Giving Yourself Permission to Feel

If you have been looking for one, or even if you haven’t, this is your sign: your feelings matter more. Your feelings, your grief, your needs – they matter more than a brunch. They matter more than the annual family gathering. They matter more than any previously discussed plan. Whether the thought of Mother’s Day makes you want to do anything to keep your mind away from that which brings you pain, or makes you want to sit in your grief under the covers and resurface only when the day is done, you have the right to carry out that plan. If distraction is your choice, go for it. Focus on your friends, your other family members, other incredible women in your life, other children you may have. Celebrate the things in your life that bring you joy and avoid the incessant advertisements and themed Lifetime movies. How you handle the day is your choice. If you want to take the day to remember who was lost, do that. Spend some time in a special place, do something that would make them smile, write a letter or email updating the person on everything that has happened since they were lost, or share with someone else something that your lost loved one shared with you. How you handle the day is your choice.

Making Space for Both Grief and Life

Now, don’t get me wrong, distraction and remembrance aren’t mutually exclusive. Often times, on special days like this, we can become torn between life and loss. But the truth is, grief doesn’t require a choice; it doesn’t have to be an or. In fact, the best way to spend Mother’s Day for you may be to make space for and. Make time to remember and honor your loss, but spend time celebrating what remains in your life as well. Above all though, give yourself grace. Contrary to popular belief, grief doesn’t exist in stages, and grief does not simply end. We don’t just “move on” from our losses, rather we move forward despite them. But as we move forward, we carry a piece of that which we lost with us forever. To quote Marvel’s supremely intelligent superhero Vision, “What is grief if not love persisting?” Grief looks different from person to person, day by day, and even hour by hour – give yourself the grace to experience your own grief journey without expecting yourself to live out someone else’s. You deserve that grace.

A Gentle Affirmation for Mother’s Day

And, in the spirit of being kind to ourselves this Mother’s Day and every day, I encourage you to practice this affirmation with me:

“I am safe. I am not alone in my grief. I have the right to spend this day in a way that respects my emotions. I have the right to change my mind as my emotions and needs change. I am grateful for the happiness the person I lost brought to my life. I am grateful for the lessons I learned through them. I am grateful for those who remain in my life and bring me joy. I do not have to choose between life and death. I can love both those who are physical and those who are not. My grief is just as unique as the person I lost. My grief journey is my own and I give myself the grace to experience it as it comes.”

The post When Mother’s Day Hurts appeared first on Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy.

While it is an inevitable reality for all of us, older people have unique and often worse effects from loss.  

How Grief Affects Older Adults Physically and Emotionally

• Grief often has an impact on physical health at any age, but older people are at a much higher risk for severe health problems due to increased stress levels combined with current health conditions and natural physical aging processes. 
• Appetite changes can be a concern for grieving individuals at any age.  Many people already experience decreased appetite as they get older, which makes it more likely for older adults to skip meals and even go days without eating during bereavement.
• Confusion is a common effect of grief.  For an older person, this can be more intense and additionally include forgetfulness, disorientation, and disorganization.  The cognitive side effects combined with increased financial pressure especially with the loss of a spouse can develop into high-stress financial difficulties.
• Finally, isolation and loneliness are pervasive issues among older people.  When someone they love dies, this loneliness only becomes more intense.  Social isolation drastically increases the risk of premature death from every cause for every race, and the risk presented is similar in magnitude to that of obesity, smoking, lack of access to care, and physical inactivity. 

Why Older Adults Often Grieve Alone

Not only do older adults suffer in more intense ways, they also tend to suffer alone.  Unfortunately, the times and culture that raised today’s older people created the unrealistic and painful mindset of “picking oneself up by the bootstraps” and essentially dealing with difficult emotions without help.  Additionally, society tends to ignore the multiple and dynamic losses of older people, almost as though we expect them to get used to loss and not experience grief as intensely as someone younger with less experience with loss and death.  

The Many Losses That Come With Aging

The inherent challenge of living a long life is that we lose many of our most important people (parents, siblings, spouses, friends, sometimes even children).  There also tends to be a high degree of anticipatory grief for people who are still living, as these people may receive health diagnoses including Alzheimer’s, other causes of dementia, and cognitive impairment.  These conditions cause changes in personality and ability to communicate, leading to ambiguous loss, and individuals with these diagnoses frequently end up institutionalized (long term hospitalizations, and placements in memory care units or skilled nursing facilities).  It is also likely older people may begin to lose a lot of the independence they have spent their entire adult lives enjoying,  Older people are usually faced with the loss of ability and health, ultimately leading to the loss of careers, homes, personal possessions, vacations, pets, driver’s licenses, and overall sense of life purpose.  This rapid accumulation of losses is profound and will lead to “bereavement overload,” making it nearly impossible for one to accept and process one loss before another occurs.

How to Support an Older Adult Through Grief

Some important things to consider particularly helpful when supporting an older person during bereavement include:

• Keep them company.  Spending time together, whether it’s meeting for tea, watching a TV show together, or just spending time on the phone, can help the person feel less lonely and decrease the negative effects of social isolation.
• Do not avoid the topic of their loved one who died.  Open the door for them to process their grief by sharing their memories and emotions by offering a memory of your own or expressing curiosity to know more about the person.
• Support them with daily tasks like picking up groceries, cooking a meal, assist with paperwork, or take them to doctor’s appointments.  Often, people who are grieving don’t know what to ask for when they are told, “please let me know if there is anything I can do.”  Pick something you are comfortable doing and do it without waiting to be asked. 
• Keep helping long-term.  Most people receive a lot of support and help initially, especially immediately after the death and funeral.  That support quickly dwindles, and the months and years after the loss become difficult and lonely, especially around anniversaries, birthdays, and holidays.  Keep in touch and keep helping with those things you are comfortable helping with.
• Remind them that grief counseling exists and can be incredibly helpful.  Having someone to talk to week after week about the grief rollercoaster they are on can be helpful not only in processing and healing, but also in limiting the negative effects of social isolation.  

Finding Professional Support for Grief

Our therapists are available to provide grief counseling to you and your family in-person or virtually. Call us at 302-635-0505 to set up an appointment to meet with one of our grief and trauma specialists.

The post Older People Grieve Differently appeared first on Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy.

This is such a great question! First, it is important to know that we often experience the expectations placed on us by those around us when dealing with grief. For example, others may say or expect that our healing process will go in a specific direction. They may suggest that there will be an “end” to our grief and we should be able to “move on.” But it really is not so simple and expectations like this can lead a grieving person feeling like he or she should be healed in a certain way in a certain time frame…and if he or she does not, then something is wrong. But as we know, everyone’s grieving process is completely different! There are so many variables, such as who or what was lost, how the loss occurred, what was expected from us in our family and our culture, and so much more, that impact the way we experience our grieving process.

So what is “healing grief?” Well, there is a healing process where the griever’s feelings and reactions become less intense over time. How much time? I wish I had a specific time frame to offer you! Unfortunately, it just does not work that way. As I mentioned, everyone and every loss is so unique. But what we do know is that over time, the reactions to the loss do not take up so much “room” in our lives. We find ways to adapt to a world that has forever been changed. We might have to take on new roles in our lives, learn new skills, make new relationships and strengthen the ones we have, and try to make sense of what all this means to us now that we have this new way of being in the world. Who we were no longer exists, and we work towards figuring out who we are…a new normal. We work towards maintaining a relationship, for example in the case of losing someone, with the person we lost in a different way than we did when he or she was alive. And we find new ways to cope with all this. That takes time, and may even take a lifetime as we grow and change as a person in this new world. In other words, we have learned to adapt to the loss we have experienced.

It is also very important to remember that there will be times where the loss feels like it is just as new as it was when it first happened. This can happen around the date when the loss happened, holidays, birthdays, or just because you see the same kind of car the person you lost used to drive! Be gentle with yourself during these “pangs of grief.” They are normal. It does not mean you have not healed. It means you are human and have maintained a connection to that experience.

So there is no “moving on.” Take that pressure away! You move forward. It is a chapter in the book of your life, not an entirely new edition.

The post Can We Heal Grief? appeared first on Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy.

This allows your mind and body to accept that feeling, and understand that this feeling won’t last forever. If it is a happy feeling, saying it out loud or in your head can help you accept that feeling and hold on to the warmth it brings. Accept your feelings of confusion and fear, that spurs growth. Accept your feelings of hopelessness and doubt, that brings strength. Rather than trying to accept what situation you are currently in, accept those moments and the feelings that come with that clarity.

Try to breathe in those feelings, even through the tears, even through a mask. Your breath is your energy and part of your soul. Using your breath, you can relax your mind and body. In your breath, you remember you are alive, and you have a right to your life, even when it may feel like you don’t. Even though you may be dealing with a loss of a loved one or something meaningful to you, you are deserving of your life. If you need help, we are here for you.

The post Acceptance and Grief During COVID appeared first on Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy.

This blog will be a living, breathing, dynamic record for the Center; a social and (hopefully) interactive way for us to speak to and learn from others. It may or may not turn out to be a great many things: perhaps a tribute to the work of the Center, a place for staff to share their knowledge, a way for the Center to help you think about things differently, or a medium by which you, our readers, can teach us and help us to learn what it is that you need.

While none of us can see the future, we at the Center certainly have hopes for our blog. In particular, we hope that our words can provide a few specific things to readers.

• Education
• Perspective
• Practices

And most importantly,

• Hope

Knowledge is power, or so they say. So, let us share that knowledge, teach you about new methods, research, or findings around grief and therapeutic practices.

The grass is not always greener on the other side – or is it? There are so many unique people in this world, and with that, just as many perspectives on all things “life.” While one person may stifle and swallow the urge to cry at a funeral, or remain tight lipped about going through a divorce, others may let their feelings flow freely, no matter the setting. Who is to say that either of these is the “right” way to approach loss? Perhaps we can let you in on other ways of looking at things – after all, life is better when we share.

Sometimes in life, we look for concrete answers where they may not exist. When grieving for example, one might wonder how long they will feel the way they feel, or if what they are experiencing is normal? More concretely, someone else may ask: Are there other things I can try that will help me to feel any better? While the answer to the latter is yes – and no – let us expound upon the yes. No one is born knowing how to cope with some of life’s most difficult things, but everyone can learn.

And lastly, what have we, if not hope? In the dark moments, it can be so hard to find that hope, that light, but it only takes a pinpoint, one ray, to make a difference. If you gain nothing else from reading along with us, may you know and feel that you are not alone. Maybe you are physically alone, mentally alone, or alone in your situation, but you are not alone in the human experience of grief and loss. You are not the first, nor will you be the last person to endure this, but we are here for you.

Let us help each other.

The post Thank You for Being Here and Other Pleasantries appeared first on Center for Grief and Trauma Therapy.