I saw the promo ads for the new series "Losing it With Jillian," a knock off of "The Biggest Loser." I've never watched The Biggest Loser but the ads for the new show caught my attention. Jillian goes to the homes of overweight families and moves in with them for a week. She helps them "restore" their unbalanced lives with healthy meals and menu planning, exercise and so on. In the ads, there appeared to be a family coping with the loss of the dad/husband. So I made a note of when the show started.
Tuesday's show did not depict this family but I was still glad I caught the episode. This was a working class family from the East, around Boston I believe. The daughter and dad had already gone through gastric bypass surgery with the daughter successfully keeping the weight off but not so for the dad. The mom was also overweight and the son interested in shaping up, although not as overweight as his parents. The daughter was getting married and the family all made 6-week goals for the wedding.
Having never seen The Biggest Loser, I wasn't prepared for the drill-like, boot camp tactics of Jillian. But even more surprising was the big family secret that came out in the hour. I was really impressed with this family and just fell in love with them because of the great family love and loyalty they shared with one another. It turns out that the first child born of this couple, a son, died only a month after birth. This became a taboo topic between the family but it was clear how the events of some 22 prior years had been literally destroying them.
The unresolved and unspoken grief that persisted over the years was evident and could be detected in the relationships the family members shared with one another as well as their overall family dynamic. There was some initial healing with the simple acknowledgment of the underlying pain. The family went on to make great strides in their overall fitness plans with the dad losing almost 50 pounds and the mom 30 within that short 6-week period. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and a fitting beginning for a new life for all of these truly lovely and courageous individuals.
I am curious what will be exposed on Tuesday's upcoming episode with the widowed mom. It appears that she is holding on to old belongings which I also struggle with (two storage sheds of my husband's and parent's old belongings). I am hoping to be inspired to break with the past and move onward into the future.
But more importantly, I hope one of the benefits of airing last week's show was that it helped those unaffected by grief to gain a little glimpse into the havoc and pain resulting from losses, even years following their occurrence. This family was very brave and did far more than become healthier themselves - they helped educate, they faced their albatross and hopefully inspired others to do the same, and they promoted sympathy toward those stuck by grief. The ramifications of their strength and courage pour out into the Universe.
Showing posts with label delayed grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label delayed grief. Show all posts
Saturday, June 5, 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.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Pots of Loss
Sam confided yesterday that the reason he pushed for us to move so quickly was well meaning. He thought it would be easier for me to deal with all the recent losses (selling the house, moving to the apt., etc.) if he threw the relocation in there along with them. His reasoning was that I'd be able to deal with all the losses at the same time and get "over" them more quickly.
Although I understand his intention, from my personal experience and what I have read about multiple losses, I'm not sure this is how it works. I think you have to deal with each loss on its own. You can't combine a bunch of losses and deal with them all together. Each one is its own entity.
I know from my situation as well, that there is a limit to how much grief I can handle. When it exceeds that limit I shut down and simply can't take on any more. When my Mom was dying two years ago and I was supposed to be packing up and selling my home and moving out of state, the only issue I could focus on was my Mom. I also realized I absolutely did not possess the strength to deal with my Mom's death and then handle the issues relating to the relocation. It was too much for me. I know Husband #2 did not understand this and it was part of what led to the divorce.
This current situation seems so much a repeat of what happened two years ago. I have just "lost" my home and moved into an apartment. The place isn't even unpacked. We never had a moment to settle in or process this life changing event. And then overnight I was forced to make decisions relating to another out-of-state relocation. I feel there wasn't adequate time for me to even gain some clarity or perspective before being thrust into this new whilwind.
One of my girlfriends commented the other day that people have to move all the time for jobs and family issues. She made it sound so matter-of-fact. But timing and circumstances do figure in there too. In the recent past I have had to face a very painful divorce, the sale and move from our home, finding and moving into a small apartment, fitting all the overflow of household goods and possessions into storage units and then taking a time intensive Nursing Assistant Program because of job necessity. Maybe for other people this wouldn't be too much, but it is for me. And it is also partly because I've had to face those issues on my own while trying to figure out what is best for my sons.
Sam described me as falling apart at the seams and being a wreck. I found the description very painful to hear. He said he wants to make life easier for me but it seems as though since the move I am more despondent and unhappy. That's grief for you. You are despondent. He thinks the boys have fed off my grief which can very well be true but the reality is that my depression has been so linked into their grief. Kind of like which came first - my grief over them having to move or theirs. But it doesn't really matter which came first anyway - it is all so interconnected. All of us are having difficulty with this. Sam thinks I should buck up and demonstrate strength for the boys - no more sleeping in during the day or crying. I don't relate this to bash him - it is how he feels. I've tried to explain that grief is very powerful and cannot be so easily batted away. I see his point about trying to be there more for the boys but that doesn't mean I can will my own grief away.
I have certainly learned through all of this that we can't push grief away and expect to heal. It is walking through it, crying, hurting and even vomiting from the grief that gets us out of the basement level of pain. So for those of us with more on our plates that also means having a longer go at the process. We'll be taking those steps out of the basement at a slower pace. Or maybe we'll stop a moment to sit on the steps awhile before making the effort to go back up.
I don't believe you can lump all your losses together to make the load easier or faster to get through. Multi-tasking may work in real life but not with grief. Each loss has to be grieved on its own. I think you have to concentrate on one to experience it fully. If you try to grieve everything all at once it just becomes muddled and unclear as to what you're exactly grieving. About grief overload - too much is too much. Being a wreck and appearing as though we're falling apart at the seams is an indication that it has all become too much. It would be nice to have the ability to take a break from life's current problems to have the time to devote to the past. It would be ideal if that could be the case. As for the times when life keeps piling up the challenges, I'm not sure what the solution is. What is the strategy for grieving at the same time you are living and facing difficult circumstances?
I suppose one answer would be to deal with what is most pressing at hand and having the strength and sense to put aside the other matters for a short while. Then returning to them when life has been restored to a more even level. What I have learned is that trying to handle too much grief all at once is futile. In doing that you run the risk of tuning out and avoidance, as well as feeling insane. Losses are very profound and each has such an individual meaning and significance for us. There is a certain level of honoring our losses that I have come to recognize as necessary. They can't be lumped together like a blob of clay. Each loss has to be formed and then put into the kiln and fired. For now, I will concentrate on this new move and put some of the other losses on the shelf to fire in the kiln later. They'll still be there, safe and sound. Let me tell you, they aren't going anywhere! But right now all my focus, strength and energy is needed to mold the pot determining where the boys will end up at school.
Although I understand his intention, from my personal experience and what I have read about multiple losses, I'm not sure this is how it works. I think you have to deal with each loss on its own. You can't combine a bunch of losses and deal with them all together. Each one is its own entity.
I know from my situation as well, that there is a limit to how much grief I can handle. When it exceeds that limit I shut down and simply can't take on any more. When my Mom was dying two years ago and I was supposed to be packing up and selling my home and moving out of state, the only issue I could focus on was my Mom. I also realized I absolutely did not possess the strength to deal with my Mom's death and then handle the issues relating to the relocation. It was too much for me. I know Husband #2 did not understand this and it was part of what led to the divorce.
This current situation seems so much a repeat of what happened two years ago. I have just "lost" my home and moved into an apartment. The place isn't even unpacked. We never had a moment to settle in or process this life changing event. And then overnight I was forced to make decisions relating to another out-of-state relocation. I feel there wasn't adequate time for me to even gain some clarity or perspective before being thrust into this new whilwind.
One of my girlfriends commented the other day that people have to move all the time for jobs and family issues. She made it sound so matter-of-fact. But timing and circumstances do figure in there too. In the recent past I have had to face a very painful divorce, the sale and move from our home, finding and moving into a small apartment, fitting all the overflow of household goods and possessions into storage units and then taking a time intensive Nursing Assistant Program because of job necessity. Maybe for other people this wouldn't be too much, but it is for me. And it is also partly because I've had to face those issues on my own while trying to figure out what is best for my sons.
Sam described me as falling apart at the seams and being a wreck. I found the description very painful to hear. He said he wants to make life easier for me but it seems as though since the move I am more despondent and unhappy. That's grief for you. You are despondent. He thinks the boys have fed off my grief which can very well be true but the reality is that my depression has been so linked into their grief. Kind of like which came first - my grief over them having to move or theirs. But it doesn't really matter which came first anyway - it is all so interconnected. All of us are having difficulty with this. Sam thinks I should buck up and demonstrate strength for the boys - no more sleeping in during the day or crying. I don't relate this to bash him - it is how he feels. I've tried to explain that grief is very powerful and cannot be so easily batted away. I see his point about trying to be there more for the boys but that doesn't mean I can will my own grief away.
I have certainly learned through all of this that we can't push grief away and expect to heal. It is walking through it, crying, hurting and even vomiting from the grief that gets us out of the basement level of pain. So for those of us with more on our plates that also means having a longer go at the process. We'll be taking those steps out of the basement at a slower pace. Or maybe we'll stop a moment to sit on the steps awhile before making the effort to go back up.
I don't believe you can lump all your losses together to make the load easier or faster to get through. Multi-tasking may work in real life but not with grief. Each loss has to be grieved on its own. I think you have to concentrate on one to experience it fully. If you try to grieve everything all at once it just becomes muddled and unclear as to what you're exactly grieving. About grief overload - too much is too much. Being a wreck and appearing as though we're falling apart at the seams is an indication that it has all become too much. It would be nice to have the ability to take a break from life's current problems to have the time to devote to the past. It would be ideal if that could be the case. As for the times when life keeps piling up the challenges, I'm not sure what the solution is. What is the strategy for grieving at the same time you are living and facing difficult circumstances?
I suppose one answer would be to deal with what is most pressing at hand and having the strength and sense to put aside the other matters for a short while. Then returning to them when life has been restored to a more even level. What I have learned is that trying to handle too much grief all at once is futile. In doing that you run the risk of tuning out and avoidance, as well as feeling insane. Losses are very profound and each has such an individual meaning and significance for us. There is a certain level of honoring our losses that I have come to recognize as necessary. They can't be lumped together like a blob of clay. Each loss has to be formed and then put into the kiln and fired. For now, I will concentrate on this new move and put some of the other losses on the shelf to fire in the kiln later. They'll still be there, safe and sound. Let me tell you, they aren't going anywhere! But right now all my focus, strength and energy is needed to mold the pot determining where the boys will end up at school.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Game Face
As we gear toward selling the house and moving, I am doing my best to put on and wear my game face. I suppose it is a good thing that I have had to go to my retail job over the summer. Granted, it is not a job in my field but it has forced me to interact with the world, manage my time and learn new skills. I can look at it as a training period for my next job which will hopefully be full time and in my field. It may also be possible that working has helped elevate my mood and forced me to keep on going when it would have been so much easier to mope, brood and cry around the house.
The timing of my husband's death prevented much self-pity or even sufficient grieving. The boys were only nine and ten and required too much of my time and attention. All of the whirlwind events that followed, also prevented any real opportunity for self-reflection or healing. I spent what little free time there was caring for others. In a sense I do feel like I was cheated out of a mourning period. And that has caused its own issues because when my second husband filed for divorce, I think the full extent of my grief over everything from the past hit me far harder than it would have, had I had a chance to deal with the older losses when they'd occurred.
As it stands now, there is a huge pit in my stomach and I hurt and I am scared. I am still dealing with the utter sadness and betrayal I feel from the situation with my second husband. I just can't dismiss these feelings - I am still in pain. The agony of my failed second marriage is tied in with all of the anguish I feel about my husband's death, the hardship of being an only parent, my parent's aging issues, my Mom's death, the estrangement from my siblings and the financial issues. All in all, when I review the past seven years, it is all such a dark, gloomy, trying and utterly bleak period of suffering. For me, there has been a huge struggle in having had to deal with so many tragedies. It was not just my husband's death - it morphed into multiple losses and heartache. I am also understanding that my second marriage symbolized a new beginning and hope for me - when it crumbled, my faith and hope in the future seemed to also vanish.
So as the clock clicks down to our closing date on September 8, I am doing my best to face the world and this new loss. But while the game face I am presenting may hide to the world my inner turmoil, it is churning and churning deep inside me.
Today I am grateful:
1. For shelter from the elements and food in the pantry.
2. For my education - no one can ever take that away from me.
3. For baked beans - there is not a more tasty, cheap filling food out there in a can.
4. For the power of music to lift the spirit.
5. That my boys have many friends and are socially adjusted.
The timing of my husband's death prevented much self-pity or even sufficient grieving. The boys were only nine and ten and required too much of my time and attention. All of the whirlwind events that followed, also prevented any real opportunity for self-reflection or healing. I spent what little free time there was caring for others. In a sense I do feel like I was cheated out of a mourning period. And that has caused its own issues because when my second husband filed for divorce, I think the full extent of my grief over everything from the past hit me far harder than it would have, had I had a chance to deal with the older losses when they'd occurred.
As it stands now, there is a huge pit in my stomach and I hurt and I am scared. I am still dealing with the utter sadness and betrayal I feel from the situation with my second husband. I just can't dismiss these feelings - I am still in pain. The agony of my failed second marriage is tied in with all of the anguish I feel about my husband's death, the hardship of being an only parent, my parent's aging issues, my Mom's death, the estrangement from my siblings and the financial issues. All in all, when I review the past seven years, it is all such a dark, gloomy, trying and utterly bleak period of suffering. For me, there has been a huge struggle in having had to deal with so many tragedies. It was not just my husband's death - it morphed into multiple losses and heartache. I am also understanding that my second marriage symbolized a new beginning and hope for me - when it crumbled, my faith and hope in the future seemed to also vanish.
So as the clock clicks down to our closing date on September 8, I am doing my best to face the world and this new loss. But while the game face I am presenting may hide to the world my inner turmoil, it is churning and churning deep inside me.
Today I am grateful:
1. For shelter from the elements and food in the pantry.
2. For my education - no one can ever take that away from me.
3. For baked beans - there is not a more tasty, cheap filling food out there in a can.
4. For the power of music to lift the spirit.
5. That my boys have many friends and are socially adjusted.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Delayed Grief
My grief journey has the unfortunate addition of what I've chosen to call "delayed grief." After my husband died, a number of difficult events followed in close succession that required my full attention and I pretty much shelved the grieving I needed to do. Not because I wanted to but because I had to.
That first year following his death remains a blur to me. It was like living through the motions of life - just getting by - living on autopilot. I remember being so relieved that the first year was over. But what I discovered was that the second year was far worse because the full impact of what I had really lost and how life had changed was recognized. In those first weeks and months following the death we got lots of meals and food. Sometimes five dinners a day. But no one was hungry or wanted to eat much and all that food got thrown out. During the second year I really wished that food was around. We were hungry again and I had started to really grieve - it would have been so helpful to have experienced the well wishes of others during that phase when it could have been really used and been fully appreciated!
Just a few months after the year anniversary of my husband's death, my youngest son collapsed in a movie theater and we were given the diagnosis of Long QT Syndrome, which is a potentially fatal heart arrhythmia. It was recommended that I have a pace maker put into my son just days after his collapse. My son had actually been told by the pediatric cardiologist that he could die! Smart move, Doc! My son was terrified and I was still a grieving widow now being told I might lose my youngest. I trusted my instincts and decided to get a second opinion and we ended up working with Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for seven months of extensive diagnostic and genetic testing.
During that time I didn't let my youngest out of my sight and even had him sleep with me. We made weekly trips to two hospitals and also consulted the Mayo Clinic. He was also hospitalized. Lets just say that all of my energies were focused on comforting my child, parenting the other son and trying to cope with another disaster. The hardest part of this experience was not having had the support of a spouse. I was already so depleted from the three years of caring for my husband through his illness. But strangely, we were all so used to being at hospitals all the time, it was also a kind of comforting/familiar situation as well! I mean I was used to dealing with doctors and spending lots of time at hospitals so it was almost a continuation of the life we'd been living with my husband.
The other aspect of my son's experience was that in making the complicated and scary medical decisions I had to make for my son, I felt pretty confident that I'd known my husband intimately enough to make the decisions he would have wanted and approved of as well. In a way, it was like I had my husband with me in spirit becasue with every decision I made, I always asked myself if it would have been okay with my husband. Anyway, my son was eventually cleared of the diagnosis although he has Vasal Vagal which is fainting at the sight of blood and the reason he had collapsed (while watching a movie scene with blood in it). But as soon as our lives had gotten back to a little normalcy, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and both of my parent's health took a turn for the worse.
I began to help care for them and as the year went on, the caretaking duties increased. But again, I was interacting with doctors and going to hospitals and it all felt strangely familar. The only bad part of all this was that all the backlogged grief was still there and I was stretched too thin - caring for kids as an only parent and then caring for my folks. Need I mention that I was not taking care of myself? This is not a good choice to make, I have learned!
It was during this time that I started to date my second husband, we had a whirlwind romance and married after seven months. Most of our time together was spent going to hospitals to visit my parents, or the assisted living facilities they lived in when they weren't in the hospital. And of course during this entire period since my husband's death I had not spent much time orgainizing my affairs or the estate, etc. My house was also sorely unattended to. My new husband and I had made the agreement that we would live apart for the first year of our marriage to give me time to get the house taken care of, put on the market to sell, etc.
But, life had other plans and my parent's continued to need help and I had difficulty taking care of everything on my own. By the time nine months had passed, my mom was in the hospital dying of cancer and my father hospitalized at another for his health conditions! The dominos kept falling! A tornado struck our town a week after my mom's death and we suffered severe damage to my propery - then there was the draining task of clearing/cleaning out my parent's home... Fast forward, dealing with a husband who'd filed for divorce and still having to face the grief I'd put aside. But now that grief included feelings concerning my son's medical diagnosis, my mom's death, my dad's illnesses and near death, sibling crap and a whole lot of other stuff mixed in to make the stew even more spicy!
In writing this blog I find myself really focusing on the grief surrounding my husband's death and I suppose it is because I finally have an opportunity to work on that. I do wish that my life had allowed me to do my grief work in a timely manner - 4 or 5 years ago instead of now. And it is really crappy and unfair that I've had to deal with other hardships besides widowhood - really, that is a hard enough adjustment on its own! But I am very grateful for this vehicle in which to process and express myself. It is a little wierd because I feel like these are all new and raw emotions but that simultaneously I have the perspective of time having passed!
Today I am grateful:
1. For the hope and clean slate a new day brings.
2. For being able to experience a new day.
3. For everything I have accomplished during the past five years (and the heck to everything I wasn't able to do! Look at all that I lived through!).
4. To be finally given a chance to be able to concentrate on my grief work.
5. For some of the peace and perspective I am gaining.
That first year following his death remains a blur to me. It was like living through the motions of life - just getting by - living on autopilot. I remember being so relieved that the first year was over. But what I discovered was that the second year was far worse because the full impact of what I had really lost and how life had changed was recognized. In those first weeks and months following the death we got lots of meals and food. Sometimes five dinners a day. But no one was hungry or wanted to eat much and all that food got thrown out. During the second year I really wished that food was around. We were hungry again and I had started to really grieve - it would have been so helpful to have experienced the well wishes of others during that phase when it could have been really used and been fully appreciated!
Just a few months after the year anniversary of my husband's death, my youngest son collapsed in a movie theater and we were given the diagnosis of Long QT Syndrome, which is a potentially fatal heart arrhythmia. It was recommended that I have a pace maker put into my son just days after his collapse. My son had actually been told by the pediatric cardiologist that he could die! Smart move, Doc! My son was terrified and I was still a grieving widow now being told I might lose my youngest. I trusted my instincts and decided to get a second opinion and we ended up working with Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago for seven months of extensive diagnostic and genetic testing.
During that time I didn't let my youngest out of my sight and even had him sleep with me. We made weekly trips to two hospitals and also consulted the Mayo Clinic. He was also hospitalized. Lets just say that all of my energies were focused on comforting my child, parenting the other son and trying to cope with another disaster. The hardest part of this experience was not having had the support of a spouse. I was already so depleted from the three years of caring for my husband through his illness. But strangely, we were all so used to being at hospitals all the time, it was also a kind of comforting/familiar situation as well! I mean I was used to dealing with doctors and spending lots of time at hospitals so it was almost a continuation of the life we'd been living with my husband.
The other aspect of my son's experience was that in making the complicated and scary medical decisions I had to make for my son, I felt pretty confident that I'd known my husband intimately enough to make the decisions he would have wanted and approved of as well. In a way, it was like I had my husband with me in spirit becasue with every decision I made, I always asked myself if it would have been okay with my husband. Anyway, my son was eventually cleared of the diagnosis although he has Vasal Vagal which is fainting at the sight of blood and the reason he had collapsed (while watching a movie scene with blood in it). But as soon as our lives had gotten back to a little normalcy, my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and both of my parent's health took a turn for the worse.
I began to help care for them and as the year went on, the caretaking duties increased. But again, I was interacting with doctors and going to hospitals and it all felt strangely familar. The only bad part of all this was that all the backlogged grief was still there and I was stretched too thin - caring for kids as an only parent and then caring for my folks. Need I mention that I was not taking care of myself? This is not a good choice to make, I have learned!
It was during this time that I started to date my second husband, we had a whirlwind romance and married after seven months. Most of our time together was spent going to hospitals to visit my parents, or the assisted living facilities they lived in when they weren't in the hospital. And of course during this entire period since my husband's death I had not spent much time orgainizing my affairs or the estate, etc. My house was also sorely unattended to. My new husband and I had made the agreement that we would live apart for the first year of our marriage to give me time to get the house taken care of, put on the market to sell, etc.
But, life had other plans and my parent's continued to need help and I had difficulty taking care of everything on my own. By the time nine months had passed, my mom was in the hospital dying of cancer and my father hospitalized at another for his health conditions! The dominos kept falling! A tornado struck our town a week after my mom's death and we suffered severe damage to my propery - then there was the draining task of clearing/cleaning out my parent's home... Fast forward, dealing with a husband who'd filed for divorce and still having to face the grief I'd put aside. But now that grief included feelings concerning my son's medical diagnosis, my mom's death, my dad's illnesses and near death, sibling crap and a whole lot of other stuff mixed in to make the stew even more spicy!
In writing this blog I find myself really focusing on the grief surrounding my husband's death and I suppose it is because I finally have an opportunity to work on that. I do wish that my life had allowed me to do my grief work in a timely manner - 4 or 5 years ago instead of now. And it is really crappy and unfair that I've had to deal with other hardships besides widowhood - really, that is a hard enough adjustment on its own! But I am very grateful for this vehicle in which to process and express myself. It is a little wierd because I feel like these are all new and raw emotions but that simultaneously I have the perspective of time having passed!
Today I am grateful:
1. For the hope and clean slate a new day brings.
2. For being able to experience a new day.
3. For everything I have accomplished during the past five years (and the heck to everything I wasn't able to do! Look at all that I lived through!).
4. To be finally given a chance to be able to concentrate on my grief work.
5. For some of the peace and perspective I am gaining.
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