Getting Through Loneliness in this Time

Feeling Lonely

Being Alone

Craving Privacy

 Typically, Christmas has been a time where loneliness has been considered again and again as one of those risk factors for suicide.  It still is.

The expected happiness at Christmas is a like a night and day spotlight on loneliness. It is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year where all is merry and bright.   We are supposed to be together with the ones we love and we are all supposed to be happy.  

There is a weight of expectation.  We are deluged and saturated with the bright and cheerful music that is supposed to take us back to those magical childhood feelings of being three and four years of age where we were excited for toys.  Beyond getting past no longer believing in Santa Claus we awaken to family dysfunction and why our families do not look like TV commercials with their perfidious bursts of coziness and warmth and soft ringing chimes.   

In contrast and at the risk of exaggeration, the lonely person at Christmas is viewed as isolated, abandoned, helpless, hopeless and likely contemplating how bad it is and how no one in the world cares if they were alive.   The lonely person thinking about such apathy can start thinking about wanting to go to sleep and not wake up and even think about ways to end their life. 

Maybe the lonely person at Christmas is not that bad.  However, they might be thinking of ways to end their life and s make a plan to do it.   Even with this sense of exaggeration suicidal thoughts are real for many in the loneliness and some will attempt it and tragically some will succeed.

Coping is Managing Our Emotional Pain

It is my opinion that if you have gotten through loneliness even with suicidal thoughts you have been successful in coping.  Coping does not make everything better. Coping is managing our emotional pain and distress.   More specifically coping skills and activities are those choices we make or those practices we engage in to get through the pain and suffering of life.

 In 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a legally and socially mandated isolation and of course with it there has been nine to ten (10) months of loneliness.  We have not been able to be out with our support people.  We have missed weddings, funerals, baptisms, church services.  It would seem that with everything that has happened in 2020, loneliness at this Christmas is like rubbing salt in a wound or alcohol-based hand sanitizer in a paper cut (it really stings).

Some of the typical prescriptions for coping with loneliness is to go volunteer at a mission or soup kitchen and get out of your house.  That remedy is not necessarily going to be feasible most places, especially where I live in Louisville, Kentucky USA where the missions and homeless shelters have to maintain Covid-19 precautions.

Another remedy for loneliness is to get a pet.  Pets are essentially people and have an emotional relationship with their owners.  Pets give their owners unconditional acceptance and attention. They require you to take care of their physical needs so it is something else that you think about other than your own loneliness.  Pets are a good thing as many clients have told me over the years that their pets give them meaning and purpose. Well, that may be a little more feasible, because there are still rescue animals available, but some people rent and many landlords don’t allow pets.  Furthermore, pets are a financial responsibility because they need food and expensive veterinarian visits and if you have a cat you need the all-important kitty litter, so this may not be a reasonable option for loneliness, but if you want a pet and can get a pet . . . it may be a good idea.  

Otherwise, coping through loneliness may be some hard work between the ears.  Depending on who you are and your situation it may be harder work than I can even begin to guess, and you might be swearing under your breath as you read this. 

 

Feeling Lonely

Being Alone

Craving Privacy

 

Being Alone Versus Loneliness.

Allow me to take an emotional intelligence approach.  There are at least three emotional states when we are alone.

Being alone is an existential state but what it means to us at that time depends on what we are thinking and what other needs we have.  We can also merely be alone and focused on some other than our feelings, and we can actually crave privacy.

When we are alone, we are not focused on the fact that we are alone.  We do not have any particular emotional need at the time.  As the line in Kelly Clarkson’s song Stronger stated to some estranged love interest: “Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone.”    We are good and we are focused on something that engages us and satisfies us or makes us content at the time even while we are by ourselves.

The other emotional state when being alone is craving privacy.  When we crave privacy, we have the need for space and boundaries between us and other people.  People can tire us out and we need to be alone to recharge and rest.    

Otherwise, to feel loneliness is to feel a human need for connection, relationship, and acceptance.  As been noted by many other writers you can be in a crowd of people, but if you do not have a personal, emotional connection and a relationship you might as well be alone in the wilderness.  We need people in our lives who show us acceptance of us for who we are as individuals, and not our professions, livelihoods, or for our wealth.

When we are lonely, we also can visit our other disappointments and hurts.  We can truly put ourselves in that dark, emotional cave that can be overwhelming and depressing . . . and maybe suicidal.  

Managing our feelings sometimes means stepping back and understanding our them.  Emotional needs are real and the world does not meet them.  The reality is that it is up to you and I to meet them.

 

Profundity in Coping is Often Over-rated.

Let’s face it, even though I try to be profound and new in what I have said in this blog over the years, I continue to be amazed at the simplicity of the late Wayne Dyer’s statement in his book, Your Erroneous Zones.

My feelings come from my thoughts.

I can control my thoughts

Therefore, I can control my feelings

When you are highly distressed, you are not necessarily interest in profound and deep thoughts.  As human beings, sometimes the simplest method is the best method.    Profundity in coping is sometimes over-rated. 

If we can get our minds on something other than our loneliness, we are coping.  Some people get their minds on other things by reading or watching something strange on “You Tube.”  Others will do puzzles or watch TV.   Yes, the holidays will likely be at the back of our mind because the nature of this time of year is to saturate with Christmas, but if we are not totally dwelling on it, we are managing our feelings and moving more towards being alone versus feeling “lonely.”  

Lastly, if you are on the edge and you are in crisis and are contemplating suicide, here are some numbers you can call:

If you are a local reader in Louisville Kentucky you can call

The Seven Counties Crisis line at 589-4313.   

The Peace Hospital Crisis line at 451-3333. 

If you are not in Louisville Kentucky, you can call the National Suicide Hotline at

800-273-TALK (8255)

Or you can call 911.  (911 operators are trained to help these days).

Otherwise, I give you a message of hope.   We can get through these moments of loneliness.  

Being Thankful that You Have a Government Mandated Reason to Avoid Your Dysfunctional Family

 

          

 

It is Thanksgiving Day of what has been something of a surreal world filled with drudgery and suffering that has probably not been shared by more people at the same time in this world than any time in human history.   

Yes, there have been world wars but never have so many people across all seven continents have had to take isolation and quarantine precautions due to the pandemic of Covid-19.  According to the World Health Organization, there have been 57.8 million cases of Covid-19 and 1.3 million deaths from it since they started keeping score. (https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiological-update---24-november-2020)

We have been strongly encouraged by government officials to practice “social distancing,” which means we are to stay about six feet apart from each other.   The “steps” taken by government officials also has meant shutting down sectors of the economy, which has meant economic hardship for many people who have not worked in “essential” jobs. 

So, many people have been isolated, not being able to go anywhere and stuck in their thoughts about how they are going to make it. Children have been kept home from school and not being allowed to go out and play with friends.  

This blog is more slanted to the United States and North America, but our societal traditions and calendars have been disrupted.  Where I live in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky Derby is normally a rite of the Month of May where the best thoroughbred horses race, and Covid forced that race to run the first week of September on Labor Day.  The National Hockey League played for the Stanley Cup in September.   As I write, the Macys Thanksgiving Parade is going on right now and it just does not seem the same without crowds of people (they hinted that they taped portions earlier in the week in the name of Covid precautions).   Many of our lives go with the rhythm of the calendar and the seasons that Covid has made us feel out of sorts as a society.

That brings us to the holiday season which is supposed to start today.   I debated whether or not to write this year for the few people who have read this including my aunt by marriage. I thought as I was loading the turkey breast into the smoker . . . absolutely, I should write.  This could be the year people read this stuff.

So, it’s Thanksgiving, It’s Covid.  What can you say about a day like this: Why not be thankful you don’t have to see the dysfunctional family today, and put up with their political speeches and awkward questions you don’t want to answer, and unsolicited suggestions?   

I was thinking about that as I was recalling a phone conversation with a family member a few months ago and the family member (probably after a few glasses of wine) was repetitively telling me that my choice for president was a piece of $%*!.  Mind you, I will probably call the family member today and hopefully, the conversation will be polite and end with “We love you.” However, there are people out there who have such a deep-seated painful family history that there is no desire to talk let alone see them on Zoom.

Covid gives people a government-mandated excuse not to see those people, have a controlled conversation and then hang up and go back to binge-watching Netflix, some other streaming video or You Tube.     Maybe that is something to be thankful for?  

Anyway, if this is the first time you have seen this blog, and you are looking for coping or survivng the holidays, feel free to scoll back.  I have written 105 previous posts about many different topics.

I plan to explore grief and loss and loneliness in the next few weeks on this blog.  I would like to encourage you to help me make this viral.  This is not a monetized blog (or at least I don’t think it is) and I am interested in helping as many people as possible in getting through the holidays.

The Weight Lifted When You Give Up Old Traditions

This year is proving to be a change for my family in that we are changing our traditions and it feels like a relief.

My wife and I have changed churches.  This may not mean anything for the non-church-goer, but aside from the actual theology and belief, church membership has a lot of ancillary meaning like identify and belonging. 

We will go to a different church for Christmas Eve. I am not going to light candles or serve communion as a Deacon.  I am not missing the sense of responsibility.

We used to have a pizza party every New Years Eve where we would invite mostly people from the church to drop in and have some food and celebrate.  It was one of the two times a year we would really clean the house.  I would spend most of New Years Eve day making the dough and sous-chef-ing all the ingredients.  It was fulfilling to share and make an attempt to build relationships with people in the church and maintain connections with some of those who left. 

While it gave me joy to make delicious pizza that my friends enjoyed (my Chicago-style usually turned out great) we are not doing that this year and I am not missing it.  I am not sure if we will do it again. 

Traditions are Markers of Our Relationships

There is a lot of identity in being a member of a particular congregation or body of worship and its traditions.   People take pride and have grounding in calling themselves a Catholic, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Lutheran, and any other identifying pronoun that goes with a faith. 

Furthermore, when you are part of a congregation you live your life with the same group of people and in your relationships you share memories, pain, sorry and most of all joy.   You watch each other's children grow up and go through the traditions and ceremonies of the church. You have an extra subject or two you can talk about with your fellow or sister church member and you hopefully have more empathy when you talk about your struggles and pain as you have a greater sense of intimacy because you share the same beliefs.

The Significance of Traditions Can Change Because Relationships Change

Since churches are full of imperfect people, they occasionally offend each other.  Some of the acknowledged offenses are overlooked and people move on in their relationships.  Some of the offenses and conflicts are non-negotiables and people draw lines immediately and leave.  For many the list of small problems build up and culminate to a point where you say, it is more painful to stay and to leave.

Often when it is more painful to stay than leave, you may come to a point where you feel that you are not connecting, or others are failing to connect with you as they ignore you or they seem to avoid you.  As relational organizations, churches are also political and the politics drive the decisions and also drive the relationships.  Not everything done in a church is on principle and sound practice because the powers that be want something and thus the traditions can actually become painful points of connection and so continuing to attend is torture.

Furthermore, churches are groups of cliques and if your close connections have left, the other cliques tend to be full or do not make room for you, you are left out.  Sometimes others in their arrogance, guardedness, introversion or self-absorption don't comprehend the necessity of engaging with you in your attempts to connect with them.   (Like the group of old friends sitting at a table at a Wednesday night dinner ignoring you when you take the empty seat.)  In the end, when you leave such a situation you have this double-bind of grief where it hurts to stay but you are also grieving the piece that you left of yourself at that church.

Church aside, there are family traditions that hold memories of pain rather than joy, and some people try to continue them because they feel the need to continue them as part of the family and then wonder why others do not want to take part?  This too is a tough one because there is the double bind of grief and loss.  Not all family members with their different personalities and worldviews are affected the same by grief and loss in the same way and manner and so while some want to carry on a tradition, others want nothing of it out of the pain.

A Painful End can be a Joyful Start of Another 

Our relationships in the here and now are the relationships we have.  Each and every holiday (and everyday for that matter) we have the potential to start new rituals and traditions that connect us over the years.  The traditions are markers of our identity together as family, friends, and church goers.  In and of themselves they have no meaning other than what we give to them. 

It can be a mixed bag to give up traditions when they had meaning but also connected pain. Feelings are not always clear cut but mixtures of emotions connected to the different thoughts and pieces of information--that is why we are often "torn" or have "mixed feelings."  We often have to take some time and "sort out" our feelings, especially getting through the awkwardness of the first time without the tradition.

All Traditions Start as Experiments

 I have decided that traditions actually evolve rather than just mechanically happen. Getting together with others and doing things start and build the traditions. Many traditions start as experiments.  The experiments that have good outcomes become traditions.

I am not sure what experiments we will do this year as part of our changes, but I think the time together will be good anyway (especially if I can pull my 17-year-old away from his screens).

I hope that if you are experimenting with new traditions, you will find some joy in at least the fact you tried something new.

Joy to the Depraved and Dark World of Social Media

Social Media has proven to have re-enacted the fall of humanity, in light of the emotional health of many, it is the original depravity and the curse all over.

The Original Story of Depravity

As we read in Genesis 3, the serpent sold Adam and Eve on the idea that eating the forbidden fruit would make them like God because they would then know both good and evil.

 After persistent persuasion, they both bit and became subject to depravity which meant

• Realization they were naked
• Getting kicked out of paradise
• Relegated to hard labor for life
• Being doomed to die physically and
• Spiritual separation from God.

From the perspective of the Bible, Adam and Eve are blamed for why we have bad things in this world.  Because they took the bite we have the reality of wars, arguments over stupid matters, famines, sickness, natural tragedies,  dysfunctional families, cute puppies and kittens dying, and itching from mosquito bites.

In reading through the Old Testament, which can be looked as one big case study on what sin did to humanity, we see repeated examples that humans are depraved.  In the story of Noah and the Ark God destroyed humanity through an epic flood except one faithful man and his family because everyone was wicked and then he started over.  God then showed his attempt to reach out to one group of people by creating a covenant with them.  This was the chosen nation that became Israel where he would have a relationship with them.  Even with God's reaching out to them, the people of Israel did not stop being depraved as they were cruel towards each other and they turned their backs on God to the extent of the occasional report that some of the kings of Israel actually engaged in the barbaric act of cremating their live children in the name of idol worship.

Israel was eventually punished in the eyes of God for their centuries of repeated failure to obey God.  The nation was divided after Solomon's reign  and Israel was eventually dissolved by Assyria and Babylon.  God was patient to the extent that he gave about 100 years warning through the prophet Habakkuk that the Babylonians were going to do his sovereign punishment.


Social Media Shows that it is Still a Dark World

In the 21st century Social Media shows us that we are not living in paradise; we are still living in a world as dark as Habakkuk's time and that human beings are no better.  Being connected to each other has shown our angry and hateful sides.   Furthermore, it is stressful to receive a constant, intense, online information stream that consists of conflict, drama and inflammatory messages.   Some have disconnected from social media and realized that their mood states have improved.  Being intimately connected through the computer and phone screens has been like being around that controlling mother-in-law or that verbally abusive drunk uncle 24-7 and it has emotionally scarred us

What is more tragic is the that opportunities to make us argue, insult and offend each other are actually leveraged by politicians and special interest groups in an effort to influence trends on social media to gain some kind of profit. 

It appears for the foreseeable future that social media will be with us because it is a tool of commerce and official communication. While it has been promoted as a tool for good things, it has clearly been manipulated and exploited in ways that disturb us, depress us, and overwhelm us.   There is economic competition to see who can get us mad or scared enough so as to be motivated to retweet, share, or do something non-digital to protest, contribute or buy and overall just pass on the pain and misery like it were a virus or bacteria.

The People Walking in Darkness have seen a Great Light? 

There is no peace on earth to be gained from social media itself.  It is just not going to happen.

Furthermore, underneath all of the embellishment of incorporated pagan symbols, Santa Claus, and happy, secular music  Christmas still hints that the world is still a dark place, and human beings are incapable of fixing the world let alone themselves, and that there is a great light shining that you can try to ignore by singing another verse of Jingle Bells but you cannot.

The baby came for a reason beyond just to be laid in a manager.  The reason he came still befuddles people and challenges their intellectualism and rationalism.  It still shines a light on the fact that people are still under a curse due to Adam and Eve's sin.  It still illuminates that there is an emptiness and lost-ness that the baby remedied when he grew up to be a 33-year-old man in his earthly life.  Christmas shines a light on our emotional and spiritual bankruptcy that social media has only seemed to magnify. 

Joy to the world, even the dark, depressing world of social media.  A light is here if you really want to look at it before you go back to arguing and trolling each other. 

CANADA CALLING AND GRIEF TRIGGERS

Before my dad died my wife and I discovered the Canada Calling newscast when we were visiting Florida.  The concept is a nice radio show in that from the beginning of November through the end of March it informs the Canadians vacationing and wintering in the semi-tropical State of Florida and other Sunbelt areas of the United States about what is happening in their homeland.  I have listened to it online in addition to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to give me a broader perspective on matters.

However, when I discovered that I could listen to Canada Calling online, they ran a commercial for a hospital in the city where mom and dad used to live.  It was the hospital where dad spent his last hours on earth.  It took me to a sad place.   I asked myself whether I really should be listening to this show if it was a trigger for feelings?  Especially grief?

Well, we all have triggers for trauma and grief.  There are various sensations that can take us to emotional places that are intense.  The intensity can be like a freefall on the first big hill of any large roller coaster; we go there quickly, and we go there hard.   In addition to the intensity, we can stay there for a few minutes all the way up to weeks or months.

In the early stages of grief, right after the loss happens, we feel one big trigger as we are absorbed in shock and our functioning level can be greatly diminished all the way up to being immobilized.  Academically, as we go along, we put more time, space and experience between us and the loss and so the triggers should come less often and should be of less intensity (we are not supposed to feel like we are on a roller coaster).

However, there are some people who live in the triggers.  In a post years ago, I had mentioned the mother who made her house one large shrine to her deceased son.  She was continuing to trigger herself every day by looking at all the pictures she kept up in her house.    She claimed she followed the advice I gave her to put all but one of the pictures away and I think she got better because she appeared to move on in her life.  

Holiday Traditions are Grief Triggers

Holiday Traditions have the tendency to be grief triggers, especially when they remind us of those whom we shared them with who are now no longer with us. They can lose their meaning in our relationships and can take us to negative places quickly.

There is a quandary for many of us at the holidays when others want to have those traditions and we don’t.  Traditions do not have the same meaning and significance to everyone and some may connect them differently to the loss of a family member than other family members.  Some see them as a family activity while some see the traditions as centered around the deceased loved one.

For those who connect the tradition to the event, they often refuse to go to holiday gatherings and cloister themselves for the holiday season because they just can’t stand the reminders of the pain.   They have the emotional freefall with the triggers and so they might unintentionally instigate family drama; others are angry that they do not move on.  There is no easy answer to this quandary and drama but let us consider some ideas.

What if you have a family member of loved one who is dodging holiday gatherings?

1)      The first thought is if the loss just happened, can you give them a break and let it slide for the first Christmas?  Loving people often means extending grace to them in their pain.  We are doing to others what we want them to do for us?

2)      If some time has passed and they are continuing to dodge holiday gatherings because of the pain, it may help to go talk to them with the following plan:

a.       Tell them that you love them, and it is important for you that they be part of the family at the holidays.

b.       Ask them what you can do to make it easier for them to be at the gathering?

c.       Because you want to see them at the holidays, can you offer an opportunity to create new traditions as a family.

What if it is you are the spoiler at the holidays because of a grief trigger? 

1)      Can you talk to your family member about why you have been dodging the holiday gatherings?

2)      Can you negotiate with your family member (who is either calling or nagging you) about trying something new or different at the family gathering?

3)      Do you need to talk with a professional or member of the clergy about your grief trigger to see if you can either rewire the button or deactivate the button? 

4)      Can you give in and power through the holiday gathering(s) out of love for your living family members who would really love to see you and be with you?

There is honestly no guarantee that you can persuade the family member to come to family gatherings if they are the spoiler.  However, if you are the spoiler you have choices that only you can make. 

In the end, we never seem to know grief triggers until they surprise us.  However, for those who have been avoiding holiday family gatherings because of grief and loss, it is a fair bet that those triggers are obvious, but possibly embarrassing.   Embarrassment is being caught emotionally caught off guard when a boundary is being crossed and feelings are an emotional boundary that we maintain with others.  Ergo, we do not share our feelings with others if we think they are going to think we are being weak.  There is some false sense of strength in either hiding or denying our embarrassment over our feelings of grief.  It sometimes takes more strength to be real about who we are and that we are human.

It is normal and human to have grief and loss triggers.  Sometimes we have to face those triggers, and accept them, and work through them so that they are reduced from roller coaster hills to mere bumps in the road because we make them that way, and yes, I have continued to listen to Canada Calling and I enjoy it even if the commercial for that certain hospital is played.

I hope that this has been helpful.  If this is your first time to this blog, and you are looking for thoughts on different issues, feel free to scroll through the previous posts.

Inspiration from Donald and John 3:16.

I had an encounter today that may have been this year’s inspiration and meaning for Christmas.  Today at my church, they had the special needs adult class light the advent candle.  It was not the best stage delivery of anything, but the prayer of a mentally challenged, 40-something man I will call Donald (not his real name) gave new meaning to what Christmas is.

Donald started out his prayer saying the “Lord’s Prayer” (Our Father who art in Heaven Hallowed it be thine name) but then he digressed to praying for a number of people and things that seemed to go on and on until one of the teachers tapped him on the arm to finish and say “men.”   His prayer was all over the place.  Nevertheless I left feeling that Donald said a great prayer. 

In the end behind the Christmas tree, mistletoe, holly, Santa Claus and Rudolph is the religious origin of Christmas: the birth of Jesus Christ, who is seen as the savior of the world.   A large question then means: What does it mean to you? 

Donald’s prayer reminded me of the original message of the Christmas story:  Jesus came to earth because God loved the world that whoever believes should have ever lasting life.   Donald was included in the “whoever” and Donald really seems to believe.

Donald with his prayer sent the message that belief is not tied to how high your IQ is, how much money you have, or how beautiful you are.  Belief is tied to what is inside of you and what you believe in is important.   In the midst of all of the alternative, secular traditions, there is still an inherent question of what do you believe in?  

Of course, it can get complicated and emotional from here because many people due to trauma and the hypocrisy of others have problems with miracles, “God the Father,” organized religion and even with the existence of God.   Nothing can be proved to you to make you believe or not believe.  The power to believe is the hands of one person . . . you.   

Today, Donald was like a shining star over Bethlehem showing what Christmas was about.  I hope they have Donald pray again in church soon. 

A Second Year Without Dad: Moving On and The Emotions of Traditions.

The scene that got me thinking was in the first week of November.  The usual radio station in Louisville started playing all Christmas music, and I was listening to it.  After I dropped my son off at his high school I drove down one of the picturesque streets in the Louisville Highlands that looked like the Chicago suburb backgrounds of the Home Alone film and other John Hughes movies.  The combined sights and sounds hit me that it was a second holiday season without dad. 

As you live your life without someone no longer there, part of the grief process is you eventually develop acceptance: you find ways of filling the metaphorical hole in your life.   If you are not filling the hole, you are going in other directions so you don’t just keep living in the pain.  

Examples of Not Moving On and Not Accepting

It was a moment of reflection about how I was doing on this one.    In my business, of course I learned from my patients about what it means to fail to accept someone’s death and continue to live in the pain (I’ve changed some details to protect their confidentiality).

The first was a patient I worked with eight years ago who talked about making her whole house a shrine to her deceased son.  The son had a debilitating condition and she was his caretaker for his entire life.   She had pictures of him everywhere.  She came to group reporting she was always crying. She eventually disclosed she had created a shrine that she had been staring at for years.

 A second example of living in the pain was a depressed woman who lost her infant. She admitted that she had continued to sleep with her infant’s ashes. 

 A third example is a guy who put his son to bed and woke up two months later in a hospital.  It turned out that there was a house fire and his son died and he did not know it until he woke up out of a coma.  He continued to use drugs and had several admissions to the hospital.   When talking to him, he stated his continued feel of guilt about surviving.  Even though it was a rental house and the fire was caused by electrical wiring, and there was no logical or rational fault of his in the situation but  he continued to live in the grief years afterwards.

As for me, whenever I still pass by battery-operated sound effect toys in places like World Market, I still think about how Dad would have liked it.  It is only a few seconds to remember that Dad has gone.  Sometimes I am tempted to buy one of the laser sounding toys and play with it for a few minutes in memory of Dad, but it doesn’t otherwise thrill me.   I suppose that I have been moving on pretty well.

Moving On at Christmas and the Challenge of Traditions

As I think about moving on at Christmas and the holidays, I have concluded that it is harder because of the family traditions.  Traditions are habits with a little more significance.  They are symbolic experiences of our relationships and connection.  They tie our shared past to our shared present.  When a loved one (especially who made the tradition happen) has gone, it can start to represent the emptiness or the void in our relationships. 

Changing what traditions mean is very hard because we don’t go at them rationally, but emotionally.  Emotional thinking is automatic, and thus we don’t really think slowly and factually about the holidays.  But, we are very quick as human beings to go immediately to the sad and mad feelings and we sink in the depression of the situation.

So, assuming that you are reading this because you are looking for something and want something, I am not sure what I have anything more to offer you than the following: if you and your family are observing a tradition that otherwise has a painful side to it, try to live in the moment and focus on what it means to your current relationships.

You and I have the power to determine what holiday traditions mean now.  Kept traditions represent our family histories and memories of the loved one or ones with whom we have shared the experience.

However, traditions also bond us now to the people we love and call family now.   If no one else wants to share a particular tradition, it may be an opportunity for acceptance and moving on in the creation of a new holiday tradition.    

As for me, my little nuclear family has developed a few traditions around my 15-year-old’s apathy and resistance to getting away from his computer. We’ll do church and get Domino’s Pizza on Christmas Eve.  We’ll watch one or two movie versions of A Christmas Carol. We will invite others over for a pizza party on New Year’s Eve for the fourth straight year, and we’ll get Chinese food on New Year’s Day.  Those practices are not exactly Christmas-y, but they are traditions at this time of year that bond us.     

Bargaining that maybe I am thankful on the 4th Thursday of November (Or the 2nd Monday in October).

                I had one of the most interesting conversations in church that had me thinking now that the holidays are coming around again.  We talked about trying to be thankful when you have just not been feeling the holiday due to grief and loss.  

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a holiday where people (primarily families) join together for a meal.  Maybe there is a thankful prayer said or maybe there is not (based on the degree of secularism practiced).  Maybe there is a time where people act as family and relax together and be themselves as blood-relatives.   Or course there could be the noisy rehashing of the unresolved family drama that has gone on for decades.  Maybe you are reminded why you only see your family the few times a year that you do.  Regardless of the joy or dysfunction, it is a holiday that has some kind of tradition . . . some of them are just more enjoyable or miserable than others.

         Based on this blog, it is no mystery that the holidays are jaded by Grief and Loss.  Death, divorce and estrangement transform the meaning and fulfillment of traditions into a trauma memory.  What was once gratifying and warm has become negative and cold.   

            But the holiday does come around again whether it is the second Monday in October in Canada or the fourth Thursday in the United States to remind us that it is a day to be thankful.  The calendar reminds us that the world still turns regardless of the enduring grief that has colored the holidays into bad times.

            Bargaining is typically the third stage in Kubler-Ross’s five-stage model of grief. It is a period where people try to regain control of the situation after a loss.  Maybe there is a chance to reclaim what was lost.  Maybe the relationship can be restored and maybe the dead could be brought back to life because there is some delusional hope that you are just stuck in a long, bad dream.  However, in Kubler-Ross’s framework people usually enter the depression stage when they realize there is no more bargaining and the loss is real and irrevocable.  However, maybe it seems is possible to bargain that there is some reason to move on and find meaning and purpose in a holiday even if the old meaning is gone.

             Part of the bargaining is accepting that the feeling doesn’t have to be spectacular or awe-inspiring.  Thankfulness seems to recognize that there is something that is somehow and in some way good.  

            A stretch of a metaphor or a pun that may be applicable in the case of thanksgiving, is the highly anxious person trying to take a deep breath.   Anxiety and stress makes muscles tense and the first deep breath hurts because the muscles in the torso are often tight to the point of being sore or pulled.  Doing more deep breathing will eventually loosen the muscles and the pain along the sides will go away.   However, to get the process started usually takes the encouragement of a therapist or counselor because an anxious person is of a fixed mindset.

            Consider this your encouragement as negativity is like the aforementioned anxiety and the occupied mind with the negativity of grief and loss seems to have no room for being thankful or joyful.   It takes a bit of bargaining to start practicing thankful thoughts.   Maybe with a little practice, it can become a renewed habit that leads to discovery of new meaning and new fulfillment that makes the fourth Thursday in November or the second Monday in October more pleasant.

           I hope that these thoughts helped you.  Feel free to go through the blog and look at all of the previous posts if you are searching for thoughts on a certain topic or situation. 

The Hypnotic State of Ruminating on Grief, Loss, and Family Dysfunction at Christmas

Much of the last several weeks have been busy.  I came up with ideas to write about but could not develop them until I went Christmas shopping with my wife this past Friday night at the mall.

Yes, I wanted to write more about grief and loss over those we loved who have passed.  I thought about the service of memories I went to where my church remembered the 22 people who had died during 2016.  I thought about continuing about reflecting on my continued life without my father who died Labor Day 2015.  But I found myself engaging in my different coping methods aka working on my other writing project and being busy at work.

When our life is not about family matters we are fine, but our mind turns sour when we think about family.  Well, back to Friday night, a time where I was slowing down and thinking about family and Christmas. 

It was pretty frustrating looking for a Christmas gift for some avoidant family members. They rarely call. They are controlling as to when they come.  They do not invite us to their house and so I have not talked with them in about two years.  I do not know what they currently like or are interested in. I was trying to show loving thoughtfulness and I found myself feeling frustrated for most of the shopping trip.  

Two posts ago, I wrote about avoidant family members.  Yes, their avoidance is best not taken personally, but this experience of walking through shopping malls going from store to store brought to mind how consumed we can get in emotion thinking about them.  Depending on how much power the avoidant family members have, we can find ourselves ruminating hours upon hours upon the sad, sorry state of our relationships or our losses.

Ruminating is one of those hypnotic states we can get sucked into until we decide to stop.  Ruminating can go on for hours or days.   Ruminating seems to be easier with higher levels of sadness and anger. Ruminating is also easier when there is nothing else going on.  As we ruminate upon issues that are never going to be resolved we unknowingly compound our emotions.

Despite any elegant analysis or description of such situation, the compounded emotion when ruminating is brutal and robs us of both time and energy.   When we ruminate it can be like diving into a pool of emotion and it is hard to get out of the pool because the water is warmer than the air temperature. 

The Challenge

The obvious coping skill with ruminating is to stop it.  It is a matter of not thinking about the painful subject matter, or at least getting our minds off of things that we cannot solve.  At least for Christmas, it is helpful to read or watch movies, or the old classic--go volunteer somewhere. 

Such painful subjects are indeed tough to put out of our minds. We may have to play a head game with ourselves that it is not doing any good to dwell on the dysfunctional family members or the people who are no longer with us.   The first line of defense is recognizing that ruminating about emotional topics can make us get into a hypnotic state of emotion if we them let them.

Deprivation and Sorrow

                The late Furman Bisher (1918-2012) wrote in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 about his austere Christmases in Georgia as a child.  Everyone was poor in his community and they got oranges as treats at Christmas.  Bisher wrote that his wife had just bought him a little red bicycle for Christmas so he would not be the only one to have not gotten one.   Cute, but I wonder whether that gesture really healed any hurt or filled any hole in his psyche.

Many of us, if not all of us can point to some form of deprivation that we have suffered in our lives.  Deprivation often has a physical connotation, but if we were to look at Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we may have all had some kind of deprivation of our emotional needs, and it probably bugs some of us on a recurring basis. 

Deprivation is the lack or denial of something considered to be a necessity.   It seems likely that not all the deprivation that we have experienced bugs us, but a few things that really mattered rear their ugly heads at one time or another.  When it bugs us, it is more than grief—it is chronic sorrow because it comes up again and again.   The holidays are one of those times when it comes up again and again.

Not everything that we have been deprived of holds the same weight, and hopefully we do not dwell on it all the time, but some of this deprivation was a significant enough hut that we have some moments of deep sadness and re-living of pain.  If it is not sadness, we relive the anger.

There are family members who may have deprived us of traditions and recognition.  They may have not invited us to weddings or they treat us like family secrets.  They may never invite us over to their house and avoid us.   They demonstrate by actions that they treat other family members as favored and us as the red-headed step-child.

Peers from school days may have deprived us of the respect that we needed. Maybe we were picked on, teased and bullied, and they did not realize that they were hurting us instead of being funny. It still amazes me that a 73-year-old South Dakota man shot his high school bully dead in 2012 over a jock-strap prank from over 50 years earlier.  Some people do hold onto the pain and sorrow from such deprivation and go to such extremes.

Employers may have deprived us of raises and promotions and recognitions.  The average employee who has been with an employer for a long time has typically felt unappreciated by the employer (https://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/heres-why-your-employees-are-just-not-that-into-you/). Promotions are being given to younger yes-men and yes-women who play the political game versus those who have done good work and have been faithful employees.

Churches also tend to betray and disrespect a number of members by not supporting them in times of trouble and by failing to recognize special events and graduations.  Pastors did not come when you needed them.  Churches put your graduation as an “omitted degree” instead of recognizing you like others in the Sunday morning worship.  Some of this disrespect is ignorance and some of it is blatant politics.   Many people leave churches because they felt deprived of the meeting of those necessary emotional needs (telling the music minister how mad you are at him tends to be worthless and leaving is just easier to get away from the pain).

Colleges and Universities may change their policy and deprive graduates of traditions that have been going on and on for previous years.  Certain degrees may not recognized in commencement because of some agenda to down play the president’s idiocy in handling a controversy over allowing a guy who attended less than a semester to be granted a Ph.D.

At the holidays the sorrow over deprivations can be more acute.  Christmas tends to bring out the inner child in each of us in good and bad ways.  Yes, our inner child will sing along with silly Christmas songs.  But the inner child hurts with the rumination of the deprivation we have suffered because the real world has kicked our butts and made us cynical.

I don’t have any easy answers but to say other than for many of us, the pain of current and past deprivation at Christmas is real. The chronic sorrow over deprivations from childhood and deprivations in more recent years does happen.  I suppose that we have to recognize it when it happens and try to get our minds off of it as best as we can, but after awhile it tends to be worthless to talk about it with family and spouses because they are tired of you talking about it and tell you to let it go.  

                We live in the present, and sometimes it is a struggle, especially during the holidays.  

It isn't about you: The avoidant ones we want to talk to.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States.  (Canada has its Thanksgiving day the second Monday of October.)  It was created by President Abraham Lincoln to be a day of giving thanks to the “Creator.”   Between Christmas and Thanksgiving, the latter is the preferred gathering day for families.  

Other than eating too much food, families are supposed to have some kind of interaction.  The interaction is where the problem tends to be.  Of course there has been discussion about what happens when people drink too much and say regretful things.  There is little about the avoidant family member who does not talk or shies away from being around family.

The avoidant person may be us.  I do appreciate that given family dysfunction and trauma, some avoidant people have such a strong aversion to being around family in the name of self-preservation and PTSD.   The one staying away may be the one hiding in shame or anger.

      There will be avoidant family members who are reluctantly there but choosing to be avoidant of others because they want to avoid the typical drama.  They don’t want to be around the uncle or other family member who has had two “Rum and Pepsi’s” by dinner and has finished the bottle of rum off by 6pm.  

There are a few who seem to be arrogant.  You go up to them and say hello and they avoid making any kind of response other than a vague utterance and they walk away.   You might try a second time and they repeat what they just did.

However, there are some avoidant family members who are hard to figure out.  They act in such controlling ways that they just do not talk or even return phone calls.  If they come to see others when you are not there or they drive through your city not stopping to say hello.  Maybe you are in their city and you call them to see if you can come by and they tell you that they are sick.   They seem to do everything to be avoidant.

The main question that most ask in response is: why are they doing this?  The answer that many ask in response is “Did I do something?”   They may answer themselves again by saying, “I must have done something or they would not be acting like this.”    They engage in personalization.

Personalization

            Personalization is what has been called a thinking error.  It is taking responsibility for something that is not your fault. Or it may be taking more responsibility for what happened than is yours to take.

            The classic form of personalization that I see in my work is the adolescent to takes it personally that someone insults his or her mother or father or family.  Some insulting peer goes “Your momma” and the personalizing adolescent hits the peer.  The adolescent has taken upon himself or herself that he or she is the defender of the family.

            Another classic form of personalization is to say “I must have done something or they would not have acted that way.”    Maybe someone gives you a dirty look or is rude to you and if you personalize it the conclusion is that you must be at fault for something.

            The reality is that just because someone gives you a dirty look or is rude to you it only means they gave you a dirty look or were rude.  It does not mean that you did anything.   Some people are just rude and give dirty looks.   They did it because they did it.   Neal Peart, the lyricist for Rush aptly wrote in the song Roll the Bones “Why does it happen?  Because it happens.”

Reframing it back to your family

            So, if you are going to be around avoidant family members you can be less distressed by stopping trying to analyze why they are avoidant.  It may be a friendly measure to go up to them and try to have friendly small talk and see if they talk, but if they withdraw, they withdraw.  The avoidant family member is choosing to be avoidant because they are choosing to be avoidant because they are anxious or guarded from previous family spats on the holidays. 

            Just a disclaimer here, if you are going up to the avoidant one  to yell at them, call them something that sounds like “Ice Hole” or tease them for their behavior last holiday, I would not blame them  for avoiding you.    We are not responsible for the feelings and choices of family members, but we are responsible for what we say and what we do and we may get some consequences.

            One more thought about the avoidant family member: they may be a bunch of vacant space not worth knowing.  I have found that many avoidant people are bitter control freaks . . .  nothing more and nothing less.  They control by isolating and they do not let anyone into their lives except for those they can control.  Talking with them is woefully unfulfilling because there is nothing to connect on with them.   

Concluding Thoughts: It isn’t about you.

            It isn’t about you when it comes to the avoidant family member.  Most normal people will talk and make effort to connect with others at family gatherings tomorrow.   If you make an effort to connect with the typically avoidant family member tomorrow and it bombs, at least you tried.   If the avoidant family member otherwise claims that you are in their space or are bothering them, just let them be in their own private world.   There are better things to do with your holiday experience such as being with the family members that want to talk and play than be consumed by the avoidant family member’s reclusiveness. 

Grief a Second Year.

My father died Labor Day 2015.  I have made a full circle for myself in terms of going through the different holidays and other significant events of the year.   I have gone on in the year being mindful most of the time.  There have been a few surprise grief-related issues that have come up with regards to my family, but I do not have the liberty to describe them here, but I will talk about mine.  This aims to be tastefully real and discuss  what is therapist tested and approved.  

For 10 years prior to my father’s death I had been mindful that there would be a day he would no longer be around.  I made sure that I hugged him and told him I loved him when I saw him and when I said good-bye.  We had some meaningful times together within our ability to have them.  He did get to read my textbook that I wrote and published and he stated his approval of it.  We departed on a good note and I have no regrets.

As I look back through the previous year, I think that I did fairly well and awkward was the operative word.  The toughest week was the week after his death where it felt like I had concrete shoes.  From having seen others in shock, I told myself that this was grief and that the shock of such matters can be physical too.  Christmas and Thanksgiving were merely on the awkward side because of the changes that a phone call to dad and a gift for Dad were not in the cards and Mom had moved from Florida to Indiana just before Christmas.

 Fathers Day was the harder of the different “holidays.  I don’t have any specific answers as to why it was harder, but it just was melancholy. 

The Grass Fire

The memory of the grassfire in 1978 was what affected me most in the past year.  I will be real here and disclose that on my father’s first birthday after his death I thought about this.  On a sunny day in late October the Rock Island rail line ignited a large grassfire during dry conditions that burned about a quarter mile until it got to our place.  I remember the low black clouds and hearing the sirens get closer and bringing it to my father’s attention.  We got some shovels and went the quarter-mile back to the back fence line.

      When we got back there my dad jumped over the back fence and went down and around the fire line on our neighbor’s property to see if he could help.  I remembered that the Altoona Iowa Fire Chief drove on our property to survey the situation and then he left.  A little while later the fire came roaring up like the ocean tide engulfing me in a cloud of hot smoke leaving me choking. It was just me alone and I was afraid.

 I remember tucking tail and running and then saying a prayer and running back at the fire.  I don’t ‘think that I was a great or even good firefighter but I beat out what flames I could along a line in several places and the fire stopped about four to five feet inside our property. I was thankful that Dad came walking back after the fire had died. We spent the rest of the day putting out hot spots.  I look back now and think that because we mowed our hay and the neighbor hadn’t, the fire simply died out for lack of fuel. 

It surprised me how much I remembered the story and how it much it affected me. I also look back and I am reminded that I was in perhaps greater danger than I realized and that there were angels protecting me.  

Looking Ahead with my Family and Coping

         Memories aside from the past year and the past period, I look into the second trip through the calendar of grief and I have discovered that my family and I are not handling things the same way.  Things have gotten a little more complicated in ways with regards to new family drama given the changes. 

         With some changes come new discoveries.  People are getting into others spaces and having unforeseen conflict in the crossing of boundaries.  There are strange and awkward discussions about what did not used to get talked about.  New information about old situations gets disclosed. Family members show emotion that they did not show previously.  It is a mixture of amusement, bewilderment, and further shock.   

        I figure my family is like other families.  There is nothing that weird about my family. Of course every family has its secrets, but there is nothing new under the sun.  We are just embarrassed about our family secrets and there are subjects that we avoid talking about because it is just better that way.

        I have been a fan of Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) because we enter into situations with beliefs and thoughts and emotions.  The essence of REBT is that we can change our thoughts and beliefs when we go into situations and come out with less negative feelings and less stress.   It is a usable theory in terms of teaching a method of how to cope.

       In line with REBT I hold that we wear those beliefs, thoughts and emotions as glasses.  It is akin to the adage of someone wearing “rose-colored” glasses to describe someone who is foolishly seeing things as too positive.  With grief and loss, the glasses are dark like sunglasses and we tend to see everything as dark and gray.

With our families and grief, we may have to craft our own eyeglasses to look at things as they come along.  We may have to prepare and choose to practice thinking certain thoughts and beliefs as they express emotions and do grief their way.  We don’t have to own their feelings, in fact it is better if we don’t. 

     My REBT eyeglasses have been the following.  My family members will act in the ways they will act.  They will do what they are going to do. I do not control what they do.  I don’t have to own what they do.  Sometimes grief is just grief and there does not have to be any more to it than that.  Maybe the holidays will end up being on the difficult side but they are not impossible and they end January 2.

Concluding Thoughts:
    I hope that this is helpful to you in thinking about grief and coping with the feelings.  Feel free to look back through the blog for things that may be of interest to you.