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.

We Did the Best We Could and We are Doing the Best We Can

One of the attitudes in the past year that I have become mindful is that of "limits." When I work late there is a certain point in time where I have reached my physical limit and I have lost my mental edge or sharpness.  At that time I am both mentally and physically drained, and I cannot see another patient to assess whether or not they should be admitted to the psychiatric hospital.  I must respect my physical limits or I will make unnecessary mistakes and I will be no good to anyone.

Limits are often quiet difficult to accept.  No human can do it all, know it all or be everywhere.  However many people push their limits in saying to themselves that they should be doing more, or doing it better.   Many people also beat themselves up over the stuff they should have known in the past.  

Well they can’t and they didn’t and they dwell and fret over manufactured hopelessness and regret; they don’t necessary learn from the mistake or past situation—they just beat themselves up. 

Mind you some regret is not bad.  We need some regret and guilt to keep our moral compass. 

Limits in Grief and Loss

However, not all regret is over moral issues.  Much regret is had because we think if we would have known to have done something differently; the outcome would have been differently.    Otherwise, some people believe that if they would not have gone home from their dying loved one’s side, they would have been there when that person died. 

However, many people assume the truth and believe that they screwed up when there was no right or wrong answer to a situation.   People who are perfectionists stay in the grief stage of anger because they do not accept their limits.  Perfectionism does not allow you to have limits.  You are supposed to be perfect and get everything right.  These people stay mad at themselves and feel guilt.

Such people dwell and ruminate on this so called mistake to the point of depression. Again and again, I have suggested to clients and patients, you did the best you could and no one could have known they were going to die when they did.   We as human beings do not have omniscience or the ability to know it all: we have limits.

Limits in the Here and Now

Let’s take a different look at limits: the here and now.  Very few of us can buy anything someone wants. There are going to be limits to our money and limits to the supply of the hottest gift idea for this Christmas.  There are going to be limits to how special this Christmas will be. There are going to be limits to what other people are going to be able to do for us and give us.

Accepting one’s limits can be a relief for some because the act of trying to do it all for everyone is plain slavery.   Being able to give yourself the Christmas gift of limits may be one of the healthiest actions you take.  Accepting limits may be demonstrated through:

• Not making promises you will not be able to keep
• Not promising to buy gifts you cannot afford
• Not committing to events you do not want to go to

You will likely feel like there is a weight off of your back because you are giving yourself a break.
On the other hand, if you say “I can’t accept my limits because people are expecting stuff of me and they are going to be mad” you may have some work to do.   If we accept our limits we may have to set limits with other people.  You are correct to say that when we set limits with other people they may get mad.   

However, not everyone will get mad because there are understanding people in this world.  Some of our family members and friends are very understanding because they appreciate the matter of limits and they cope very well with such matters.

On the other hand, the reality of life is that we all get told no, and we have to tell some people no.  A person getting angry because we set limits with them may very well be the one with an anger problem.  We have been slaves to that anger problem, but we can set ourselves free by setting limits and letting them be angry—most people do get over the anger.

Surviving the holidays often means accepting limits—both in our past memories of grief and loss and in the here and now.   When we accept our limits we give ourselves the credit that we did the best we could then and we at doing the best we can now.

Concluding thoughts:

I hope this helps.  Feel free to review past entries to find subjects that you are wanting to read about. If you are have a suggestion for a topic you want an opinion on, put in the comments section.  Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving: The Attitude of Half-Full

Thanksgiving in the United States is one of the holidays where there are a lot of cultural traditions.  It is characterized as a family holiday where families get together and eat hearty, savory, and flavorful foods. Maybe people will pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God or the God of their understanding.

It seems that in a search to make it more meaningful or interesting, some reflection will be done upon the story of the Puritans or Pilgrims who sailed over in and landed in what is now the Massachusetts in 1621. They came for their religious freedom and almost all died except for the beneficence of the aboriginal people who showed them how to grow food and survive the harsh winter.  They held a feast and invited the aboriginals we still call (albeit erroneously) Indians (or now political correctly native Americans) in the name of gratitude and celebration.

The United States holiday of Thanksgiving came into existence in 1863 by the declaration of Abraham Lincoln as a day of

Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national           perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the  lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.  (http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm)

Advertising: the Shaping of our Attitudes 

Moving forward to the 21^st century, it has amazed me that it has become another day for commercialism, oh yes, there will be many people who will gather with close families and have their family traditions, but there will be far more people focused on the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping.

 The retail advertising machine has been pumping out commercials and ads for the past few weeks of fantastic sounding deals for this year’s hot deals on electronics, toys, and clothes.  The commercials as part of the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade Broadcast will be bright and festive and imparting a message that buying great gifts for the ones you love will make you complete because you are not complete.

We live in a world where the information overload of advertising has pointed out to the majority of us that there is more stuff that we do not have than have.  We are faced with the temptation of an attitude of focusing on the negative and the emptiness. 

Advertisers sadly do not encourage a positive attitude of fulfillment, they create an attitude of perceived need and discontent to motivate us to spend our money on their product.   One of the outcomes of the messages is that you and I do not have everything they think we are supposed to have.   They paint us as having a glass that is half empty.  We do not have everything to fill the glass, and they often create the illusion that they can fill the glass with their good or service that we should buy.

                Attitude: What you think and what you feel about it. 

Thanksgiving as an Attitude

In my job I have to think a lot about attitude.  Many parents come in and say, "my kid's got an attitude."  In those cases it is really an adolescent being defiant and oppositional towards the parent and the kid not really having "an attitude." To get some change going, I have to challenge the use of the term "attitude" and "what it means" if I am going to get the family to consider changes. 

I have came up with my own simplified definition of attitude as "what you think combined by what you feel". Our attitudes are dynamic--always shaped by our times, situations and expectations, but I hold that we can manage them. 

Thanksgiving seems to imply that we know we do not and cannot have everything: Our glass is simultaneously half-empty and half-full.  We recognize that we have something in the glass.  We look at what we have combined by how much worse it could be.  

Sometimes we do not truly have thanksgiving until we have suffered or been afraid in some form or capacity.  

Thanksgiving suggests our vulnerability as human beings.  Yes, we worked for things that we have, but as the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible notes, time and chance happen to all.  It could be worse as corporations fold, people lose their jobs, and do not have the money the use to.  People in other parts of the world do not have the food they need because of droughts and blights and war.  Suffering has taught us that we are subject to conditions outside of our control. 

If it is not suffering that has engendered the attitude of thanksgiving, it may be fear.  Many of us has had the near misses where our imaginations have taken us to the "what if" thought.  Our imaginations create the worst case scenarios.  We we pull ourselves back to reality, we might feel some relief and thanksgiving, and realize our glass is half full. . 

Sometimes We Must Count Our Blessings and Make Our Glass Half Full. 

The piece that I have tried to fit in is that when we are emotional, we tend to be concrete or black and white in our thinking.  We tend not to see the shades of gray.  It is all this or all that.  This can be the case when there has been a death.  We may have to drag ourselves to count our blessings in a way to get our minds into a better attitude. 

Counting blessings can be difficult if not seemingly in possible.  You are getting your mind on what you do have. There is an old Christian hymn "Count Your Blessings."  It suggests, to "name them one by one."   

As I mentioned my previous post, my father died about three months ago. I won’t be able to call him.  I may think about calling him a few times during the day because that is what people in grief and loss may do. Otherwise

• I aim to be thankful for my having had my father around for as long as he was. 
• I will be thankful for the times he put up with me.
• I will be thankful for the lessons he taught and the love he showed in the way that he could show. 
• I will be thankful that my mother is still with us.
• I will be thankful for my wife and kids.
• I will be thankful for my health.
• I will be thankful for what I have. 

I will be counting my blessings.

As noted before I have written 85 other posts about other topics.  Feel free to browse and see if there is something that may help you.  One more thing, if you like this, feel free to re-post and pass it on.

And you thought your family was dysfunctional?

I have written about family dysfunction before in this blog, and you are invited to go back and read previous entries.  I think that we do grieve that some of our families are so screwed up. 

We hear other people talk about how great their family gatherings are.  We hear that they gather together at Christmas. We feel envious that our holiday is not going to be that great.

I have thought that some people I know sugar-coat how great their Christmas is, and maybe they do.  Some of the people we know are pretentious and good liars.   However, they are reporting that they are having a good Christmas, and for those of us, whose Christmas is going to be lonely or marginal, we are still going to have our sad feelings.

To me when faith is removed from Christmas, it becomes incredibly empty and meaningless.  If gathering with a bunch of irritable and dysfunctional people is the end-all of Christmas, then we should probably cancel it . . . but that is not going to happen because of how many national economies depend on retail sales of gifts.

Family Dysfunction in the "Holy Family"

The idea here in this entry is not entirely my own, but it has made me feel at least a sense of meaning and connection with my faith today in addition a new appreciation for Matthew 1 in the New Testament of the Bible.

Now, I have tried to keep things secular in this blog because I wanted to help the broadest possible audience, but I am hoping to give you a new appreciation for the essence of the Christmas story.

Anyway, Matthew 1 1-16 is genealogical listing of Jesus’ family tree all the way back to Adam.  I did not do so great in Robert Stein’s Gospels class at Bethel Seminary, but I at least learned that the audience of this book is a Jewish one with lots of references to Old Testament prophecy arguing that Jesus fulfilled them.  

The genealogy speaks to a Jewish audience since that was important to them.

Within Jesus’ genealogy, there are indications that his family had black sheep and imperfection.  There are three women named, and two of them were of ill-reputation: Rahab and Bathsheba.  Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho.  Bathsheba was the woman King David had an affair with. David then had Bathsheba’s husband killed.  Ruth actually was reputed to be a good person (who actually has book in the Old Testament named after her), but she was a foreigner and the Jewish people at that time were big into ethnic purity.

Furthermore, when you look at how Jesus was conceived and born in Matthew 1:18-25, it was not ideal and Joseph wanted to divorce Mary.   He at least listened to the angel of the Lord in the dream and in faith took Mary as his wife and followed through.

As children we did not think about the adult undertones of the Christmas story.  It was all about Away in a Manger and Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Silent Night.   Then it is about Santa Claus and presents and a break from school.  As adults we grow cynical and empty.

The Meaning for Us

That brings us back to today.  There are nine more shopping days until Christmas.  There is a sense of drivenness that stuff that must get done.  Being driven is not always bad, but it can become empty after awhile.

We are being driven to a time when all the stores are supposed to be closed on December 24 and many of us are going to be stuck alone or with some people who are not going to be pleasant to be with.  Or we are going to lament being alone because the people we would otherwise be with are just plain miserable and lead to headaches (we made the better choice to be alone than to be stuck with those miserable souls). 

The story of Jesus coming to earth is wrapped in family dysfunction and fallible humanity.  It is not really the elegant story that is portrayed in a service of lessons and carols or in the Advent wreath.  It is a real gritty story that touches us where we live. 

We live in a world of pain and heartache.  We have many feelings that we must stuff and move ahead because reality dictates that feelings do not pay the bills.  We suffer through the ongoing anger and hurt from things that should have been different.   We open up the grief again and again that people have failed us and that we failed others and ourselves.

We grieve that we have immature relatives that will throw tantrums at the slightest trigger.   It is down right impossible to identify these triggers because for an immature person anything can be a trigger.   Many of us have tried to walk on eggshells around these relatives to try and not make them angry only to feel like failures.   If these immature family members were strangers, we would have avoided them a long time ago because they give us no other motivation to bond with them.

According to the Bible Jesus came to earth in a dysfunctional life situation and died for our sins.  The prophet Isaiah foretold his emotional, physical, and mental lot . . .

Who has believed our message

    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

   He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

    and like a root out of dry ground.

   He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

   He was despised and rejected by mankind,

    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

   Like one from whom people hide their faces

   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

(Isaiah 53: 1-3 New International Version)

We need meaning.  Meaning helps us cope.  Meaning helps us get though.  Families are supposed to give us meaning through togetherness and acceptance, but when that doesn’t happen due to the dysfunction, the original message of Christmas can give us that meaning.  The savior who came knows what it is like to suffer like we suffer.

Should this make your holiday all better?   No.  But I hope that it will make your holiday more meaningful to look underneath the Christmas songs you have probably heard for the 200^th time and the 100^th Christmas cookie or piece of candy you have eaten. 

Considering Hope: Real People Do it.

In keeping with the first Sunday of Advent, I have been mindful of the concept of "hope."   Hope is one of the themes of Advent.   I think that "hope" is rarely something contemplated or reflected upon the average person's life.

The meaning of the word.

I am not being original in this but according to Webster, hope is a feeling that something wanted is possible, and confidence.   Hope is looking forward to the future and does not look backward to the past. 

When Do We Hope?

It seems that we hope when we are not in a good spot.  We tend to hope when we are not feeling good, miserable, or are anxious.  Maybe something bad is predicted or expected to happen (such as a employer laying off workers or the "Fiscal Cliff") and we desire an exception to occur.  Maybe a loved one just died and a piece of us hopes that we are in the middle of a bad dream and we will wake up and the person will be there (this is part of the denial stage of grief).  

We tend to engage in hope when we are not in control.  We hope when an object, outcome or action is to happen sometime in the future.  We do not control what happens tomorrow . . . no one knows what happens until it happens. 

Sometimes we hope for something that we cannot get a clear timeframe on when something is to happen.  Many hope and wait for the love of our life to come.  Some of us hope for a job.  Some of us hope for the promotion we have worked so hard in our current employer.  

Sometimes we hope for the impossible against our better judgment.  This usually includes hoping for acceptance from your critical parent.  Maybe it is hoping that Aunt Phyllis will at least smile and be nice at the holiday and not find someway to make a scene at your holiday gathering. 

When Do We Give Up Hope?

People give up when they are depressed or when they feel that they have been hoping for the wrong thing.   It can be bad and then again it can be good.

When someone is depressed, they feel stuck and possibly suicidal . . . and give up hope.  Only when they start to feel hope do they recover.   I have had many depressed patients who had given up hope and feel that they were up against a big black wall.  By accident, years ago I told one patient that I offered them a message of hope and that they could get better.   When that patient was being discharged from my program, they said that my offering of hope helped them begin to recover.  (You bet I started making that statement a habit.)

On the other hand, sometimes we discover that we are hoping for the wrong things.  We find that we are waiting for something that is not going to happen.  We then surrender to the reality that it is not going to happen.  We grieve and make a choice to move on.  (I wonder how many people have gone to Hollywood and then went crawling back to their hometown in humility that their dreams were dashed?)

In reality, many people still keep some of their unrealistic hopes in corners of their minds.  Many hope that the estranged family member will return and apologize.  Many hope that they can become a celebrity.  Many hope that their lottery numbers win.  I think that it is part of human nature. 

The Spiritual Hope of Christmas

While I have not particularly sought to proselytize, I will say that if you are looking for hope in Christmas, then you probably need to examine the situation you find yourself in.

Christmas is a celebration that is more theological at its core than anything and part of the theology of Christmas is the spiritual hope for the world.  In making a general, theological statement, the world is a fallen place where bad things happen, and Christ is the redeemer to save it.  Jesus Christ is the hope of the world.

Sometimes we become mindful of how bad we are as people. We think about all of our bad points and how evil and rotten we can be . . . and have been.   That is when we can be open to looking for hope in deliverance.  The Bible tells us in a number of places within its pages that God loved us first in sending Jesus to earth to be that deliverer, and in him we can have hope and can be made renewed and clean. 

It is challenging to look at spiritual matters.  Life in the 21st century does not lend itself to spiritual reflection.  We are very busy people in the western world who tend to be driven to produce and be busy and not think about the spiritual.  We become numb to most matters of hope, and we only end up hoping when our expectations crash.   It is usually when our expectations crash, and when logic fails that we are open to the spiritual and the miraculous.  We hunger for something that knowledge just cannot fill, and that is the spiritual part of us.

Hope.  Real people do it.

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).

   





 

The Fourth Sunday of Advent: Where is the feeling of the Love?

Today is the fourth Sunday in Advent where the Love Candle of the Advent Wreath is lit.  Of course in the context of the church, it is about the Love of God to give his only son for salvation for those who believe.  The sermon/homily and liturgy is usually about love. The problem is that people just do not feel love

This blog post will reflect on the concept of love and its lack in the life of the survivor.  It is not necessarily about romance and finding that special someone, although it has some implications for romance.

Love is an existential matter

For the purposes of this post is both a bizarre and complicated “thing.”  It is an emotion and it is an action.  What you intend as love is not always recognized and received in love.  Whether it is agape, brotherly love or romantic love, it should be an exchange and a bonding force in our relationship and a feeling of fulfillment. 

What makes Christmas tough when it comes to love is that we do not get the kind of love from our families that

• we may want
• believe we need or
• we believe we deserve.

Maybe expect love to be in the form of presents.  Maybe we expect love in the form of thoughtfulness, phone calls and cards.   Many of us crave love from our parents and other family members.

Just say it!!!!!

For many people, it will suffice for others to say “I love you.”  That is one of the toughest phrases to say.  You are taking a risk to say it to someone.   That means you are admitting you have some kind of good or positive feeling or affection for someone.  To say "I love you" and get rejected is very humiliating. 

I have had many patients who have stated that their father or mother never said “I love you” to them.   These people either lamented that mom or dad never said the phrase, or they resented mom and dad for never saying it.

Why can't they say, “I love you?”

The opinion varies as to why mom and dad cannot/could not say “I love you.”  Mom and Dad may have a number of problems.   Maybe he or she is abusive.  Maybe they have an addiction and are emotionally dead.  

Sometimes mom or dad have a psychiatric disorder.  Maybe it was a personality disorder or Schizophrenia.  Sometimes I think that mom and dads have autistic disorders.  With these disorders, the parents are somewhat rendered clueless as to what children need.

In fairness to the reader, if you are a survivor, it is a fair bet that dad are one too.   I think that it is because survivor behavior runs in families. Instead parents who are survivors are usually critical.  They never can admit that they are wrong.  They rarely tell you that you did a good job.  Instead they only tell you what you did wrong.  Moms and dads who are guarded and who live behind an emotional wall cannot even tell their kids that they love their kids.

If you cannot tell others that you love them take an inventory as to why you cannot.  You will likely identify the same reasons your parents cannot either.

The Quandary

Again, going on what is a fair bet, if you and your family have difficulty saying “I love you.”  As an adult you own some of the problem. You are one of the family who is not saying “I love you.” 

However, if you started staying I love you to your family members, you will probably get an embarrassed look as if you or they expelled some flatulence.   They could look like a deer in the headlights and run away.  Being told “I love you” is scary and intimate and it tends to make survivors run all the more back behind their walls.

A grief and loss situation

This is often a time of grief and loss that your parents or family cannot say “I love you” to each other and is not capable to meet the ideal of being a loving family.  Part of the growth is realizing that your parents are human and have their personal weaknesses. 

Realizing that your family is not going to meet your emotional needs is often a time for crying.  So many would love tenderness from mom and dad. 

Acceptance and moving on

Reaching acceptance does not necessarily make things better for a person, but maybe less worse.  Your parents and family will still be the same.  Your energy will hopefully be freed up from focusing on “why not” and focusing on meeting your need for affection and love. 

I do believe that we have the responsibility as adults to take charge of meeting our needs.  If you are one who is waiting on your family to meet your need of love, you will likely continue to be miserable and disappointed.  

This is not an easy conclusion, but you and I are responsible to giving our lives direction and meaning, and that includes finding people with whom we can love and in turn accept love. . 

What even makes this more complicated is that if you are a survivor who has trouble accepting the love of people without suspicion that people want something.  The reality is that much of the time love is just love at face value.  

There are many people who want nothing more than a relationship.  They do not care if you are rich or poor.  They do not care if you are anonymous or famous. 

If you are survivor you will likely need to take the risk or gamble and let people into your life.  The good news is that we do not do it all at once. 

 Here is how you do it--you go slow.  You start talking about yourself.  You start talking about your feelings.  You let other people choose the activities that you do together.  While this can be scary, it is not like it is a roller coaster ride, but a walk up and down low hills. 

Third Sunday of Advent: I know that some of you may not feel like it, but this is a day of joy.

Today is the third Sunday of Advent and it is the Sunday of Joy.  Joy is basically synonymous with happiness.   Of course, the focus of  joy in Advent is that there should be the feeling of joy in God's gift to humanity.
  
For the people reading this blog, I am assuming that "Joy" is a hard feeling to have or even reach for.  If you have had someone just die or you are having an otherwise difficult time Joy is elusive.

I think that if you have just had a loss or you are still grieving a loss, it is not a time of joy.  You are likely overwhelmed with negative feelings and physical stress, and you are not likely to feel joy.  I have a personal story seems appropriate here.

A Personal Story

I have referenced this in a prior post, but my wife had a miscarriage between the second and third weeks of Advent over a decade ago.  We were either numb or strong and we went into church and it was the --you guessed it--the Sunday of Joy in Advent.

While a few people said they were sorry, the few narcissists in the Sunday School class were matter of fact when we told them about our loss as if we had merely yawned.  It was a cheery sermon and the pastor, who was aware of our loss said in the sermon,

I know that some of you may not feel like it, but this is a day of joy.  

For several years, I could not have cared about the Sunday of joy in Advent--it turned out ironically to be a Sunday of grief for me.  I kept my manners and stayed seated and kept quiet.

Of course I was grieving and I tried to keep a stiff upper lip about it.  As I look back at today, I did think about that day 11 years ago, and I think that with the time, I have hurt less and less and I worked to look for and create joy.

Joy--it is often looked for and created.

Sometimes joy can be spontaneous in response to the positive situation, but it seems to come more from creation inside of you when there are current, negative circumstances.  We can find joy in something else if we are not feeling positive about that is in front of us.

Joy can be found in a number of actions or realizations. Joy may be a matter of "counting our blessings."  Joy can be a matter of looking at the bright side of life.   Joy can be felt from remembering what has been good in our past.

Joy as Irony

As I have sought to feel joy in my life, I have found myself working hard to reframe what is good and what I can do.  I think that finding joy in difficult times means realizing the good that came out of failures and disappointments. 

Joy in Faith

Despite real life and all of its distractions,  the observance of Advent has at least called me to realize the joy that I have in my salvation.  Many people feel lonely and unloved, but there is the love of God.    A strange concept to many is that the Bible says that all are sinners.  We all have fallen short of the mark (Romans 3:23).  We all deserve death (Romans 6:23).  But while we were sinners, Christ died for us (me included) Romans 5:8.  God loved us first that he gave his only son for us (John 3:16).

Where do you let your thoughts go?

As I have thought back over the past decade, joy is found more when you spend your energy looking for it and creating it.  I think that I have had to look for it today.  I do not think that I found it so much at church today (yes I said it), but I found it in other activities.

I also have had to limit how much I have thought back to the Sunday after the miscarriage.  I have chosen to give it minimal thought except for when writing this post. 

I have had to create joy in experimenting on that baking contest entry that flopped terribly (A death by chocolate-mint torte). I have found it in giving some picture frames to a friend who wants to try selling them on e-bay. 

As I look to close out this day, I have to say that my joy has not been ecstatic.  It has been pleasant, but not "over the top" as some might say.  I think that too many people expect joy to be an all-or-nothing proposition, and it is not.  

Closing thoughts

As I reflect on how this post has turned out, I realize that it has not been as intense as other posts have been.  I guess I would like to give a permission to not feel joy if you don't want to, and that your joy can be pleasant but not ecstatic. 

There are some people in intense pain and wanting relief from the hurt and physical stress of emotions. The reality is that that pain does not go away immediately but takes its time.  The Sunday of Joy in Advent is a day that most people going through grief and loss would rather avoid.  However, I do hope that if this has fit you, that you may find some small thing that gives you at least one second of joy.

Grief and Loss at Christmas—feeling your feelings? Or stuck in the past?

A Recap

Grief is the natural emotional response to the loss of a cherished person, thing or idea. As noted before, I buy into the Kubler-Ross model that there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining and acceptance.

Yesterday I discussed how anger is the underestimated emotion of grief during the holidays. Anger as part of the grief process is a strong feeling that people get stuck and paralyzed in if they do not work through it or resolve in.   People who are angry because of a loss can be unbearable to be around and can disrupt family celebrations.

Denial and Bargaining

When it comes to the other stages of grief, people may get stuck in the the denial or bargaining stages if they are dealing with a divorce or relationship estrangement. I have met one person who appeared to be stuck in the denial stage and they were apparently high on pain medications when expressing their bargaining with God to bring their mother back. However, usually when a loved one dies, if people are not having problems with anger, they are feeling depression.

Depression

The depression stage in grief is supposed to be after the “bargaining” stage (it may not be). In this stage a person has realized that they cannot bargain anymore. In the depression stage of grief they feel stuck and stupid and helpless. They usually do not feel this stage for awhile until after their loved one is gone.

The depression stage of grief does not exactly have an end to it. From what I have read it takes as long as it takes . . . everyone is different. When it gets in the way of a person's daily functioning . . . that is when people wind up in the hospital or at the door of the psychiatrist or counselor.

I have found that people who may be stuck in the grief stage of depression were people that did not have a way to get their emotional needs after the loved one died. One example was a guy who was a “mama's boy” whose mother and father died in the same year and he was stuck believing that he could not stand to lose anymore relationships. Another example was a lady whose mother was her only best friend and when her mother died she lost both her mother and her best friend and she had no other close friends by which to bond and talk and trust with her feelings. The guy was not ready to change, but the woman accepted the advice of calling people in her church to make connections—the woman got better but the guy did not.

The holiday is just not going to be the same

The first set of holidays after the death of a loved one are typically the hardest. It is the first holiday (s) without them and you know it.

If the loved one was the matriarch or patriarch or family leader or who was the organizer of the family celebrations or had a central role in cooking, decorating or organizing, it will feel like there is a hole or something is very much missing. I have been aware that when a mother or father dies, the adult children fall out of touch with each other. No one was willing or feeling capable to organize a family gathering.

I think that for many the phrase the holiday is not just going to be the same is really the holiday will never be good again. I do think that there is some legitimate coming to terms with the holiday not being the same—because it is factual and logical. The holiday is not going to be the same because that loved one is no longer there.

I think when someone is going through their first holiday without the loved one, that this is another time where it is appropriate to be sad and mad and depressed all over again. To deny yourself these feelings is to deny that you are a human being with needs.

Dwelling and living in the past versus moving ahead.

Many people dwell on the negative thought that the holiday is just not going to be the same. Some will dwell on that thought to the point of depression. Cognitive therapists would call this a negative mental filter where a person's point of view is polluted by the dwelling on one negative thought.

I think when people dwell on the holiday is just not going to be the same, they start getting stuck in the past and start missing the present. It is my opinion that when this goes on for two or three Christmases, it suggests that someone may be stuck in grief.

It is not my original suggestion, but people who have lost that family member have a need to move on and make the holidays good again. Making it good again does not mean making it perfect or trying to make it just like that deceased loved one did.  I think it means gathering together to continue to have relationships. Maybe there can be an honoring of family traditions which bind relationships, or maybe there can be a new tradition to celebrate. I think that families merely being together at Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate can be surprisingly fulfilling and delightful.

The barrier of the family--when they don't want to move ahead with you 

It serves to mention, that not all family members grieve in the same way at the same time. If you are wanting to move ahead and try to organize a family gathering at Christmas or other holiday, you may have one or more family members be resistant or uncooperative.

The reasons are endless for family resistance but here are a few ideas. Maybe people are angry. Maybe people are just not wanting to talk about the loved one. Maybe mother was close to all of you but you weren't close to each other. Maybe some family members got together out of respect for mother despite not being able to stand each other (this even happens in religious families). I would like to say a little investigation may be needed, but such answers are not necessarily hard to get.

If your family is not going along with your idea to have Christmas or the holiday gathering, then you have some other choices to make. They all seem to center around the question of: How can I make my holiday good this year?    

Acceptance: How can I make my holiday good?

When people begin to focus on: How can I make my holiday good? versus It just won't be the same, a person is moving into the fifth stage of Acceptance. Acceptance is where a person begins to reach the conclusion and feeling that it is possible to heal and move on. Acceptance does not mean you will forget the pain or loss, but it does mean that you are in a better place to live your life . . . and I do mean your life.

It is all easier said than done

Any kind of discussion about these matters is easier said than done. I think that the journey of grief and loss is a miserable and stressful one that takes not just an emotional toll on someone but also a physical toll. The emotions of grief are physically stressful and lead to stomachaches, headaches, and muscle aches in addition to insomnia.

Despite the theories, the journey of grief and loss is still an individual journey. We all must figure things out for ourselves. We have to reach our own decisions and we all move on in our own ways.

For those of us who have prided ourselves on being the strong ones, we may have to surrender to being weak. We cannot do it all for ourselves and everyone else. We may cry and pout that we can't be all things to all people--but it does not mean that we failed.

We need grace in our grief

We (especially the strong ones) need grace in our grief, which is often defined as “unmerited favor.” We need a gift of relief. The original meaning of Christmas is that gift from God,  Jesus who came to earth to give us life and give it to us more abundantly. While Judaism would disagree with this interpretation, Isaiah 53 foretold that Jesus is a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering. Psalm 34: 12 also says

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. (NIV)

Approximately 33 years after being born in a stable and laid in a manger, Jesus died a humiliating public death on a cross after an unfair trial--he did suffer and he did it for us.  But death did not keep him in the grave--he arose from the grave after three days and is in Heaven to come back one day for the people who have accepted him as savior.  It is not a perfect option, but it can be comforting or soothing to know that God is a personal God who is not distant and uncaring. I think that people who seek God and His grace will find God--the Bible tells you how you can. 

Closing comments:

My Google statistics page indicates that I have readers in Germany and Russia beside the United States. Thanks for following this blog—I hope that it is meeting your needs.   If there is a topic that you are looking for discussion about to meet your needs, please make a comment.

Death Does Not Take a Holiday

Many people who are surviving the holidays have grief and loss issues. This post will explore what the death of a loved one does to the holidays.

The grief and loss issues come up on at least two accounts.  The first account is that a loved one has died on the holiday and the holiday is spoiled.  The second account is that the deceased loved one was a central part of the holiday celebration.  Either case tends to make for a holiday to become a day of sadness and depression.  

Christmas is the holiday that death ruins for the most people.   So much expectation is put on Christmas to be a happy and joyful time, that many people become fatalistic that Christmas is just going to be terrible; in other words they engage in creating a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
When people keep telling themselves over and over again that Christmas is going to be bad that they indeed make it bad.  They may also dwell on the line "Christmas is just not going to be the same."

Hearing "It's the most wonderful time of the year" on the radio almost makes one want to talk to Andy Williams or whoever is singing the song and tell them to cram it where the sun doesn't shine.  When feeling your grief issues, you are not happy and it seems that there is very little that will change your mood.

Death is a normal part of life.

The reality is that death is part of the normal function of life.  (I realized in the late 1990's as I had one month to wait for my brain tumor to be removed that if I died, the world would go on without me.) Life begins and life ends.  Just as babies will be born on Christmas, death does not take a holiday either.  People of all ages will die on Christmas.  People will die expectantly or suddenly at or around Christmas from all different causes that cannot be controlled by medical science.    
People will sadly die in car accidents at Christmas.   Since I had dabbled in journalism in an early part of my life, I became soberly aware that the common news staple of local TV stations (in the United States) is the story that tallies how many auto fatalities occur on the holiday or holiday weekend.  

Suicide at the holidays   

Besides car accident fatalities, there have been and will be people who commit suicide at Christmas.  There are people who feel alone, overwhelmed and hopeless, who feel that they have no other option.  Some of them have a mental illness and/or are abusing alcohol and drugs--which makes the problem all the more worse.  Having worked in a psychiatric hospital for nearly 10 years, I have noted that ironically--the adult patient population goes down at Christmas and not up.

I hope that if you are reading this, and contemplating suicide, I offer you a message of hope--there are always other problem-solving options other than suicide.   I would hope that you are reading this to help you cope another day or better yet  . . . another holiday season.  

I would trust that you have local mental health services or a crisis line that you can call.  If you are in the United States, you can call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).  It has trained telephone counselors, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take your call.

When the loved one was the host of Christmas  . . .

A complicating factor of grief at the holidays is when the now departed loved one was the Christmas host.  There are many families where one person made Christmas happen: they hosted it, they cooked the dinner, and they were the tradition-bearer of the family by getting everyone involved in the activities. 

With the loved one gone, the traditions that help bind relationships transform into reminders of the pain.  Many families seem to fall apart and lose touch with each other as a result.  Invitations to get the rest of the family members to come for Christmas after the love one passes may be impossible.

Grief at the Holidays is not that simple

Grief is more often a complicated matter than we would expect.  Grief is more than just feeling bad.  There are a number of aspects of grief that I will look at in the next couple of posts that need their own consideration.