Holiday Grief--Bargaining . . . it's not just for shopping

I have been reviewing grief at the holiday.   The third stage of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's model of grief is "bargaining."   Bargaining is a way of trying to regain control.

Typical Bargaining

When we are bargaining we are trying to find a way

•  to regain what once was 
• or to regain control.

From my experience we don't bargain so much when there has been a death, but people tend to bargain when there has been a break-up or divorce.

The bargaining can be quite complex.  At its simplest, two people such as a couple who has broken up  bargain between each other over the long term whether reunification is possible.   An example of a more complex situation is a kid bargaining between his or her parents and attempt to reunify his or her parents by acting out or trying to arrange for family gatherings.

The bargaining usually ends in depression when the bargainer realizes that the bargaining is done and the toothpaste cannot be put back into the tube.  It is hard to stop bargaining because of the loss of investment. There is a piece of you and me in the loss that cannot be recovered and thus bargaining can surprisingly last a long time.

It has been my experience that people are not necessarily aware that they are bargaining.  On numerous occasions I have heard clients tell their story and it is evident that they are invested in bargaining . . . and have been for a long time.  They present the situation of being stuck in conflict with the estranged or ex-spouse/partner/significant other.   The standard line is to suggest that they are bargaining and they stop engaging in that bargaining behavior.  The result is not necessarily going to provide liberating relief, but it likely exchanges one toxic pain for pain that is antiseptic and cleansing

What it might mean for the Holidays

I think that bargaining at the holiday may include trying to get the family to engage in old traditions that had involved deceased loved ones or estranged family members.  This kind of bargaining may mean trying to regain the nostalgic good feelings and sense of belonging that old traditions brought.   If mom had been responsible for Christmas and she is now gone, you may find yourself trying to bargain with other family members about how to celebrate Christmas.   You may find yourself talking to the wall when it comes to your other surviving family members because they are just not ready to have Christmas.

If this is your case, you may find that you will have to create your own Christmas in a non-traditional way. You may find yourself engaging in different activities to celebrate and keep Christmas.   I would say that despite the awkwardness, experiencing Christmas in different ways can provide some sense of fulfillment and meaning despite losing the former sense of belonging that was had with family.

Closing Thoughts

This has been a brief discussion of bargaining as a stage of grief.   It is a difficult step and it usually results in only more pain.  Ending the bargaining does not guarantee that you will feel better, but hopefully less pain. Stay tuned.


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Holiday Grief--Yeah Anger is often a part of it.

I am on the second part of discussing the grief process.  I am reviewing the Kubler-Ross model of five stages.  Yesterday I discussed "shock." Today I discuss "anger."

Anger as a stage of grief includes lots of analysis and searching.  It is a time where we are looking for who or what is to blame. We are angry at

• ourselves (and feel guilt)
• the deceased/absent one
• anyone who is related to the situation
• anyone who we believe is responsible or being insensitive
• anyone who just happens to be there
• God.

It is hard to say whether anger hits like a tidal wave or whether it slips in . It just comes in. It is also difficult to say when the anger leaves.  Everyone is different and so I do not think it is correct to say how you will experience it.

I am not exactly sure that anger will always be a part of grief.  As I look at my own feelings, I was expecting my grandmother to die.  She was 101 years old.  She was not going to live forever.  I think that I was prepared, and I can honestly say I am not feeling anger about her passing.

When the anger becomes a problem?

Anger becomes a problem when the person has anger management problems. They either are impulsive and aggressive or they stuff it.  As a result of the impulsivity or the stuffing of anger, there is a consequence.

Bringing the holidays back into discussion, the anger can get in the way of taking part in holiday functions with friends and families.  The anger can make anyone to act like the mythical but iconic Ebenezer Scrooge.

Anger as a Feeling

In its essence, anger is an emotion that signals the body to act.   Anger tells the Adrenal Glands to produce Adrenalin and wake up the body.  The body gets tense and wants to get moving.

Anger also has many flavors or types.  The flavors depend on the person and the situation.  Some of these anger flavors include:

• Rage
• Hurt
• Sarcasm
• Irritated
• Annoyed
• Frustrated
• Perturbed
• Skeptical
• Critical
• Hate

Anger is not exactly rational.  Anger is more of an impulse reaction to what is perceived or seen at the moment (also called triggers).  As humans we tend to get angry first and then pull back to assess.

If we tend to be focused on and dwelling on anger, we are one big energy ball and we will not necessarily be thinking with our rational brain.  Even though there may not be a legitimate threat to our welfare or safety we can still be angry.

Anger produces an interesting paradox, the body wants to get moving and the mind may still hold back making for a metaphorical spinning of the tires.   There are people out there who are not in touch with their anger and have no insight as to why they are angry and while they are stuck. 

Being chronically anger can cause relationship and physical problems of various kinds.  The human body was not made to stay suspended in a state of anger because of what the metaphorical build-up of static electricity.  An angry person is not an attractive person to be around because they give painful shocks to everyone around them.

Getting through this stage--no easy answer

In my opinion  I think that the first step to getting out of the stage is admit that you are in it.  The person who has the most difficult time in doing this is the one who has low self-esteem or feels that they cannot be angry.  While it can feel like a failure to admit having anger, it can also be a relief to admit that you are human.

The second step is to start expressing the anger in healthy ways through talking about it or drawing, or your other favorite, non-destructive method.

The third step often is forgiveness.  Humans are going to fail themselves and others. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting but letting go.

Sometimes people have to be intentional in this but for many the anger comes and goes. Most people do not necessarily need to see a therapist to talk about grief and loss because they know how to use the people in their lives.

Regarding the family . . .

Last year, I wrote a somewhat substantial entry on dealing with the family when it comes to anger.  If you want to read more about how the family can be part of the problem or get ideas on how to deal with your family, you can go back to it at this link: http://holidaysurvival.blogspot.com/2011/12/anger-underestimated-stage-of-grief-at.html


Closing Thoughts.

I have yet to say that having anger in the grief process is okay.  Well . . . it is.  It is not the end of the world if you do have it.  You just have a choice as to what you are going to do about it.  Hopefully, I have given you some basic ideas to help you if this applies to you.  

Holiday Grief: Shock and . . . Well . . . Whatever.

Grief at the holidays is not just feeling depressed and sad.  I would say that it is a complicated matter that detracts from what is supposed to be a joyful holiday. 

There are different views of grief, and over the next few posts, I will discuss my variation of my favorite view, which is the five stage model of the late Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.   This view has five stages: shock/denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.   So from the beginning, I will discuss shock.

You and I tend to live our lives with the expectation and assumption that things will go on and on without change.  On the one hand it seems fool-hardy, but this particular expectation and assumption allows us to use our energy for taking care of our needs and ambitions.  If we spent all of our time and brain power on the "what if's" we will be unproductive and anxious.   

Prepatory Grief

However, there are times where we will engage in preparatory grief where we will do that "what if" thing.  We will consider how we will handle a particular loss should it occur.  With those thoughts we will get the resultant feelings of stress, despair and sadness.  We will eventually come to the present and realize it was just a bad day dream and move on.  Sometimes this does prepare us for the sober reality something is going to happen and helps us make sound plans.

Real-Time Grief and Shock

However, when the real loss comes we will go into shock.  This is the jolt that our life is disrupted. The destructive power of the jolt varies based on what exactly happened and its significance to you. Our general response is "I can't believe that this is happening."

When it comes to dealing with the shock, I have seen people look like zombies and I have seen people act like the tough athlete who can "walk it off."  It all depends on whether you were the one to discover a gory site of a relative having committed suicide with a firearm to the grandmother dying at age 101 due to a long illness, or be told unexpectedly that your employment is being terminated, and the list could go on and on.

To achieve an appreciation of what it means to feel shock and denial, I would direct you back to where you were on September 11, 2001.  Within about two hours hijackers seeking martyrdom in the name of jihad crashed four large airline jets into two of the tallest buildings in the world, the magnificent Pentagon, and into the Pennsylvania countryside.   As a nation we were in shock and suspense as the security blankets that were the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans stopped being blankets and our lives as a country were irreparably changed.

When we go into shock, our minds and bodies get tense.  Our chemicals tend to get off kilter.  The world around us can feel surreal and hazy.  We lose our appetite. We  either cannot sleep or we go to sleep to block out the world. Our minds can become overwhelmed and we can lose the ability to think rationally about detailed and complex tasks.  If the shock is severe enough, we stop being able to respond to the flow of life events or maybe not respond rationally, or even do erratic things. 

The Response of Denial

Denial is usually considered to be a stupid and childish emotion, but in the context of grief it is common and normal.  Denial in grief comes in subtle and unrealized ways.  These subtle ways include you

• expecting your deceased loved one to walk through the door,
• buying a Christmas gift for your deceased loved, and
• calling a deceased loved one's phone number.

I have had numerous people ask: is there something wrong with me because I have done this.  I have felt privileged to tell them that they are just having normal grief.

Rerun, Repeat, Rerun.

Denial does not necessarily only happen one time. It can again slide in later in a subtle ways.  It will be up to you whether you will allow yourself to be human and not call yourself names or emotionally beat yourself up.

Stuck in Denial

However, if you are stuck in denial and shock, then there is a problem.  I have only seen two people in my career who seemed to be stuck in denial.  One was a drug addict and the other had some personality issues.  The common theme that I saw was the person had put their whole life on hold and was unable to function in society and was reclusive and dependent on others.  Being stuck in denial usually requires the help of a professional, but the two people were not exactly good candidates for therapeutic change.

In Closing . . .

As I expect to repeat through this blog, grief hurts.  In the stage of denial, we can look and feel absent minded.  I think allowing ourselves to be human means granting ourselves permission to look goofy in the name of grief. 

A survivor does not allow him or herself to be a human being and feel goofy and silly, but in the name of being healthy there is really nothing to lose in looking at this through the eyes of other people.  They look goofy and absent minded when they are having grief, and you will too, and usually the only score card is the one you are keeping--the vast majority people in this world are not going to judge you. (Dealing with the few who are is going to be the subject of another post).

   





 

Holiday Grief Re-examined: The Reasons

I have decided to think about grief over the next few posts.  Grief is the number one detractor of the holiday season. 

There are many reasons why people grieve. This post cannot cover every reason, but it will try to cover the different categories.

To me the best definition of grief is: The natural emotional response to the loss of a cherished person, thing, or idea.

If something or someone is not cherished then we do not grieve it or the person.  For example, when I dropped the french fry on the floor of my car Wednesday night going to my brother's house for Thanksgiving, I simply threw it out and did not give it a second thought.   A second example is actor Larry Hagman's death.  Most of my Friday nights in high school in the 1980's were complete with Dallas coming on at 9pm, but when Larry Hagman died over the weekend,  I did not feel much at all because I did not personally know him.     These are non-examples of grief.

(Mind you I suspect that other people who were die-hard fans of Larry Hagman took it harder. That is their right.)

The cherished people

When it comes to grief, thoughts usually first come to the cherished people in our lives.  Loss of people means people dying, people leaving, relationships ending, friends moving, and even more so now, loved ones developing dementia and slowing becoming zombies.  

For me, my grandmother died back in May.  I would say that she is a cherished member of my family.  Now that she is gone, I still find myself having a little bit of grief, but I have prepared myself for a number of years as she had been headed towards the century mark, and she had not been a central figure in making Christmas for the better part of 16 years.  

However, it is rough for most people who have lost a family member or loved one. The holiday just is not the same without the cherished person.

The more central the cherished person was in the holiday, the harder it is.  The loved one who had "made" Christmas and who had all the family over is irreplaceable and the family is almost lost without him or her at Christmas. 

Pets are people too.

A pet is an emotional presence in a person's life.  A pet accepts you without judgment.  A pet usually greets you and seems happy to see you.  A pet lives with its master for up to decades.  People do grow emotionally close to pets.  I have seen people cry when talking about a deceased pet.   I think that it is perfectly appropriate or healthy to grieve your pet . . . it is not stupid.

The Things or Stuff

Regardless of priorities, I do believe that people will cry over losing cherished things.  Cherished things hold value and meaning.  Things cost money and if something is lost, the effort and time is lost. Cherished things hold memories and symbols of experiences and the love of people. 

Even though it is just stuff, and it seems cheesy, I think that people do grieve the loss.

Ideas  

People chase dreams.   Often the chase is a dead-end.

Typically when people chase dreams we think of the person packing up and go to Hollywood, Nashville, Broadway or some other entertainment "Mecca" to go for it.  Many people enter degree programs to go after a desired profession.  Many people take risks to open their own businesses.    People give up their dreams because they are flat out told they have no chance, or they have to give it up for other reasons.

Some people have simpler dreams of finding that soul mate or having that family.  Mr or Ms. Right does not appear or leaves.  The news of infertility ends hope of having a biological child.  Depending on the intensity of the pursuit, and how much blood, sweat and tears are put in, the resulting pain is equally intense.

It is up to you to decide if it is grief

Grief can be as individual as the person. People miss different things in different intensity levels. Some family members miss a deceased loved more than others.  Things and ideas are of different value to different people. 

If you are having emotion about something, then it could be grief.  You are the decider. 

Why does this matter?

While grief is a natural response to loss, if it is allowed to go on too long, grief gets in the way of other things, events, and relationships that matter.  Some people shut themselves off from priorities and relationships in the here and now that should get the energy spent on grief.  They lose more than just the object being grieved.

I do not leave you with easy answers as to how you should proceed, but I have some general guidelines.  If you are continuing to grieve the loss of a person, place or thing that happened within the last 12 months, then grief is considered to be normal, and this holiday is going to be a time that is a little bit (or more) difficult and you will feel like you are surviving   However, if you are continuing to grieve a person, thing, or idea that was lost more than two years ago, then seeing a counselor/therapist or going to a support group could be of benefit to help restore the holidays to more of a time of joy.

In the next several posts, I will be looking at the different stages of grief and how they show up in the holidays.
 

Merry Christmas versus Merry Consumerism

I missed writing yesterday in my transit back from Thanksgiving through the stark and austere farmlands of rural Indiana.  But my mind was very much on that this is the weekend of the year where it is all about retail shopping.

Last year I gave a critique of the economic exploitation of Christmas. As I think about this year, my thoughts did not change so much. The Christmas tradition continues to be exploited for all the profit that can be had.   It seems to me that consumerism is becoming a tradition unto itself where a day gets called "Black Friday" and its meaning is known to everyone.  

It made headlines here in the United States that some were protesting Walmart's opening on Thanksgiving Day to get the jump on Black Friday. Economic competition and continued recession make for such drastic sales techniques, and I am glad that some people are beginning to take notice.

Mind you there were some good deals that I had been tempted to get in on such as the 40-inch TV for under $200.00 (US). In terms of real economic terms that was a great value in the history of Television, however, my better nature said no . . . I did not need buy it . . . yet.

Yesterday, on the way home, we stopped by a large outlet shopping mall by the interstate highway, and drank in the atmsophere, and we went today to the nearby shopping malls.  All three places were full of people like myself looking for good deals and buying stuff. The Christmas music was blaring from store to store to store and the two youth-oriented clothing stores nearly asphyxiated mall shoppers with the strong wafting of some unknown cologne. It was not exactly inspiring but maybe a little boring as I waited in line for my Starbucks.

 

We don't want to look like jerks

Nevertheless, as I drove home today from the last shopping mall, I asked myself: what truly drives us to go to the wall in consumerism at Christmas? I am still working on this one--and I may come up with other ideas, but my current, working theory is the pursuit of happiness versus the sense of obligation and prevention of not looking like a selfish jerk . . . yes I am thinking that it is about the emotion, and it is not exactly profound.

Life in the 21^st Century United States is intense enough. Then we have this season where we try to be “merry” and “happy,” which complicates matters.

Furthermore, many of us feel responsible for the feelings of others around us (family and what not). Yes, some of them have their emotions on their sleeves, and they are likely to whine and make blaming statements if they are missed. The obligation and desire to avoid guilt pushes us out there to buy things and possibly re-gift the things we find unusable to us. Obligation and the compulsion to avoid guilt are powerful drivers.

What makes emotions all the more complicated is that hard-to-buy for person. The hard-to-buy for person

• either has everything,
•  or we don't know them,
• or they hate everything—there is no pleasing them.

Helpful Re-framing.

 

The statement “__ shopping days until Christmas” has this way of putting pressure on you to get out there and shop, or go online and look. I think that in the end, two of the greatest inventions of the past 20 years have been the gift receipt and gift card, and I highly recommend them as sanity savers.

Otherwise, I have come to find serenity in agreeing that nothing is perfect in this world, and I am not responsible for the feelings of others.    I choose to see the person as hating everything as being someone who is so-self-centered that they don't have the social grace of being thankful that someone gave them something.  I am going to do my best this holiday season and I will not to push myself to make everyone happy—it just won't happen.     

 

Considering Traditions

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Canada had its Thanksgiving celebration
the first Monday in October.   Thanksgiving is a day where there is a
"traditional" feast of one whole day's calories.   My grandmother had some
wonderful traditional meals until she and my grandfather left wintry Iowa
for sunny Florida in 1976.

In light of my Grandmother's passing back in May, I have given thought
to the concept of Traditions over the past several months. My
grandmother was keeper of holiday traditions in the family as long as
she was able.  In a sense, I am thankful that she did keep traditions
and I miss them.

Some people hate traditions. The traditions bring back memories of
pain and abuse, and the family control freaks sounding like Tevye in
Fiddler on the Roof shouting “Tradition!”

Some people cherish traditions. The traditions remind them who they
are, where they came from, and where they belong. Traditions ground
them.

Some people grieve the loss of traditions. Their absence makes for a hole in the
middle of their hearts.

Christmas and Advent are traditions in the very sense of the word.
They are not in the Bible. However, they are reasonable traditions
that Church Fathers started in the Fourth Century AD as an alternative
to a pagan celebration.

Traditions are at the heart of holidays that also are very much sticky
subjects that bring about a confusing mess of feelings. Part of
surviving and coping through the holidays is deciding what traditions
can mean in your life.


For a starting point, I will start with the good old Webster
Dictionary. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradition) .
The definition is
1 a: an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought,
action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)
b: a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the
past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
2 : the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of
mouth or by example from one generation to another without written
instruction
3 : cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
4: characteristic manner, method, or style <in the best liberal tradition>
In terms of the holidays,

We usually take traditions given down to us and pass them on.  They mean
something to us.

Besides the gathered meaning, traditions bond us together. I have decided that
traditions as part of my family life make our relationships closer and
give us a sense of appropriate closeness or intimacy. We will enjoy
the practices we have engaged in over the past several years.

Where traditions seem to fall short is when they engender the pursuit
of delusional nostalgia of old fashioned holidays. Traditions cannot
take us back to earlier times when we did not have those problems. 
Let's face it, those  earlier times had different problems and were not
problem-free.

However, part of the grief at holidays is that some family traditions
lose value and meaning. Family changes, divorces and deaths either
evaporate the traditions or change the significance from fulfilling to
painful. Memories of the traditions also can be painful because the
traditions embody the family member who was at the heart of the
tradition.   If not for the loss of the family member, there is always
the economic necessity of job transfers and relocations that mean for
families not being able to come to be part of the tradition.

As emotional human beings, we can feel lost without the tradition.  Oh
yes, we can put on our shells of faces, but the pain will still go on
inside for today is going to happen despite the tradition or its
absence.  The pain can lead to engaging in addictive behavior,
over-eating, depression, maybe even thoughts of suicide.
In the end, theologically, the tradition is not Jesus Christ.  The
tradition is not the liberating faith that Jesus Christ came to earth
to bring.   As I seek to live this holiday season, I really seek to
live . . . not be stuck in the black, emotional cloud of expired
traditions.

I do not leave you with any particular advice today, other than
recognize you have a choice. You choose how you will feel today.  You
will choose what you will do, just as I will choose what I will do.

Special or Not, It's Another Year and Another Holiday Season

I decided to give this blog a second go for another holiday season. It
seemed like a contribution I could make to people around the world who
might be “Googling” the particular terms to help them survive and get
through the draining experience that is the holiday season.

I will aim to think globally in how I write this, but I admit that I
am going to focus on my experience and culture in the United States
since that is where I live and observe. In the United States, the
holiday season goes from the fourth Thursday in November through
January 1.
The holiday season in the United States is an intense time period. It
is an expectation of both the society and the national economy that
people as consumers will spend a lot more money than they do the rest
of the year to make it that special time.
It almost seems that the United States economy and culture kills the
golden goose. By the second week of November two radio stations in my
city of Louisville, Kentucky had converted to an all-Christmas music
format, playing Christmas music 24 hours per day. (I have heard Jingle
Bell Rock about 30 times already!) I saw Christmas merchandise
available by the third week of October. Business pushes early to make
the most of Christmas.

In the process of making the most of this time of year, I see so many people
wearing themselves out.    It makes me wonder about what we call special things.


Well isn't that special?
When something is special, it is supposed to be meaningful and it is
supposed to be joyful. It should provide some sense of fulfillment
where we hopefully feel some sense of wholeness and completeness, and
maybe happiness.
The holiday season as we know it in the United States and Canada is
almost like a bright light that shines on many of us exposes who we
are as people and what we have, but especially what we do not have.
The bright light of expectation makes us self-conscious of our family
dysfunction, our own grief and loss, and how much money we do not
have.
Speaking of money, this holiday season also sees what is essentially
an economic recession around the world where many people around the
world (including the United States) are out of work or under-employed
and do not have the money to get presents for their friends and family
members. For many there might something special on Thanksgiving and
Christmas Day, but it will not be much.
For many with the money, there will be pain that will still blight the
holidays. Maybe it is family members who just do not get along? Maybe
the blight on the holidays will be the sickness or loss of a loved one
(family, friend, or pet)? Maybe it will be a divorce? When there is a
high expectation, it does not seem to take much to wreck things.


Doomsday Worries

What also seems to muck things up for people this year is that the
Mayan Calendar was last composed through this year and allegedly ends
on December 21, 2012. Some people are worried about “doomsday.” I will
tell you that this is the only mention I will make of this because
1. I am a Christian and I believe God is in control,
2. I believe that only the God of the Bible knows when it will happen
(Mark 13:32), and
3. I think predicting when the world will end is futile and worthless,
and this blog is about imparting peace.

Well, my plan for each of my posts, I will be discussing a problem and
some options for coping. I am open to requests, if you are reading and
are looking for some ideas on a specific situation--make a comment at the
bottom of any post, and I will see what I can do. Here is hoping
that you have a meaningful and the best possible holiday season as you
survive.