I can’t face the next holiday.
As little girls, Jamie and I always had joint birthday parties. Born the day before me (but two years later), my younger sister seemed to steal the spotlight starting from that very first day — celebrating my second birthday at the hospital. Later, it would be water balloons and a Slip ’n Slide in the backyard, or Showbiz Pizza if we were really lucky, but my parents got away with the double birthday party all the way until I turned 13.
Jamie was killed on July 5, two weeks before her 25th birthday. Since our birthdays were always so intertwined, I was dreading those two days, even through the fog of my grief. How could she not be here to celebrate? How could she never get a year older? How would we make it through the day? Many questions had no answer all those years ago, and I still can’t believe that I am 43 and she will forever be 24.
With Mother’s Day approaching, it seems fitting to talk about facing holidays and special days during the grief journey. Navigating the world without your person undoubtedly causes distress at certain times of the year and on specific days. Preparing yourself for these times can offer a life preserver when you feel the waves of grief crashing down once again. One thing I have learned over the years (both personally and professionally) is that bereaved individuals often report much higher levels of fear and anxiety in the days and weeks leading up to a significant day than they experienced during the actual event. It is impossible to know how you will react, but you can look ahead to create the most supportive situation possible for yourself and others.
So, what can I do about it?
Talk about it - You may consider a family meeting to discuss how you will handle an upcoming holiday and what you are (or are not) willing and/or able to commit to. The family meeting is a powerful tool to share concerns with each other and create a plan for the day. A few things you may wish to consider for the discussion: your physical stamina and need for rest, one thing that you absolutely do not want to do, how other people’s emotions impact you, how to incorporate your person into the day/event.
Make a plan - Set aside time to think about the day, in detail, from start to finish. A few questions you may want to ask yourself:
What are my biggest fears, worries, concerns about the day (if any)?
What do I feel I should do that day (or what do others think I should do)?
What would I really like to do that day?
How will I prepare for it?
Who can help me accomplish these tasks?
How will I manage any waves of grief leading up to the day?
Follow your gut - If the day arrives and your plan doesn’t feel right, feel free to change your mind and decide to do something else. Get quiet, listen to yourself and follow your heart.
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Holidays and special days will always be difficult, no matter how long it’s been since your loss. Jamie has been gone for almost 17 years and I still struggle during the month of July. The key is in recognizing how it impacts you personally and making a plan for navigating those tough days. My book, The Healing Tree: A Guidebook for Navigating Grief, devotes an entire chapter to planning for significant days. You can find additional information about the book and a link to the Amazon page HERE.
No one understands.
For several years I believed that the only people on earth who understood me were my sister and the two brothers of my brother-in-law. Since they were the only three people I knew who had experienced the traumatic death of their sibling, it made sense that no one else understood what I was going through. Whether this belief was true or not, the one truth was that I shut out many others who wanted to support me because of it. I avoided friends who didn’t know what to say, became frustrated by others who shared about their own losses as a way to show they understood, and laughed at anyone who equated my loss to one that was the result of an illness or natural cause. I moved away from Chicago and left almost all of my friendships behind.
It is important to acknowledge that very often, bereaved individuals do not feel connected to others in the ways they did prior to their loss. In the aftermath of a tragic loss, isolation is often a common occurrence, sometimes unwanted and sometimes self-imposed. You too might be feeling isolated from your usual social circles, either by choice or by circumstance. It can be extremely isolating to believe that no one understands. After all of these years, I can still feel the sting of loneliness that my grief created. Often it can seem easier to avoid the unpleasant experience of interacting with those outside your bubble, but occasionally, making the effort to connect with others can have positive effects.
So, what can I do about it?
Read the stories of others - It is a powerful thing to hear your experience echoed in another’s words. To know, deep in your bones, that someone understands. That another human being has ached so desperately for someone they lost. To feel understood is a deeply held human need. After a tragic loss, it can be hard to fill this need with our existing support system. You may wish to explore one of these online resources to read the stories of others:
*Please note that it may be difficult for you to read about others’ experiences, and it may not be helpful to you. If you choose to try this experiment, take note of how you are feeling as you read: comforted and understood vs. overwhelmed and anxious.
Explore a support group - There are several avenues for finding a support group setting. Word of mouth is the best way to learn about a high-quality local program for grief support. In-person groups can be harder to find in rural areas, and an online group might be a more practical option than traveling long distances, and particularly during this time of physical distancing. Faith-based organizations are another great way to access grief support, if you are open to a religious aspect to the group. (For example, GriefShare holds groups across the country using a Christian-based curriculum.) There are also national groups for specific types of loss, such as for parents who have lost children (Compassionate Friends) or military deaths (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors). Many of these groups are free to attend.
One of the incredible benefits of joining a support group is helping others. By sharing your experience, you can show someone they are not alone. You can show someone who is not as far along in their journey how you’ve navigated this far. If you aren’t sure if a group setting is right for you, the best thing you can do is to give it a try. If after a few sessions you’re not feeling like it’s a good fit, find another avenue for support.
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Although it is common to believe that no one understands your experience, you cannot underestimate the power of human connection in the path toward healing. As Brené Brown explains, “We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.” I hope you will consider this invitation to reach out and challenge the belief that no one understands.
I need to stay busy.
I still have the yellow sheet ripped from a legal pad at my parents’ house, on which dozens of items were scribbled, and then subsequently crossed out. This list helped me organize my almost-25 year old younger sister’s funeral when my mom and dad were unable to do so. Planning the details of the double funeral for Jamie and her husband Andy fell upon me and Andy’s brother, and it was a welcome reprieve from the sitting. And the thinking. And the crying. When I was planning, I had people to call, websites to research, photos to pull from albums. Busy was good. Busy filled the hollowness in my chest, the pit in my stomach, the endless loop in my head.
When stressful things happen, I tend toward activity. It can feel too overwhelming to sit and actually feel my feelings, so I go and go and go to avoid the discomfort. I often heard from those I worked with over the years, that after the death of a significant person in their lives, they too sought the comfort of busy. Reports of staying out all day to avoid being in the house, avoiding reminders of the person by working excessively - or other outlets for distraction. The only problem was: the nights became unbearable. Often, when bereaved individuals find themselves alone at night, all of the memories—or fears or anxieties—come rushing back. And we are much more likely to numb those distressing feelings (with substances, online shopping, gambling), rather than welcoming them.
So, what can I do about it?
In order to begin the path toward healing, it can be helpful to lean into these distressing experiences, to examine them with curiosity, which in turn helps to process the pain. A few ways you can stay busy while honoring your grief include the following activities:
Body scan - use this exercise when experiencing distressing thoughts or emotions related to your loss. Rather than thinking about them, instead I’d like you to focus on feeling them in your body. Some people experience a hollowness in their chest or tension in their neck and shoulders; perhaps you feel butterflies in your stomach or weakness in your legs as you consider the details of your experience. Now, try to acknowledge this discomfort in your body and then shift your awareness to offering compassionate, soothing thoughts to that physical area and related emotion.
Journaling - Structured journaling uses a timed model for responding to specific writing prompts. As we learn from author Natalie Goldberg of Writing Down the Bones, you need to “keep your hand moving,” don’t stop to correct for grammar, don’t cross anything out, just keep going. Go ahead and write in the margins, there’s no need to follow the rules. A gratitude journal is another way to begin a writing practice; simply write 1-3 things you are grateful for each night before going to bed.
Ritual - Consider creating a ritual at a time of day that triggers intense emotions for you. Maybe this is the time you used to call your person—on your drive to work or when you arrive home in the evening. What items might you include in your ritual? Perhaps something that brings comfort, or a positive reminder of your person. (Common items might include: water, candles, fragrance/essential oils, stones, special items/mementos.) Is there a small corner somewhere in your home that you can use to create a comforting space and light a candle? Maybe a quote, prayer, or poem that might help you accomplish this ritual? Perhaps a special song or soothing background music to accompany your experience?
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In the end, only you will know what feels right: to keep moving or to stop and listen. With practice, you will learn to follow your instincts, to lean into the painful emotions, to take those brave steps toward healing. Shhhh, be very quiet and you might hear that tiny voice inside.
I can’t sleep.
If I’m being honest, I often drank an extra glass of wine to help me fall asleep during those early weeks and months after my sister and brother-in-law’s deaths. And it rarely worked. I would lie awake trying to avoid thinking about the horrible details, trying desperately to push the thoughts from my mind. And it rarely worked. It wasn’t until I realized that if I actually allowed myself to replay the events of that fateful night, to review the scenes in my head, that I could actually fall asleep. Often, we are so focused on avoiding the painful thoughts, that we actually cause ourselves more suffering. Sometimes I would write before bed, furiously scribbling the details in an old spiral notebook, other times I would sit in the dark and allow the thoughts to come. And once that process was complete, my mind cleared and I relaxed enough for sleep to arrive.
Sleep disturbances are well-documented in bereavement literature. And it does help to know that this is a “normal” part of the grief experience. But it doesn’t help us to function in our daily lives on a few spotty hours of rest each day. It doesn’t help to avoid the nightmares or the pain of waking up alone in bed. Doctors may recommend sleep aids as a result of grief-related sleep issues, which can be effective in the short-term, but may not address the root cause of sleeplessness. Sometimes it is a feeling of fear, a loss of safety after a significant loss. Often grief is accompanied by anxiety, which can increase in intensity in the evening hours and become overwhelming in the quiet of bedtime.
So, what can I do about it?
Create a safe place - It is important that you learn to recognize when your thoughts or emotions are becoming too intense and back away intentionally. To do this, I’d like to explore the concept of a safe place as a strategy for coping with overwhelming emotions. Your safe place can be an image you call up in your mind (or maybe with the assistance of a photograph). You may wish to set a time to sit quietly and consider options for your safe place. It might be an experience that brought a sense of peace or tranquility in the past. It may be your favorite chair in the living room. Or perhaps it is someplace you’ve always dreamed of visiting. Now, sharpen the image in your mind‘s eye. Once you identify the space, draw it on a piece of paper or find an image or photograph, if it is a real place. These types of coping techniques work best when used with frequency, when they become habits, when you have trained your mind to switch from the feeling of overwhelm to that of security and comfort.
Try a guided meditation - Visit the Resources page on our website HERE for ideas. Select a meditation that resonates with you and use the tips below:
Find a comfortable position, either seated or lying down, in a space free from distractions.
Take a moment to notice how you are feeling, both in your mind and in your body.
If you feel comfortable doing so, gently close your eyes, or soften your gaze toward the floor.
Press play on the recording or video and do as much of the exercise as you feel comfortable doing.
Once you finish, take a moment to notice how you are feeling, in your mind, in your body.
If you choose to close your eyes, it can help to gently rub your palms together to create warmth and place them over your eyes as you flutter them open slowly.
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Let us know in the comments if there is a particular meditation that worked for you, or if you have another unique way of improving sleep during the grief journey. Wishing you peace and a restful night.
I feel like I’m going crazy.
Word-finding difficulty they call it for patients with dementia. For me, as a person with grief, it was more like I lost half of my vocabulary. I couldn’t tell you exactly what percentage, or how many words were erased from my memory, but I knew it was happening and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Prior to my sister’s death I fancied myself an eloquent public speaker, but turned quiet in my grief, reluctant to make chit-chat, unable to hold the attention of a room with my long-winded stories.
It is important to recognize the impact that grief can have on our cognitive function. Without diving too deep into the world of neurobiology (a subject in which I know little to nothing about), I want to share a few insights that have been hugely important both to me in understanding my experience with grief, and the hundreds of bereaved individuals I have supported since. Traumatic stress can significantly impair memory and can alter how the brain processes information. After a traumatic experience it is common for individuals to undergo cognitive changes which can range in severity from mild forgetfulness to confusion or disorientation.
No one teaches us this stuff. I didn’t know anything about common grief reactions until I read a book someone handed my parents at my sister’s funeral. If someone would have taught me this sooner, I may not have thought I was losing my mind (literally). I have spent the last several years training helping professionals on these reactions, so they can educate parents and school administrators on how a death may impact children in a school setting. As a hospice social worker, I spent much of my time preparing family members anticipating a death for what they might experience once their loved one was gone. I have found that once we recognize that many of these reactions are normal (although they certainly don’t feel that way), the chaos begins to subside and it may feel a lot less like we are going crazy.
So, what can I do about it?
Buy a lot of Post-its. Write EVERYTHING down. Even routines that you have followed for years will fall from your brain as the leaves in early autumn. Have a friend or family member sit down with you and write out all of your daily (remember to eat), weekly (take out the trash), monthly (pay the bills) obligations and events. Consult your calendar and/or to do list every morning upon waking (and perhaps after napping). Assume you will forget. Set yourself up for success: every time your neighbor takes out her trash, ask her to remind you to do the same. When a friend is at the grocery store, ask her to text you to see if you need anything. If you’re committed to writing birthday cards to each of your grandchildren, write them all on the first of the month (or January 1st) and have someone else mail them for you at the appropriate times.
These tips are especially important if you are working while bereaved. Let your supervisor and co-workers know about this reality of grief. The confusion and memory loss doesn’t end when your 3-day bereavement leave is over. The cognitive impact of trauma and grief is real (and supported by scientific research, if you need proof). Grief impacts so much more than our emotions. We often feel we are going crazy because we are affected in so many areas of our lives: physically (fatigue, anyone?), socially (where did everyone go?), and sometimes spiritually as well.
To combat this, you may wish to try:
5 SENSES GROUNDING - an exercise to help ease overwhelm
1. Select an item you enjoy eating that is very small, such as a strawberry or a piece of chocolate. Dried fruit or a mint also work well for this exercise.
2. Find a comfortable seated position in a space free from distractions.
3. Take a moment to notice how you are feeling, both in your mind and in your body.
4. Consider each of your five senses in slow motion, focusing your attention on each one individually.
Sight: look around you; is there something you hadn’t noticed before?
Smell: what can you smell in the space around you?
Hearing: when you become very quiet, what do you hear?
Touch: gently place the fingertips of both hands together and rub in slow circles. Alternatively, place your hands on your thighs and use a side-to-side motion, noting the sensation of touch.
Taste: now for the best part, eating your snack. But before you gobble it up, use the previous four senses to consider your item before placing it in your mouth. Now let it sit on your tongue for a moment and notice the feeling. Truly enjoy the flavor as you begin to chew and pay attention to it after you have finished.
5. Now, take a moment to notice how you are feeling, in your mind, in your body.
6. You can use a much more condensed version when experiencing intense emotions or a wave of grief. Simply count off the five senses on your hand as you quickly identify something in each category. This quick exercise offers the ability to pause an intense reaction until you can find your way to a safe place for emotional release.
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Go slow. Avoid multi-tasking. Stay in the moment. I recognize that these are difficult to do in the world in which we live, but I promise you…it helps.
Why???
In The Healing Tree guidebook, I use the “5 W’s” to help readers tell the story of their loss. One of the most difficult W’s to address is Why. After someone close to us dies, we are often left with a gaping hole in the story when there are no answers to this question. After my sister Jamie was murdered, this was the one I asked most frequently. Why MY sister? Why would someone do something like this? Why would this guy, who was supposedly their “friend,” kill Jamie and her husband Andy? And the question continued to be asked as we went to trial; the jurors needed to know why this man would do something so horrible. They needed to understand the story to make a determination on his guilt, and ultimately, his sentence. But in the end, we will never truly know why this man, a member of the United States Air Force, drove onto the base, went to their home, and shattered so many lives with his decisions that night.
Depending on the details of the death, we may never know the answer to Why. But as we travel along our grief journey, we will continue to ask it: to the person who died, to those at fault, or the events leading up to it. There is an intense need to make sense of something that is often incomprehensible. Over time, we use this process of asking questions to slowly make meaning of the experience.
So, what can I do about it?
Allow yourself to ask hard questions. Allow those around you to also ask Why and explain why you can’t answer that question for them. You may question your previously held worldview, beliefs like “good things happen to good people,” or your faith in humanity or a higher power. Be patient with yourself as this process unfolds. Be aware of your understanding of the world and how it might shift through the lens of grief. This has been described as a shattering of the assumptive world and challenges everything we previously understood to be true. Give yourself time and space to wrestle with these discrepancies and honor the pain that they may be causing you.
Use the experience to help others - When something horrible happens, sometimes the only thing that makes sense is to help ensure it never happens to anyone else. Many organizations were founded on this principle, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Drowning Prevention Alliance, Susan G. Komen, and so many others. By creating opportunities for memorialization of your person, you can help to make meaning out of tragedy.
Write it out - Structured journaling can be a powerful way to process our thoughts and break out of negative patterns of thinking. This method uses a timed model for responding to specific writing prompts, noting that 15-20 minutes is ideal. It is most effective when you include your feelings about the event(s) that occurred and write consistently over time. One tip from author Natalie Goldberg of Writing Down the Bones, is to “keep your hand moving,” don’t stop to correct for grammar, don’t cross anything out, just keep going. Go ahead and write in the margins, there’s no need to follow the rules. A few prompts you might try related to the question Why:
Have you asked the question “Why?” since the death occurred? If so, have you found any answers?
Why do you think it’s important to share your story?
Why do we grieve?
Why does it hurt so much?
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Taking small steps into the unknown requires courage, and often the support of a qualified professional. Reach out to others as you navigate these tough questions; a non-judgmental listener is essential for the rocky path that is the grief journey.