stop once I started.
I get a newsletter once a month from the Support After Suicide Group. They have get-togethers and offer lots of good advice from people who have gone through similar experiences. I've never gone along to one of their meetings, but I read the newsletters and occasionally I get something out of it that helps me to get on with the day to day things.
Today I received one such newsletter with a page about debunking some myths about bereavement and grieving. I thought it was one of the better articles I've read and wanted to share it with you in the hope that if you too are grieving you may get something out of it.
Dr Kubler-Ross popularised the theory that you go through certain stages when you are grieving and it has been inferred that the stages of grief are sequential and predictable; that is the first myth about grief; it certainly is neither sequential nor predictable.
It is probably more helpful to speak of grief in terms of "chaos" rather than stages!
When you speak of grief in terms of linear time, based on a stage theory you can start to think of grief as an illness or breavement as a disease, and it is not.
The way people grieve varies according to many unpredictable variables such as age, gender, day of the week, level of intimacy or the sort of interdependency you had with the person who died, the nature of the death, etc. All these variables affect the way you grieve.
Most people would probably resonate more with the experience of Anna Bardsley who writes:
I have heard grief described as a process, heard the words 'stages of grief'. Process and stages are such tidy words and grief is anything but tidy or orderly, it is a mess, much more like the storm raging outside my window. A storm which buffets me at its will. Winds that rage, then subside, only to rage again. Rain that drenches me or drizzles and drizzles until I am wet through. Sometimes I can hold up an umbrella or take shelter. Other times there is no shelter, the umbrella is torn inside out and ripped out of my hands. I am left alone and vulnerable to the power of the storm raging around and within me.
Compassionate Friends Newsletter June-July 2002
Another myth that people carry that could interfere with the accommodating or helping process of grieving is the notion of "letting go". If you go back to the linear model or staged theory of grief, it implies that your aim in grieving is to get to "acceptance", the time when you sever the relationship and move on with your life. Around this, society has build up clichés such as: chin up; think of the kids; pull yourself together; every cloud has a silver lining; it's God's will; it's fate; it only takes time; you're young enough you can get married again; anyway she had a good innings. All these comments suggest that you should sever your relationship and get on with the rest of your life. However, you are getting on with the rest of your life. You can't not get on with the rest of your life.
What we also know is that many people maintain a relationship with the person who had died. You don't have to let go. Your loved one has died but your relationship with her/him lives forever. We call it memory. You cannot erase your memories and you need to be encouraged and given opportunities to verbalise, externalise or articulate the fact that you still have a relationship in your heart. You need ways to validate your relationship with the person who has died; after all, that is what memorabilia is all about.
When you want and need to repeatedly express your affection for your loved one who died you are not not living, you are living with your grief! You are living with what Mal McKissock terms "passionate sadness".
You hear people saying how they want to help another move on, so that the grieving person does not become paralyzed by their grief. Is it not a myth that people get paralyzed by their grief? When was the last time you saw someone paralyzed by their grief? In fact, it is fairly rare.
When you repeatedly tell your story of the one who has died, you are not paralyzed. This isn't repetitive, this is the first time you have been here, you are starting from square one and in every step you are relearning the world. You are on your own. No one has walked this path before, contrary to popular myth. You have regressed and feel incredibly vulnerable, having the vulnerability maybe of an 8 to 15 year old. This is the first time you have done it over this death and so it is a big struggle. In terms of telling the story, you are in fact sorting out your new relationship with the person who has died. When you talk about memories, when you remember, when you bring the passion of the relationship back into the present, biochemically you are actually changing what is happening to your body. It is sort of emotional respite. As you remember joyous moments you feel joy, even in the midst of grief. You need others who will help you live with your grief, live with your "passionate saddness" and parallel it with joy and relationship, as opposed to telling you to put it behind you and get on with the only important thing in life, which is joy. That is a myth!
Leave a comment