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Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember15 Oct 2016, 7:10 pm AEDT

Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Creating a space here for us to share our Grief and Loss experiences. All kinds but mostly bereavement.
- Tell us about your loss?
- What 3 things you miss most?
- What would you like to tell friends to say, do or be - to lighten the load?
- What have you learned about loss that you didn't know before?
- Do you have any quotes, links, books, organisations etc, related to loss, that you'd like to pass onto others?
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WHAT IS GRIEF?
GRIEF: The normal process of reacting to a loss. Loss is subjective but usually the loss is: Physical Loss (such as a death), Social Loss (such as divorce), or Occupational Loss (such as a job or an established role & purpose). Emotions distress to Grief & Loss can include anger, guilt, anxiety, confusion, sadness, and despair.

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In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

utopiaSenior Contributor17 Oct 2016, 9:21 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

@wambool. I hear your story and it's sad and frustrating. Okay so you can't do what you used to do. But I would have expected and hoped that your church and the youth group would still be able to include you in it's programs - in it's services. Surely they could find some volunteer work for you to do - when you feel strong enough.
Accepting help from others can be a hard thing to do. Especially when you were the one that used to provide the help. But you dedeserve the help and you need it.
I'm sorry for your loss.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

KurraSenior Contributor17 Oct 2016, 10:08 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

I agree with @utopia on this one @wambool
When you feel well enough to do so, it might be worth considering going to your church and letting them know that you would like to continue volunteering in a similar capacity and area thst you did before the injury. It's probable that you may not be able to contribute as much as you did previously but there's always something that needs an extra helping hand. Volunteering has been a way of life for you so to resume doing so would provide some validation to your underlying ABI and would be consistent with the pre ABI wambool.

It's but a thought. You choose to accept or reject tis idea. I always try to remind myself of the mantra 'Let it begin with me'. Rather than waiting for others to come to me, it is my choice to go to them. By taking that first step I am empowering myself whilst at the same time taking a strike against stigma. This happens because I bring the person not the injury to the forefront of other people's minds.

Wishing for you a pleasant and peaceful day. 🎶

In response to: Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

AppleblossomSenior Contributor17 Oct 2016, 11:40 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

I had some thoughts and "feelings" after reading some responses on this thread.

The BPD post was helpful in thinking about my dead brother. When he was still alive there so little understood about BPD. It is helpful for me to think about his divided selves and a false and authentic self. But more than him being divided it was the people around him who were fragmented and less than whole.

I found it difficult when posts were summed up as "emotional" when I had in fact felt calm. I have had the "emotional" comment before, so would like to talk about it generally. Now I am no longer feeling calm. (Does that mean I am triggered? It is a mild triggering.) It has taken me a lot of work, an unspeakable amount of hours and research and deep commitment to achieve any kind of calm about my life. No it was not guilt. It has been more than GRIEFWORK as it has had to delve into developmental psychology and attachment theory.

These days the professionals are doing courses regarding vicarious trauma. Death and grief produce a huge range of powerful emotions. Emotions that ebb & flow, change and persist over long periods. It is related more to proximity and time and the energies of attachment

It was a little like in my earlier posts on the forum when people said I was triggering myself. When at the time I had uttered or typed those words, I was not triggered, but I guess the truth was that my story may have triggered others. It is just my lived truth. People have said I was dumping or venting rather than being able to come up with an appropriate response to my fairly balanced (to my mind) self expression. It hurts a little but I accept that we cant easily understand things we have not experienced. (Eg., I find it difficult to give sympathy for what I perceive are superficial complaints.) I may be kind or even non-committal, but cannot get overly demonstrative. I will save that I hope for future grandchildren, fingers crossed. There are so many layers to our feelings.

The problem of dealing with projection is tricky. A lot more work and research about it is needed by professionals in the field. Some of the people who have hurt me a lot are people who are proud of themselves as empaths. True empathy is a wonderful gift for the giver and recipient. Pride in one's empathy is a bit problematic.

@wambool I am still feeling for you. There are certainly no easy answers to the experience of loss you had. It may or may not be appropriate to go back into the church environment you came from. I tend to steer away from advice giving.

I was in a situation where others benefitted a great deal from me but when I was in pain, they were not able to be half-way decent let alone functionally supportive. Those who kept wanting to thrust me back into that environment and psychologists were among them, and I tried to do as they asked, were actually telling me to go back into a stockolm syndrome type situation.

My personal belief is that we should stick to "I" statements more than kind suggestions, based on limited information.

@wambool I also have mild head injuries now, mostly manifest in constant head pain and heaviness. I dont fully know how it effects me. The medical imagery is still incomplete as the docs get het up about the things they can see and measure easily. It was as a result of a long period of intermittent, and unwitting self harm. Thats my life. My education is still hiding in there some where .. but mostly I am bear with a sore head who is trying not to roar too loud and frighten everybody off.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember17 Oct 2016, 6:33 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @Appleblossom, you sound a bit angry, I have found the posts to be difficult to follow, and respond too. So much in them. Hope I didn't upset you, or anyone. Glad the BPD post helped you understand your late brother better. It's the clearest article I've ever read about BPD, helps me understand myself a bit better too, though confronting. Yoi have had doooo much loss, i think your understanding of MI + loss is way ahead of mine - do like reading your well written posts & alternative points of view. Keep posting / taisimg awareness, anyway, thanks.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Unknown userMember23 Oct 2016, 3:46 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Copied across from thread:
"FEELING DESPERATE"
(hope you don't mind Misty1)

Misty1
Casual Contributor
3:32AM
Two months ago my eldest daughter died by suicide. She would have turned 23 years old in two days.

I read her diaries and discovered that she had been raped when she was 19. I am sure the assault was the tipping point for her into a downward spiral. But the reality is that I feel responsible for her years of misery and struggle.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father, anxious, controlling mother and violent MI brother. My brother died by suicide at 24yrs of age.
I have been depressed since I was a teenager.

I had a breakdown when this daughter was 8 yrs old. One day when her father brought her and her two sisters to the Psych ward for a visit, I turned away and faced the wall. She took this as rejection. I tried to explain that it was because I felt guilty and that I did love her. She never forgave me.

I had done everything for the girls before I 'got sick' and afterwards I did a lot less.

My problem is I don't know how to survive the distress and overwhelming agony I feel.

My daughter was a talented, caring, beautiful girl and I feel shattered. I don't see how I can ever forgive myself for not being what she needed me to be.

The death of my father, (expected), followed by the death of a good friend (unexpected) three months before my daughter's death had already resulted in my feeling depressed. I could see how that could eventually pass, but I do not see how this feeling of all consuming misery will pass.

My youngest daughter is finishing VCE. People keep reminding me I need to be strong, I need to be there for her. I wish I could just switch off feeling miserable. All I ever wanted for my three girls, who I love more than anything, was a safe, nurturing, stable, loving home.

I feel so desperately sad and trapped. I love my husband and my two girls, but I am hurting them by being depressed.

I am on anti depressants and currently seeing an excellent Psychiatrist. He helped me navigate a soul destroying bullying episode, which resulted in resigning from a school I loved and had been teaching at for 18 years. I have been seeing him fortnightly for five years. I am currently seeing him weekly. But I am feeling more and more overwhelmed and desperate.

I know I am the only one who can do anything about the way I feel. I can't do what I want to do because it would hurt so many people. I don't know what to do.

In response to: Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

SilenusSenior Contributor23 Oct 2016, 4:03 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

This, from @Appleblossom:

"The problem of dealing with projection is tricky. A lot more work and research about it is needed by professionals in the field. Some of the people who have hurt me a lot are people who are proud of themselves as empaths. True empathy is a wonderful gift for the giver and recipient. Pride in one's empathy is a bit problematic."

I would simply say this... bugger the professionals... they can go and do their thing as they please... but... this problem of projection is paramount in all of our lives...

We need to deal with it... us... me... you... everyone...

When you are a natural creature of the now moment, there is no projection... projection is your past self, your past relationship with someone else, your view of another person or event or life circumstance... your experience, masquerading as wisdom...

Projection is everywhere... we all do it... projecting ourselves onto the blank canvas that is another person or another life situation...

It is an integral part of the concept of self and of the world of thought...

In order to move away from this constantly damaging and limiting process of projection, there needs to be a movement away from the deeply divisive and conflicting concept of self...

There is no self... there just is...

Perhaps this goes somewhat too far for most people... I don't know... I... the whole concept of "I"... the whole idea of separateness between me and you, us and them...

So divisive... so conflicted...

This projection... it is perhaps our greatest insanity as a self-aware species...

Awareness of self is not the conclusion of our personal evolution... it is merely another step along the path... step beyond self, and see the union of all life together as one...

That is when projection begins to fall away, and true seeing starts...

I said this to myself when I realised all of this...

"Take a moment to blink, to adjust your eyes... you have been blind all your life... this new way of seeing takes a while to get used to..."

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

pipSenior Contributor23 Oct 2016, 4:34 pm AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @Former-Member. Sorry I have taken a while to get back to you. My bf contacted me and my son and told us he had told my daughter he couldn't get further involved due to our (him and my) relationship. I tried to contact my daughter last week and copped a further barrage of abuse. If I could discuss her dad's suicide (as best as I could) it may help. She did have some contact with her father's family when she was 10 or 11, maybe slightly older. At my insistence nothing was said re: his death or suicide. Just lately, she told me her and hubby were flying to N.Z (we originate from there). She mentioned trying to re-establish contact, my bf advised strongly against it (for obvious reasons). I know she changed her mind, but she can be extremely strong-minded and since this blow-up with me, may decide to contact for the Hell of it. I'm worried about consequences if she does. Her father's family blamed me at the time, rather than admit to not understanding (who does). It was easier to blame me. I guess I'll have to just wait and see what happens if she does manage to find them. Her g'parents are both deceased, but her father had 5 brothers and 2 sisters. I sometimes toy with the thought of contacting a 'spiritualist' to see if I could establish contact with my first hubby (her father) get some advice from him. I know she misses what she never had, but I sometimes feel she blames me for something I had no knowledge of. She says she just wants me to be happy, I am happy now with my bf, we (as I said) will never live together, but my daughter is anything but content. I haven't spoken to my son in-law, bit afraid to. My bf has advised to just leave things be. Kids!!!!

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

MoonGalSenior Contributor28 Oct 2016, 11:01 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason@Former-Member, @esprit, @pip, @Silenus, @Appleblossom

It is not common to share things other people have written here - but this essay by Tim Lawrence* who keeps a blog called THE ADVERSITY WITHIN really struck a cord with me today.

How often do we here the platitude 'Everything happens for a reason"? I know this makes me mouth-foamingly mad and like Tim says ... saying this ... 'Everything happens for a reason" he says ..." The words that are responsible for nothing less than emotional, spiritual and psychological violence:"

I hope this essay helps speak to our grief and lives.

http://www.timjlawrence.com/blog/2015/10/19/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason

*Tim Lawrence writes about the nitty gritty truth of living in grief. The rest of his website is also very interesting and helpful.

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

SilenusSenior Contributor28 Oct 2016, 11:44 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

There is no reason... there is no pattern... there is no "bigger picture"... there is no grand design... there is only reality, pure and simple...

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to truly perceive reality without projecting our selves onto it...

When we project our selves, our thoughts, our prejudices, our experiences, our memories onto reality, we are condemned to repeat mistakes from the past... we end up living a second-hand life... we become trapped looking at ourselves instead of looking at reality...

The image looking back at you in the mirror is not you... it is a projection... it is you, always thinking thinking thinking...

Stripping the layers of human thought, misperception and projection away from reality is perhaps the most important thing you will ever do in your life... it leads to new ways of seeing... it changes totally how you interact with reality...

In response to: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

utopiaSenior Contributor28 Oct 2016, 11:57 am AEDT

Re: Let's talk about Grief & Loss

@Silenus "our thoughts, our prejudices, our experiences, our memories" - I have struggled with this - particularly so in the past few weeks.
As my psychologist explained to me yesterday - all of those things I have projected onto another. And he's right. I did.
As he said - 'I know nothing'. I cannot project my experiences, my thoughts onto another - as it is not my story to write. It is their story.

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