Dealing with grief
Discussion
I'm fortunate in the respect that I haven't had to suffer the loss of someone near to me but a very close friend has recently lost her mum and is taking it incredibly badly.
Instead of being the out going, adventurous person that she is, she's become terribly withdrawn and is distancing herself from the people who are trying to support her through this.
I've suggested that she seeks the help of a counsellor to be able to at least unload her burden on someone who isn't attached to this situation.
I'm opening this up to PH as I'm feeling out of my depth and I'm worried that she may do something silly.
>> Edited by AC79xxx on Wednesday 18th May 14:44
Instead of being the out going, adventurous person that she is, she's become terribly withdrawn and is distancing herself from the people who are trying to support her through this.
I've suggested that she seeks the help of a counsellor to be able to at least unload her burden on someone who isn't attached to this situation.
I'm opening this up to PH as I'm feeling out of my depth and I'm worried that she may do something silly.
>> Edited by AC79xxx on Wednesday 18th May 14:44
You have to maintain contact, even by phone, continue to enforce the message that she is not alone.
Earlier in the year one of my best friends commited suicide and as a result another very close friend became very withdrawn. Its an awful situation to have to deal with but the contact must continue. Let this person grieve, but not too much.
With mates like you I am sure they will get through it just fine
Earlier in the year one of my best friends commited suicide and as a result another very close friend became very withdrawn. Its an awful situation to have to deal with but the contact must continue. Let this person grieve, but not too much.
With mates like you I am sure they will get through it just fine
I think your advice to her was very sound. I have a friend, who is a depressive anyway, but he went to pieces completely when his mother died about 4 years ago. I felt totally helpless.
All you can do is be there as a friend and a listening board but professional counselling has to be the right route.
All you can do is be there as a friend and a listening board but professional counselling has to be the right route.
Seek out a support group? Of course, this depends on the person. Sometimes individual counseling is best. Some people do well in support groups. A friend of our family lost his wife of 49 years a few years ago, and was despondent without her company. He started attending a grief support group met others who have lost their spouses, and it seemed to help. Sometimes talking to someone else who knows what it's like can help,other times, being around people who are going through the same thing may reinforce your own sad feelings rather than relieving them. It depends on the person, but some kind of talking is always helpful.
Keep talking to this person, and invite them out with you (not necessarily out drinking, but driving, sports event, movies, rent movies, dinner, etc.) so they are engaged in activities and dwell on other things in life. You may have to be a little forceful, and say, "Come out with us to do such and such, OK? You'll feel better", instead of just asking "do you want to go do..blablabla" because it's too easy to say "no, I don't feel good" or whatever.
Good luck.
Keep talking to this person, and invite them out with you (not necessarily out drinking, but driving, sports event, movies, rent movies, dinner, etc.) so they are engaged in activities and dwell on other things in life. You may have to be a little forceful, and say, "Come out with us to do such and such, OK? You'll feel better", instead of just asking "do you want to go do..blablabla" because it's too easy to say "no, I don't feel good" or whatever.
Good luck.
Sometimes, someone pushing you to see a counsellor is not the best thing and it can get so irritating that you start to avoid the friend suggesting it.
Be there as a very proactive friend, make the effort to phone or go round even if they are not in the mood, but tread carefully at the same time, it won't be easy.
Be there as a very proactive friend, make the effort to phone or go round even if they are not in the mood, but tread carefully at the same time, it won't be easy.
This totally free organisation is absolutely excellent. They meet weekly all over the country and really helped my Father and family through the sudden loss of my mother last year. I cannot recommend them highly enough.
www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/
Hope that helps.
www.crusebereavementcare.org.uk/
Hope that helps.
Plotloss said:
With mates like you I am sure they will get through it just fine
I see mates as the family you choose rather than the one you're stuck with, which is why I want to help her.
OK, so counselling was a good idea and keeping her company (to a point) is going in the right direction.
Karen182 said:
tread carefully at the same time, it won't be easy.
Isn't that the truth!
Cheers guys for the steer
let her know you are there for her. go around and just sit and hug her. words can be painful at such an early stage.
Forget nagging for a counciller let her be she will need time to deal with all sorts of emotions,
firstly disbelieve,and lonliness.
then anger and bitterness.
and finally acceptance. and sadness.
She could well be avoiding you all because she is bitter that you still have a mother,(assuming you do)
I went through allsorts of emotions when I lost my mum.
I activley despised people i saw in supermarkets shopping with there mothers As I didnt have mine any more.I didnt like older people either if they still had there parents.
I am over that now,it was hard,it still is. She will come out of this strong.
just stay in touch take her flowers, a gift,give her lots of love and affection and just let her know that you are around if she needs you. And most of all that you care.
in situations like this you truley find out who your friends are.
she will accept it one day,but unfortunately this will take some time.
jess
Forget nagging for a counciller let her be she will need time to deal with all sorts of emotions,
firstly disbelieve,and lonliness.
then anger and bitterness.
and finally acceptance. and sadness.
She could well be avoiding you all because she is bitter that you still have a mother,(assuming you do)
I went through allsorts of emotions when I lost my mum.
I activley despised people i saw in supermarkets shopping with there mothers As I didnt have mine any more.I didnt like older people either if they still had there parents.
I am over that now,it was hard,it still is. She will come out of this strong.
just stay in touch take her flowers, a gift,give her lots of love and affection and just let her know that you are around if she needs you. And most of all that you care.
in situations like this you truley find out who your friends are.
she will accept it one day,but unfortunately this will take some time.
jess
Mate of mine I was sharing a house lost a grandmother who was very close to him. I noticed after a while that he was with drawing a bit and seemed to be quite down.
Tactfull as ever, I eventually asked him if he thought she'd approve of him behaving like this, and wouldn't she have preferred everyone to get on with their lives and remember the good times.
Fortunately he took this on the chin, we went down the pub and had a good session for her wake and he never seemed to look back.
In my experience people deal with death in very different ways, some seem to shrug it off as a fact of life, others seem to linger for months in a state bordering on depression.
When my mum died (fortunately I was pressent, and she died in my arms), although it was quite sudden I was mentally pretty well prepared for it.
What got me in the few months after here death was a kind of anger that there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how much you dwell on what might have been you just can't turn back the clock - and you really need to let go of all the emotion it is causing in you.
One thing I've really noticed about western society is that there is very little instruction about, for want of a better term, "how you are supposed to feel when someone dies".
For instance I didn't really feel sad, that just seemed selfish, as I said I had a kind of anger, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel guilty about it all. In fact if the truth be known I hadn't got a clue how I was supposed to feel. It was all quite confusing. I think the time I'd spent in Katmandu left me with some skills to be able to watch the different emotions rolling through my mind, and deal with them for what they were. Just emotions that pass only to be replaced by other emotions.
If you are close to this person then one thing I would advise you to tell her is that it is ok to be angry, it is ok to be sad, it is ok to cry. It is also ok to laugh and be happy. What she needs to realise is that it is ok to 'be' - withdrawing into herself (not being anything) is bad. From my experience this is likely to be due to not really knowing what she is supposed to be feeling.
Try and get her back into life a little, and don't be too afraid of confronting her about it all, pussy footing around the subject sometimes isn't the way to go.
Obviously I don't know her but some people respond better to a bit of a proverbial slap than they do to the 'here's my shoulder to cry on' routine.
good luck
best
Ex
Ohhh P.S. If you think you can get away with it ask her if she's feeling really horny yet and have a good laugh about it. Most people I know who've lost someone close normally experience this. Must be evolution kicking in to keep the species going.
>> Edited by TheExcession on Wednesday 18th May 15:41
Tactfull as ever, I eventually asked him if he thought she'd approve of him behaving like this, and wouldn't she have preferred everyone to get on with their lives and remember the good times.
Fortunately he took this on the chin, we went down the pub and had a good session for her wake and he never seemed to look back.
In my experience people deal with death in very different ways, some seem to shrug it off as a fact of life, others seem to linger for months in a state bordering on depression.
When my mum died (fortunately I was pressent, and she died in my arms), although it was quite sudden I was mentally pretty well prepared for it.
What got me in the few months after here death was a kind of anger that there is nothing you can do about it. No matter how much you dwell on what might have been you just can't turn back the clock - and you really need to let go of all the emotion it is causing in you.
One thing I've really noticed about western society is that there is very little instruction about, for want of a better term, "how you are supposed to feel when someone dies".
For instance I didn't really feel sad, that just seemed selfish, as I said I had a kind of anger, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to feel guilty about it all. In fact if the truth be known I hadn't got a clue how I was supposed to feel. It was all quite confusing. I think the time I'd spent in Katmandu left me with some skills to be able to watch the different emotions rolling through my mind, and deal with them for what they were. Just emotions that pass only to be replaced by other emotions.
If you are close to this person then one thing I would advise you to tell her is that it is ok to be angry, it is ok to be sad, it is ok to cry. It is also ok to laugh and be happy. What she needs to realise is that it is ok to 'be' - withdrawing into herself (not being anything) is bad. From my experience this is likely to be due to not really knowing what she is supposed to be feeling.
Try and get her back into life a little, and don't be too afraid of confronting her about it all, pussy footing around the subject sometimes isn't the way to go.
Obviously I don't know her but some people respond better to a bit of a proverbial slap than they do to the 'here's my shoulder to cry on' routine.
good luck
best
Ex
Ohhh P.S. If you think you can get away with it ask her if she's feeling really horny yet and have a good laugh about it. Most people I know who've lost someone close normally experience this. Must be evolution kicking in to keep the species going.
>> Edited by TheExcession on Wednesday 18th May 15:41
I had a load of shit that took me out a while ago. I tried to dig myself out of it and learned a few lessons along the way. Of course the severity of the impact varies from person to person but everyone follows the same path, furthermore, it is independent of personality. Just because you are a life and soul extrovert, you can still get totally destroyed.
What I also learned was that you have to talk through your stuff sometimes a lot more than people can be patient with. Going over the same ground, it's important to be able to do this, a lot of people like to think they are good sets of ears but very few are good enough. If this is likely to be the case, then professional help should be considered. It's important to realise that immobilisation is the first stage and understand that it's perfectly natural, not an inability to cope, it's a part of the coping process.....
People (including me) have a problem with going to see an expert, feeling you cannot cope isn't a sign of mental weakness, it's a lack of knowledge regarding how these situations naturally progress. Once you understand the nature of the beast, it's easy to be its master. A lot of people seem to think that the best route through it is one where you're an emotional hardman and make the best of it, incurring maximum mental load on yourself. If you ask me, this is a bit stupid.
I suppose that it takes knowledge of the process from either text or experience in order to be adequately sympathetic, adequate patience to hear the same shit loads of times or go to someone who is paid to make the right noises.
It will get better and I hope you can give the right advice to ease the burden as much as possible, instead of regarding it as a silly character building exercise.
Best of luck. Stu
What I also learned was that you have to talk through your stuff sometimes a lot more than people can be patient with. Going over the same ground, it's important to be able to do this, a lot of people like to think they are good sets of ears but very few are good enough. If this is likely to be the case, then professional help should be considered. It's important to realise that immobilisation is the first stage and understand that it's perfectly natural, not an inability to cope, it's a part of the coping process.....
People (including me) have a problem with going to see an expert, feeling you cannot cope isn't a sign of mental weakness, it's a lack of knowledge regarding how these situations naturally progress. Once you understand the nature of the beast, it's easy to be its master. A lot of people seem to think that the best route through it is one where you're an emotional hardman and make the best of it, incurring maximum mental load on yourself. If you ask me, this is a bit stupid.
I suppose that it takes knowledge of the process from either text or experience in order to be adequately sympathetic, adequate patience to hear the same shit loads of times or go to someone who is paid to make the right noises.
It will get better and I hope you can give the right advice to ease the burden as much as possible, instead of regarding it as a silly character building exercise.
Best of luck. Stu
TheExcession said:
If you are close to this person then one thing I would advise you to tell her is that it is ok to be angry, it is ok to be sad, it is ok to cry. It is also ok to laugh and be happy. What she needs to realise is that it is ok to 'be' - withdrawing into herself (not being anything) is bad. From my experience this is likely to be due to not really knowing what she is supposed to be feeling.
You've managed to hit the nail square on the head.
I spend a reasonable amount of time with her and leave it up to her when she wants to talk to be about her grief.
She'll talk and talk up to a point and then will look at me for answer which I can't give her as I simply can't associate with what she's going through, as much as I want to. When I ask her a question the only response I get is, "I don't know".
Agreed, I don't pussy foot around her because I know that won't help in the long run as she needs to be able to face the facts now.
Some excellent thoughts and advice here. It may be worth asking your friend for a hand perhaps doing the garden/decorating/DIY anything - something to make them feel wanted, worthwhile and that gets them out of the house, talking to people and occupying their mind. I think a social event such a drink a trip out is also a good idea. I wouldn't necessarily push for them to see a counsellor, just let them know you're there to listen if need be.
Different people deal with grief in different ways.
There is no right or wrong way you just have to get thru it the way that's best for you.
My sister died suddenly aged 26 and my Mum and Dad both dealt with it differently, one wanted to talk about it, one didn't which put me in a very difficult position.
Took about a year before things started to get better.
It's an old cliche but time is a great healer.
My only advice would be try to be there without being a pain in the arse. i.e. keep in touch but if it obvious that they don't want to talk leave it and try calling them again soon.
There is no right or wrong way you just have to get thru it the way that's best for you.
My sister died suddenly aged 26 and my Mum and Dad both dealt with it differently, one wanted to talk about it, one didn't which put me in a very difficult position.
Took about a year before things started to get better.
It's an old cliche but time is a great healer.
My only advice would be try to be there without being a pain in the arse. i.e. keep in touch but if it obvious that they don't want to talk leave it and try calling them again soon.
xxplod is right, if you can get her doing stuff it will always help.
This really is a tough situation and it's incredibly hard to offer advice without knowing the personality of the bereaved.
Some people seem to find it hard to ask for help in these circumstances and often without proper experience it is as you have said impossible to supply the right answers.
Love Machine is bang on the money too, sometimes you need to go round in circles asking the same kind of questions over and over again. And he is right with the point about it requiring an understanding of the recovery process in order to be able to steer someone through it. Again I guess this boils down to my point about not knowing what you should be feeling or what to expect tomorrow.
Undoubtedly she needs to be mixing with people that have had similar experiences. At the time my mum passed I had close friend who'd suffered finding his mum lying in a ditch on the way home from his mates stag party. She'd been murdered on her way home from the same party. Although our mothers' passing had been quite different we had a lot in common in the way we felt about it all.
A huge step forward for me was dealing with what I actaully believed death to be. We both had similar beliefs and although it might seem like a harsh way of putting it, after a while you just get sick of going over the same ground time and time again. Eventually you just want to start getting on with your life again.
best
Ex
This really is a tough situation and it's incredibly hard to offer advice without knowing the personality of the bereaved.
Some people seem to find it hard to ask for help in these circumstances and often without proper experience it is as you have said impossible to supply the right answers.
Love Machine is bang on the money too, sometimes you need to go round in circles asking the same kind of questions over and over again. And he is right with the point about it requiring an understanding of the recovery process in order to be able to steer someone through it. Again I guess this boils down to my point about not knowing what you should be feeling or what to expect tomorrow.
Undoubtedly she needs to be mixing with people that have had similar experiences. At the time my mum passed I had close friend who'd suffered finding his mum lying in a ditch on the way home from his mates stag party. She'd been murdered on her way home from the same party. Although our mothers' passing had been quite different we had a lot in common in the way we felt about it all.
A huge step forward for me was dealing with what I actaully believed death to be. We both had similar beliefs and although it might seem like a harsh way of putting it, after a while you just get sick of going over the same ground time and time again. Eventually you just want to start getting on with your life again.
best
Ex
I'd second AlexKP's recommendation to contact cruse - they can help support the person grieving but also can offer help for those around that person so they too can offer support.
I had a shocking time a few years ago, when I lost my Father & 2 Brothers in the same year and also watched a friend get killed on his bike when we were on hol the month before that, I was surrounded by death & felt totally overwhelmed - it really helped me.
I had a shocking time a few years ago, when I lost my Father & 2 Brothers in the same year and also watched a friend get killed on his bike when we were on hol the month before that, I was surrounded by death & felt totally overwhelmed - it really helped me.
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