Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Lonely Journey of Grief, Part 7 of 15

IDEA: What can grief-stricken people and their helpers expect during the second stage of grief?

PURPOSE: To help helpers understand those who grieve in the months following the loss.

To imply that the “stages” of grief are discrete entities is misleading. The marks of the crisis stage recur throughout succeeding stages: the denial and disbelief, the shock, the numbness, the tears and drained emotions come back again and again. But following the funeral, what Haddon calls the crucible stage sets in. This is the lonely part of bereavement. It happens for a number of reasons:

A grieving person often feels isolated and cut off from others since family and friends who gave themselves generously during the crisis stage of grief have become caught up again with the business of life.

Sometimes weeks, even months, go by while a desperate loneliness or an unremitting emptiness overwhelms the mourner.

One widower put it this way: “I go about trying not to embarrass people by talking about the one person who is uppermost in my mind.”

A mother who had lost her daughter said, “Everybody was wonderful till after the funeral. Then it’s as if they expect the whole thing to be done with—buried with her. After that they don’t mention her name—and don’t want you to either.”

Guilt catches up with grief because of what the grieving person did or did not do for the deceased before death. In life there is always another day, but death comes with finality.

Parents feel guilt if their child dies of cancer.

Survivors of a plane crash feel guilty because they were spared and others killed. Somehow assuming blame gives us the impression that we do have a handle on life. We would rather feel guilty than helpless. Some guilt, of course, is real and must be dealt with realistically.

The bereaved may express hostility—against life, death, God, even the deceased. It is normal to want to fix blame for the loss. If we have lost someone through death, we express hostility toward anyone who cared for the patient—the doctor because he operated, etc.

Eventually there comes a feeling of utter depression and isolation. It is as if God is not longer in His heaven, as if God does not care. This awful experience of being utterly depressed and isolated is a universal phenomenon. Such depression is normal and is a part of good, healthy grief. This depression is an experience that comes to all people when something they treasure dearly is taken away from them. Hear the psalmist’s laments:

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

My soul is cast down within me.

I say to God, my rock, why has Thou forgotten me?

My adversaries taunt me, while they say continually, “Where is your God?”

When we are depressed, we find ourselves thinking thoughts we never have otherwise. We say God doesn’t care. We may even doubt that there is a God.

Jesus himself faced this loneliness when on the cross, crying out, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

The grieving person may experience physical symptoms of distress.

Unresolved grief can manifest itself in physical ailments—headaches, backaches, other somatic disorders.

Grief isn’t just an experience of sorrow but an energy-devouring series of conflicting passions. These, combined with the exhaustion of weeping or the stress of trying not to weep, as well as the lack of appetite and sleep, predispose a grieving person to illness.

“I forgot to eat—I’d suddenly realized in the evening that I hadn’t eaten a meal since the day before. I was drained with crying, but I didn’t realize till I remembered to eat something that half my weakness was coming from lack of food.”

“When I got diabetes after my wife died, I felt it was proof she was with me—because she died of it.”

“My father was deaf, and after his death I went deaf for a year.”

“I was very short of breath. I had been a very fit person and I was only in my forties, but for months after my husband died I had only to walk upstairs and I would fall panting on to the bed with pains in the veins of my arms.”

At every age level, death among the bereaved occurs at a far higher rate than among the unbereaved, and the suicide rate is far higher too.

The grieving person may become panicky.

This occurs when grieving people can think of nothing but the loss. They try hard to get their minds off the subject, but soon they're right back where they started. This starts a chain reaction, worrying about their mental health.

This inability to concentrate on other things is normal in times of grief. When something terribly important to us for a long, long time is taken from us, we can't be expected to do anything but be constantly drawn to the lost object. We suffer daily as we struggle with the gradually dawning realization that it is gone forever.

When a person begins worrying about losing his mind, he often panics, becoming almost paralyzed with fear. This can be fear of the unknown or fear of something he doesn't understand. This panic of thinking we're going through something wholly abnormal throws us deeper into despair. It is comforting to know that even panic is normal.

These are some of the frightening manifestations of the crucible stage. The next program explores what helpers can do for sufferers in the crucible of grief.