Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chris Wool on May 3, 2016 at 6:22pm

Sorry to hear that it has become worse for you. This is all such a challenge. I've tried once monthly young adult's bereavement group for cancer loss. It's been pretty good to talk to others. Now I lost my brother two weeks ago and think I might need something more regular or individual. Are you in group or one-on-one. Best wishes with everything.

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Permalink Reply by Jean on May 5, 2016 at 1:38am

I understand why group counseling does not work for me. I soak up sorrow from the other people. I knew right away groups of grieving people would further drain me. I am an empath. I soak up what people around me are feeling. This website has been the best thing for me to cope with the loss of my rock in this life. My Mother. It has a little over three years and it has gotten more tolerable but I will never be the same.

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Permalink Reply by HollowHeart on May 5, 2016 at 12:06pm

I am in individual therapy after losing my sister. I just started going twice a week as once was not enough. I hate that I'm getting worse. So I know what you mean about it going downhill instead of upward. It may be the counselor, it may be the counseling style. At times I felt like it wasn't working for me, but sometimes it does. I honestly did not want to start shuffling around for a new counselor so unless it was REALLY bad I am staying with this lady for a while.

Why do you think it's making you worse? Sometimes on therapy days I just want to go home and get in bed and not even talk about my grief, but I  have therapy and have to go discuss. On those days I feel like it's not working because I'm being forced to think and talk about it when I don't feel like it.

Jean, I absolutely understand what you mean by soaking up others grief. It's why I had to take a break from this online forum I was on. I was tired of talking about my grief, I want to talk about something else. People post these sad pictures and sad, sad poems and it makes me feel worse. But overall, it is good to have someone designated to talk too. I don't have any friends anymore. It's horrible not having anyone to talk to.

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Permalink Reply by HelenB on September 13, 2016 at 7:04pm

Sorry I haven't replied. I'm dealing with a serious medical problem of my own. Apparently, one of my medicines for my medical problem (not a psych med) can caused serious depression! I don't have a hx of psych problems. I'm actually a psychologist who lost her mom to suicide! It was really just so overwhelming. I finally had to tell my very wonderful doctor the medicine which started with nightmares months after my mom's death, were getting to be more than nightmares. I know what is normal for me. This is not. So, it IS likely the medicine. Can make ppl even suicidal! I'm not suicidal but I can't stand how feels. I realize much of it is situational but my doc said nothing will help if I'm one of the people who reacts to the medicine that way. So, im going off & hope I cope better in any 7-10 days. I still don't think my grief therapist was very good. I'm going to try a local group I found. Groups can be good if run well.


I read some online grief counselor say to "remember this too shall pass." I don't know abt all of you but I think that is not a helpful cliche to use for us. It feels invalidating & just plain ignorant, for lack of a better word. I just want to say "oh, really? Can you bring back my life as I knew it and my mom from the dead? " It seems more helpful to hear something like, "the depth of your sorrow is profound, but in time you will learn to live with it even though you may experience times of very painful sadness.. That's to be expected, but you will be able to enjoy things in life without constantly feeling the pain over your loss." I think that's the best we can hope for & that much would be a huge relief.

My grief counseling did not give me any relief, any insights, any coping or self soothing skills. After a year of asking for homework and a more specific treatment approach, I gave up and started reading stuff from grad school on rational emotive [sometimes the word "behavioral" is next] therapy or RET/REBT. I found a week of doing that on my own was more helpful. I also use a few other approaches but really, it ican be hard to be a therapist for a psychologist. Still, I apprarently part of my problem is this medicine I'm on. I feel bad, but I'm not my mom.

I'll let you all know if the group thing goes well. I want to know how people feel better. I know patients often want to feel better faster than possible, & I'm likely one but it's been 20 months & I didn't choose to die. She did. I have to live again somehow. Too many tears...

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Permalink Reply by Debbie Cross on November 5, 2016 at 6:37pm

Since my Dad died 6 mths ago, my Mom went to grief counseling. She said it helped her a lot.
Unfortunately, I don't have a vehicle so I have been trying to just handle it the best I can. I hope this online grief support will help.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on November 6, 2016 at 9:27am

Im in counseling since my wife died a month ago today; been twice. Not sure if will be effective. I did go to a one-time grief group that resulted in my crying hysterically. Maybe that is the point.

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Permalink Reply by morgan on November 6, 2016 at 11:51am

I thought I'd add a small bit to this blog heading.  I did a personal one on one grief consultation with a psychologist within the first week or two after my husband died.  When she said I was suffering from the symptoms of depression I knew right then that therapy from someone who had never experienced the loss of a spouse was not going to work.  Then i did a three time group session sponsored by a local hospice within the first two months of his death.  I could barely hold myself together.  Talked very little and found retreating into my shell I had already constructed to be my best option.  Tried another one-on-one about eight months after he died and though she was understanding and kind I realized that(for me) I was going to be talking to another person about a history that she could never understand and so I retreated once again.  Another month passed and I tried another grief group that was led by a woman who had lost her daughter in a car accident and the other group members had experienced different losses (spouse, son, daughter, mother) and though I stayed with it for the four sessions I came out once again feeling it hadn't really done more than give me another place to ask myself why?  With no solid answers.

I did end up meeting another woman from that group who had also lost her husband and we have kept up a continued friendship because we found similarities in our management of the loss of our husbands.  We agreed there is no real moving on just enduring and trying to manage.  Also tried a churchy kind of grief group a bit later and walked out within the first ten minutes.  So I have tried all kinds of group and personal counseling.  For me, it was not an answer it just let me know I was going to be taking this on the chin.

After three years and nine months of walking the path of grief, for me, I can say it has been all about surviving the worst and hoping for some times of reprieve but my brain controls how I feel.  I can't control it.   I've had some epiphanies along the way that have given me some threads to weave a partial existence beyond grief but personally I think it is a constant battle of toughing it out.  

The pain is excruciating.  Everything and anything can set off memories that destroy any semblance of what balance I might have achieved.  And I have made no decisions other than when I wake up I try to mange another day.  And manage is what I do.  

But more importantly the reason I am writing is because of what Michael wrote.  I have cried and cried and cried and cried for years.  For me that is the point.  That is what I use to manage.  It was copious and unending for years.  I am seeing it back off a tiny bit into this third year.  I believe it is my only way of coping.  It releases a valve that I can feel building up pressure and I have to let it flow.  I have no choice in the matter.  It is the only way I am slowly getting more time of reprieve from the anguish of losing the only thing that meant anything in my life.  The crying is also of a different kind than it was for the first couple years.  And the lows are lower than I thought I could go.  But I am still trying to let the crying be the way I survive without taking my life.  And yes, Michael, for me, I guess that is the point.  I don't know what else to do.  Death buried me too except for my body.  But my brain knows full well what happened and it hates every moment.  So I guess I'll just cry until my body says, enough......  

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Permalink Reply by Jeff C on November 13, 2016 at 7:43pm

I don't understand how grief counseling can work.  It didn't for me.  Hopefully it does for you.  As I understand it, there are two things at work.

1. The physical loss of the person.

2. The concept that they are 100% gone forever.

No one can fix the first condition, but the second one is a different story to some of us.

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Permalink Reply by RG on January 20, 2017 at 12:39am

Thank you for this discussion.

My husband passed away last November 2016.  I was wondering if the counselling sessions could help me. My brain keeps telling me to move on but my emotion keeps me grieving. 

I think I will wait and see first before I make a decision to contact a counsellor or not.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on January 20, 2017 at 6:50am

I believe that the emotional pain we feel is not something that can heal. It's not like a broken bone that will heal and the pain will pass.

I also believe that because of that fact, we need to find a way through our pain. When we have a broken bone we bind the wound and take pain pills.

What do we do with a broken heart that will not and cannot fully heal? It is evident that there are no pills that can take our pain away. And it is very difficult to find something that can bind our wounds.

I personally have faith in the Bible. My faith helps me with all of this.

Isaiah 61:1 (KJV+S) — The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

Jesus and his teachings are what gives me HOPE. Hope is what binds my wounds and helps me manage my pain. The Pain still doesn't go away...but my hope helps me move through it.

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Permalink Reply by RG on January 21, 2017 at 9:10pm

Thank you Dennis for your reply. 

I guess I need to look for my own hope to be able to move on.

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Permalink Reply by Dennis C. on January 27, 2017 at 6:30am

RG

Being hopeless is a terrible place to be. I believe that this is one of the worst emotions that we experience.

If you couple it with helplessness we are inconsolable.

We are all helpless many times in our lives....but we never have to be hopeless. There are always things to hope for.

Jeremiah 29:11 — “‘For I well know the thoughts that I am thinking toward you,’ declares the LORD, ‘thoughts of peace, and not of calamity, to give you a future and a hope.

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