This is an extension to my earlier post. Just the other day I was reading a novel (Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani) in which the main character faces the death of her mom and moving from her home. The author mentioned how these two events are at the top of life stressors. Reading this was interesting to me because I had been contemplating this very issue. I will use the example of the annoying baseball mom and the hypothetical issue of her caring for her parents. In real life her dad attends all the games and both parents are spry and chipper. But for the sake of an example I'll alter the situation so she is caring for elderly, sick, feeble-minded parents.
On its face, of course this is a difficult and trying situation. Many of us baby boomers are involved in this aspect of life. But it is generally easier (physically and emotionally) for a married woman to be involved in this task compared to a widowed mom with young kids as I was when I was involved with caregiving. So it is not the sad aspect of the situation that is different (caring for aging parents) but rather the circumstances surrounding that situation.
When I look at other people's lives what hits me is not that they don't have to face problems or grief, but rather that they haven't had to deal with so much upheaval in their lives. Perhaps that is where the difference lies. And it ends up having nothing to do with problems or grief but rather the upheavals surrounding difficulty.
The upheaval surrouding the death of a spouse and being left with children to raise alone affects so many aspects and areas of one's life, I don't have a short and sweet way to describe it. You are thrown into a tailspin, left reeling, spinning and dizzy, yet expected to get up, dust yourself off and bravely march forward. That is upheaval. Moving from a large home and into an apartment, selling a home to avoid foreclosure, packing and sorting and tossing all by oneself with no one to lean on is upheaval. Example baseball mom didn't lose a spouse and spend the next set of years raising kids alone. Nor was she forced to leave her home.
Yes, she experienced the normal range of daily annoyances we all do but she had the support of her husband next to her. So in the end it is easier for her to cope, deal with and face the issue of her aging parents. She has more energy and resolve because there has been less upheaval in her life.
The definition of upheaval is great agitation and change. When I look around me at the other women in my community, I don't see any who have moved or had to cope with the death of their spouse. Those are events of such magnitude, agitation and change. I think that is where my frustration has been lying. That the seesaw is so tilted in regard to the amount of upheaval the boys and I have had to face vs. less upheaval of others.
There is reason to be concerned. Some days I am so worried about finances and how the boys are going to get through college I believe I am at risk for cancer and/or a heart attack. It is widely believed that people with less emotional support in their lives face greater stress and greater health problems. Married folks (even those with problems and what marriage is perfect) have better health than those who are unmarried and desire to be so. I feel all of this when I'm with the moms and parents of my community.
There are various stress tests out there (even Dr. Phil had one in one of his books) that rate life events. If some of us have experienced far more of those events in our lives, of course our lives, perspectives and feelings are going to be different than those who have not. How can the bridge of understanding be crossed to give acknowledgment to those differences? Why is it such a bad thing for someone to say, "Gee, she's had to face a heck of a lot" instead of trying to always have an even playing score. Life isn't fair. People's experiences aren't either. What's the purpose of those life stressor tests anyway when all is said and done in the end?
I want to get past the feelings of unfairness and betrayal I feel when I compare my life to that of others. But it isn't easy for me to dismiss - perhaps because I am still struggling and life is so hard. Maybe these feelings will only dissipate when my life improves a bit and I start to regain some of the footing I've lost. Maybe when you're still caught up in the struggle it is too hard to be able to stand back and have a more alturistic nature.
There is a difference between a grief event/experience and then the upheaval that comes afterward. They are not one and the same. Maybe this all has nothing to do with grief but rather surviving upheaval, hardships and change that have wrecked havoc on my life the past seven years.
Showing posts with label Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory. Show all posts
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Grief Combined With Life Stress
I had a light bulb moment, which has resulted in giving me a great deal of peace of mind. It was prompted by my reading an editorial about Sandra Bullock's current situation. The author, praised Sandra's strength and resolve and added that most other people would have collapsed under the pressure. Collapsed under the pressure? What does that mean? I wish I could collapse, tune out, take a break from all of this. Remember when it was fashionable to have a nervous breakdown? Does anyone know how you go about having one because I'd like to have a rest at a sanitarium. Do those places even exist anymore? Now I'm kind of kidding here and kind of not. I have through the years thought about this. If indeed, it all becomes too much to bear what do people do who can't cope anymore? I'm not sure if I walked into the hospital and said, "I can't take it anymore" that it would amount to anything. Other than trying to kill myself, I don't know of any real way to collapse. I mean, really what would come down if I just refused to get up in the morning and started to stay in bed all day? The boys could probably manage to get by on their own and there would be a small amount of money with our monthly pension. They'd continue to go to school and no one would be the wiser.
I just can't envision collapsing and I take offense with comments by this author, throwing it out there when there really isn't anyway for people like me to escape from our hardships, even briefly. I've had no choice but to be strong and keep plodding forward. So part of me has been upset with comments by those who've said, "Keep standing strong, put your big girl pants on and face it," and so on. I did what I had to do because there was no other option! I don't deserve any reward for doing what I've had to do.
Well, the "Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory" was mentioned in this article so I decided to take it. Being in the social services field, I'm aware of the test that lists the most stressful event a person can face as the death of a spouse - 100 points. And of course I am well aware that the past six years since my husband's death have been very trying and difficult. What I found surprised me a little.
For the first two years, (2003-2005) I scored a 305 which indicates "a major life crisis and is highly predictive (80%) of serious physical illness within the next two years." Anything over a 300 is dangerous. I had a score of 363 for the years of 2005-2007. Instead of going down, the score went up. Not a good thing! But it really shot up during the period of my divorce from 2007-2009, with a total of 503! Again, instead of my score lowering or stabilizing, it was sky high, off the charts!
Now, this scale is not perfect and there have been criticisms of it. But I think as a baseline it is a picture of the stress existing in our lives. So far this year, I'm at a score of 237 which is within the moderate range of life crisis and contributes to us getting ill, suffering from high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, chest and back pain.
My eyes were opened after taking the test and seeing the results. It has been challenging enough to have been widowed and then try to grieve in an effective manner that allows me to move on with life. But when you add major life stressors on top of it all, it tips the scale over. To have to deal with grief and stress at the same time and to keep on going in some manner of functioning. I am surprised I'm not dead. It was a lot of grief and stress packed into a very condensed period of time. That has been my reality. Flip flopping between grief and stress, life stress and grief.
What I want to put out there on the table is that for widows/widowers, it is not usually just the grief. Many of us will be forced to move, or we'll remarry or face other major life stressors. That combination of grief and stress is significant (all those secondary grief losses again!). But I don't think this is really brought into the equation. The focus is always just on the actual grief from the death. But as you can see in my pitiful example, my life stress and life conditions greatly worsened after my husband's passing. This needs to be accounted for and added into the total picture.
For me at least, the stress hindered my ability to grieve effectively. I had to put the grief on hold - hang it up each time I had to address a new calamity. A year after my husband's death, my youngest was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome and that sucked my little family into a new tailspin. I felt that the first year following my husband's death had been a whirlwind and I was at the point where I was ready to tackle the real nitty-gritty grief work I needed. But that all went to heck when I had to devote my entire attention and energy into my son's health crisis. And it was further delayed when I attended to my parents and their serious health issues. I was forced to pass over my grief work and as a result, it came out tenfold when I was going through my divorce. All the pain from the deaths of my husband and Mom was added to the pain of losing my second husband.
I have come to intimately know what most people out there can't even remotely fathom. Grief on its own is horrendous. Grief combined with life stress can be lethal. Based on these test scores, I'm surprised I'm still standing as tall as I am and that I haven't gotten more seriously sick. I do worry about the long-term effects of all of this stress showing up in the future. My focus right now is on what can I do to counter the effects of the past few years.
Now this is hysterical and I will end this post with it. The main suggestion for what to do with a high score is: Drum Roll please - TO AVOID LIFE STRESS IN THE FUTURE! Oh really? Can we really control much of that? The example was given to avoid moving if you're newly retired (or putting it off). But you can't delay moving if you're in foreclosure!
Here is my two cents. A week to the day of my Mom's death and two days after her memorial service and one day after my sons started back to school, an F-10 level tornado hit our town and was tracked at having originated a block from my home. I am convinced it flew over our house because we had the most severe yard damage that I saw in our community. I had been looking forward to having some private time to myself to grieve my Mom AND my husband. But of course, I had to switch gears and deal with the huge job of the yard cleanup which took weeks. Then, immediately following that there was a mix-up with my parents' closing date on the sale of their home and there was the life stress of having to clear out their large home within two weeks. How in the world does a poor person deal with that? There is no way to prevent natural disasters or crummy screw-ups with real estate agents. So the grief got shoved under the table again. And I think it is worth noting that carrying around unresolved grief has its own complications and problems with it besides.
I have gotten to the point of almost laughing about the tornado, if you can laugh about a thing like that. The pure ridiculousness of it! For awhile I even wondered if I had somehow caused the tornado - that it happened to bring more stress and strain to my life. I couldn't believe that so much "bad luck" or misfortune could happen to one person. And then I've wondered what I did in a past life to deserve such suffering. I have a hard time with the Buddhist belief of Karma because of this. If I was such a horrible person before, deserving of such hardship now, I should never have been reincarnated in the first place. No one is deserving of the stress, grief and hardships I've lived through the past six years.
But all that personal reflection aside, I don't know much about Sandra Bullock. She seems like a very nice and generous person. She is beautiful and a good actress and I'm happy she has been recognized for her artistic talents. But I think there are a lot of Sandras out here - ordinary men and women walking the widow road and dealing with life-changing events without falling apart. Continuing to raise children as only parents, go to work and seek a little bit of happiness in a sometimes less than sympathetic world. And these are the true heroes in my eyes.
I just can't envision collapsing and I take offense with comments by this author, throwing it out there when there really isn't anyway for people like me to escape from our hardships, even briefly. I've had no choice but to be strong and keep plodding forward. So part of me has been upset with comments by those who've said, "Keep standing strong, put your big girl pants on and face it," and so on. I did what I had to do because there was no other option! I don't deserve any reward for doing what I've had to do.
Well, the "Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory" was mentioned in this article so I decided to take it. Being in the social services field, I'm aware of the test that lists the most stressful event a person can face as the death of a spouse - 100 points. And of course I am well aware that the past six years since my husband's death have been very trying and difficult. What I found surprised me a little.
For the first two years, (2003-2005) I scored a 305 which indicates "a major life crisis and is highly predictive (80%) of serious physical illness within the next two years." Anything over a 300 is dangerous. I had a score of 363 for the years of 2005-2007. Instead of going down, the score went up. Not a good thing! But it really shot up during the period of my divorce from 2007-2009, with a total of 503! Again, instead of my score lowering or stabilizing, it was sky high, off the charts!
Now, this scale is not perfect and there have been criticisms of it. But I think as a baseline it is a picture of the stress existing in our lives. So far this year, I'm at a score of 237 which is within the moderate range of life crisis and contributes to us getting ill, suffering from high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, chest and back pain.
My eyes were opened after taking the test and seeing the results. It has been challenging enough to have been widowed and then try to grieve in an effective manner that allows me to move on with life. But when you add major life stressors on top of it all, it tips the scale over. To have to deal with grief and stress at the same time and to keep on going in some manner of functioning. I am surprised I'm not dead. It was a lot of grief and stress packed into a very condensed period of time. That has been my reality. Flip flopping between grief and stress, life stress and grief.
What I want to put out there on the table is that for widows/widowers, it is not usually just the grief. Many of us will be forced to move, or we'll remarry or face other major life stressors. That combination of grief and stress is significant (all those secondary grief losses again!). But I don't think this is really brought into the equation. The focus is always just on the actual grief from the death. But as you can see in my pitiful example, my life stress and life conditions greatly worsened after my husband's passing. This needs to be accounted for and added into the total picture.
For me at least, the stress hindered my ability to grieve effectively. I had to put the grief on hold - hang it up each time I had to address a new calamity. A year after my husband's death, my youngest was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome and that sucked my little family into a new tailspin. I felt that the first year following my husband's death had been a whirlwind and I was at the point where I was ready to tackle the real nitty-gritty grief work I needed. But that all went to heck when I had to devote my entire attention and energy into my son's health crisis. And it was further delayed when I attended to my parents and their serious health issues. I was forced to pass over my grief work and as a result, it came out tenfold when I was going through my divorce. All the pain from the deaths of my husband and Mom was added to the pain of losing my second husband.
I have come to intimately know what most people out there can't even remotely fathom. Grief on its own is horrendous. Grief combined with life stress can be lethal. Based on these test scores, I'm surprised I'm still standing as tall as I am and that I haven't gotten more seriously sick. I do worry about the long-term effects of all of this stress showing up in the future. My focus right now is on what can I do to counter the effects of the past few years.
Now this is hysterical and I will end this post with it. The main suggestion for what to do with a high score is: Drum Roll please - TO AVOID LIFE STRESS IN THE FUTURE! Oh really? Can we really control much of that? The example was given to avoid moving if you're newly retired (or putting it off). But you can't delay moving if you're in foreclosure!
Here is my two cents. A week to the day of my Mom's death and two days after her memorial service and one day after my sons started back to school, an F-10 level tornado hit our town and was tracked at having originated a block from my home. I am convinced it flew over our house because we had the most severe yard damage that I saw in our community. I had been looking forward to having some private time to myself to grieve my Mom AND my husband. But of course, I had to switch gears and deal with the huge job of the yard cleanup which took weeks. Then, immediately following that there was a mix-up with my parents' closing date on the sale of their home and there was the life stress of having to clear out their large home within two weeks. How in the world does a poor person deal with that? There is no way to prevent natural disasters or crummy screw-ups with real estate agents. So the grief got shoved under the table again. And I think it is worth noting that carrying around unresolved grief has its own complications and problems with it besides.
I have gotten to the point of almost laughing about the tornado, if you can laugh about a thing like that. The pure ridiculousness of it! For awhile I even wondered if I had somehow caused the tornado - that it happened to bring more stress and strain to my life. I couldn't believe that so much "bad luck" or misfortune could happen to one person. And then I've wondered what I did in a past life to deserve such suffering. I have a hard time with the Buddhist belief of Karma because of this. If I was such a horrible person before, deserving of such hardship now, I should never have been reincarnated in the first place. No one is deserving of the stress, grief and hardships I've lived through the past six years.
But all that personal reflection aside, I don't know much about Sandra Bullock. She seems like a very nice and generous person. She is beautiful and a good actress and I'm happy she has been recognized for her artistic talents. But I think there are a lot of Sandras out here - ordinary men and women walking the widow road and dealing with life-changing events without falling apart. Continuing to raise children as only parents, go to work and seek a little bit of happiness in a sometimes less than sympathetic world. And these are the true heroes in my eyes.
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