The Good Wife Grieves

Television doesn't always get it right when trying to show the raw emotional effects a person experiences after learning of a death but Sunday's night's episode of The Good Wife came very close.

 

As is true in real life and acted in The Good Wife, everything instantly changes as each character finds out that attorney Will Gardner (Josh Charles) has been shot in a courtroom shootout and killed by his own client: the look on a person's face, the tone of their voice, the way they carry themselves.  Something gets turned off.  There is a dazed and dull feeling after being jolted with the sad news about Will.

 

The changes are especially dramatic for Alicia Florrek, who is sensitively played by the wonderful actress Julianna Margulies.  When Alicia is told at a high profile public appearance that there is a telephone call she must take, she is hesitant to take the phone.  As the shocking news of Will's death is tearfully delivered to her, Alicia says the sentence that I have heard so many people say and it's a sentence I have found myself saying when receiving the news of a person's death: "But I just saw him yesterday."

 

Or I just saw them an hour ago.  Or I just spoke with them.  Or I just had lunch with them.

 

It's as if the act of just seeing, speaking or eating with a person is a kind of shield that protects them from death.  I know that's not the case.  It's illogical.  But I think it's human nature to blurt out that they couldn't possibly be dead because you just had contact with them.  It's just not possible you say to yourself as you try to wrap your brain around the unthinkable news.

 

 

What does active grieving look like?  After every person on The Good Wife receives the tragic news about Will, you then see they are focused on holding on to anything relating Will: a memory, a conversation, any information about what he said in his last minutes alive.  No one wants the connection to be broken, no one wants to deal with the idea that they will never see Will again.  Alicia goes to the courtroom to talk to the judge and to see the crime scene.  She needs to know what happened to Will in the most graphic way possible.

 

But this is the thing about death.  Even though your mind knows that the person is dead, you continue to imagine seeing that person appear before you wherever you may go and this is also what happens to Alicia in The Good Wife.  She leaves the courtroom and goes to the hospital where Will was brought after he was shot and as she stands at the nurse's station she sees Will smiling, making a joke and talking to her.  These kind of imaginary sitings really happen in real life too. 

 

She flashes back to different conversations that she and Will had; conversations that reflect their complicated relationship of being lovers and ex-colleagues of the same law firm.  Alicia recalls Will's anger when he found out that she was starting her own law firm and he then accuses her of stealing his clients.

 

If only she could have one more conversation with him then they could to straighten everything out.  Everyone always wants to have one more chance to talk to the beloved friend, spouse, child or friend and Alicia also longs to hear Will's voice.  She checks her phone and then discovers a voice mail from Will left on her phone that was recorded before the shots were fired in the courtroom.

She carefully plays the voice mail over and over, listening to his voice and taking in each of his words. The voicemail is a part of him and she doesn't want to let it go because if she does then it will be true that he is dead and that is too much for her to bear.  Too painful to think about.  Too confusing.

Alicia's journey is just starting.

L'Wren Scott

One of my sisters and I were talking on the phone the other day about the tragic news that fashion designer L'Wren Scott had been found dead in her New York City apartment at the age of 49. 

 

We talked about what the news stories were reporting -- that she had used a scarf to hang herself, that she designed such beautiful, beautiful clothes, that she was so glamorous herself and that she was the longtime girlfriend of  Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones.

 

L'Wren Scott and Mick Jagger

More importantly, we reiterated to each other that no matter what was happening to us, we would always know that we could call each other in case of a personal trauma.  That there should never be the feeling that anything could be so utterly hopeless.  That if we found ourselves in a place that made it difficult to reach out that we could depend on each other to intervene and help. 

 

Of course we don't know L'Wren Scott personally and all that we know about her is what we read in the newspapers and see on television but there was something about her that came through in the pictures taken of her that gave you the feeling that she could be one of your friends and if you did meet her in person you would like her and probably go to lunch with her and have a lot of fun.

 

The way that her life ended just seemed so incredibly and heartbreakingly sad.  The idea of someone being alone, feeling that they were so very alone, desperate for a way to deal with their life at that point and to take their own life brought home how vulnerable we as human beings can be in the midst of our problems and especially how life can sucker punch you when you least expect it.  No suicide note was found in her apartment but reports have speculated that she was having financial problems with her business and was possibly as much as $6 million in debt.

 

Dark thoughts can sometimes creep into our psyche but we have to be on guard to fight them and make sure that they don't overtake our feelings and actions.  We also need to make sure we talk to others about our fears.  Suicide is particularly difficult to come to terms with and is much more complicated than the way I am writing about it today but it's hard to imagine that there wasn't someone out there who could have helped her; it goes against our instincts to think that suicide is even an option.

 

We may never know for sure what drove her to that isolated place that day.  We live in an highly competitive and fast-paced society that can take a toll on the sensitivities of some of us.  I choose to think that if she had confided in someone about her anxieties that they would have offered her a strong and helping hand.

Please rest in peace L'Wren.

  

The Notebook

I never know when I am going to read or hear something that I might want to use in writing a future blog post so I try to always carry a small notebook with me.  On the times that I have forgotten my notebook, I have written notes on the back of envelopes, cocktail napkins and business cards which then creates this messy pile of stray notes.

For now, the small spiral notebook I am using is almost full and it caused me recently to flip through the worn pages to check and see if I had missed anything that might be helpful to myself and others who are trying to rebuild their lives after a loss or strengthen their resilience when facing life's unexpected trials.

 

 

And then there it was.  Handwritten notes from a sweet conversation I had this past summer on the beach with a young woman in her twenties.  She had lost her grandfather and an uncle within a few months of each other.  We had just met and were casually talking about ourselves.  I told her about Cry, Laugh, Heal and surprisingly she then began telling me about her experiences with loss.

 

I write about this conversation today after so many months because I was struck by the common thread in her thoughts and the fact that if I closed my eyes and forgot about her age she could have been a member of my support group made up of people much older than herself.  She was voicing many of the same feelings older people have expressed after losing a loved one:  the need to talk, the shock and confusion and the contradictions brought by the pain of loss.

"People know you are going through an awful time of it and yet they talk to you as though nothing has happened," she said remarking on what it was like to go back to school after attending the funerals.  "I think people react this way because it's far too messy for them and they also think they're upsetting you.  And they definitely don't think about how you might want to cry and release your feelings."

She continued talking quietly about this experience and said after a period of time following the losses she knew she needed to be part of a  trusted discussion addressing grief issues.  The loss of her uncle and her grandfather made her realize that she needed to join a support group and she was so glad that she did.  She wasn't sure what she would find or what it would be like, but she came away surprised and also curious about the amazing dynamic that had occurred in her group.

"Isn't it weird how you can find yourself in a support group, among people who you have never met before, people who are strangers, and you start speaking honestly from your heart about how you really feel and what you are really thinking about.  I found that I was saying things to strangers that I couldn't tell my loved ones, the people who have known me for most of my life.  And for some reason the other people in my group felt that way too.  And it worked.  I felt I was with new friends."

Our discussion about life and loss was not for long; I would say at the most it was about 10 to 15 minutes.  But within that short window of time while we talked, I felt her willingness to expose her vulnerability on the contradictions of these grizzly subjects of loss and resilience was amazing.

 

Here's why:  in her young soul she had dug deep and found strength in a truth that sometimes takes many of us (myself included) a life time to discover.  That truth? 

 

Her words say it best: "Sometimes beauty comes out of pain.  I found that something good can come out of something tragic and that's hard for people to understand.  I think people are afraid to say something good came out of someone's death because we are afraid it would be seen as though we were glad that it happened when of course that is not the truth at all.  No one, no one wants anyone to feel that pain but it's surprising to discover that a light can come out of darkness."

Falling Can Make You Stronger

One of my sisters sent me the video posted below that's about Moms and the endless, loving support they give their children.  In the case of this video, it shows Moms and their budding athletes in the beginning stages of learning their sports skills and then the years of repetition, the daily practice, practice, practice performed by the children until they reach the ultimate competition of the Olympics.

It's a wonderful video, tracing the path of infants and babies falling, getting back up, trying again and again, finally learning to ice skate, snowboard and ski so that they may perform more accomplished routines.

 

 

On another level, the video is also about raw persistence, resilience, determination and the commitment to never give up on your passions and your dream no matter what you decide to pursue in life.

Emotional resilience doesn't come to you just like that.  Unfortunately, you don't wake up one morning and suddenly you are resilient.  But don't be discouraged.  Resilience is the ability to become strong, healthy, bounce back or rebuild again after a loss, or a personal crisis.  The good news is resilience is something that can be developed within you.

 

You can gain strength through pain.  And little by little I bet you are doing it every day and you may not realize it.  Always get back up.  You can do it!

 

Here's the "Thanks Mom" video:

 

 

Happy New 2014!

As I awake to the beginnings of a new day and a new year,

I feel the air is crackling with the sense of possibilities.

 

Let us embrace the unknown and untried.

 

Let us go forward, secure in the knowledge that we are resilient.

 

We can gain strength from pain and we will help others in their journey.

 

For we are truly better together!

 

 

Developing A Grief Pill

The pharmaceutical industry is researching the development an anti-depressant pill for people who are grieving.

Hmmmmm....

My gut feeling when I first read this story about the availability of a so-called grief pill in The Washington Post was that it seemed rather predatory of the pharmaceutical industry to be focusing its scientific expertise and vast financial resources on people when they are at the most vulnerable and sometimes lowest points in their lives.

I vividly remember the competing emotions I felt after my husband died.  Raw pain and numbness.  Exhaustion and adrenaline.  On top of all that, I was taking care of my young son, working a full-time job and all I wanted was someone to tell me was how long all of this was going to last. Unfortunately, no one could tell me  the length of time it would take for me to process my grief.  I now understand that figuring out how to live without a loved one is really and truly different for each person.

 

Yup, I enthusiastically support the marketplace being open to offering the largest array of medical options possible, including pills,  to alleviate the physical and mental pain of whatever disease or condition people are experiencing.

 

However, on the other hand, it is as though the pharmaceutical industry is saying that something is definitely wrong with you when you are grieving; that grief is similar to having high levels of cholesterol; that grief is a condition or a disease that needs to be treated with chemicals when that is usually not be the case at all.

 

Grief is a normal and natural reaction to the loss of someone you loved and cared about and unfortunately, it's extremely painful.  Pills are not the first solution that comes to mind because whenever you read or talk to a doctor about how bad you feel when you are grieving, they usually advise you to be very careful where drugs and alcohol are concerned because either substance by themselves or taken together can easily become part of an unhealthy coping system. 

When you take all of those factors into consideration, I have to conclude that the government's approval of industry efforts to research, manufacture and distribute such a grief pill is a difficult call. 

I did not take any pills while grieving for my husband but I honestly can say that I did think about how it would have been fantastic to be able to take a pill that would block all of the pain I was constantly feeling.  My desire was very strong to make the pain stop.  And the idea that there might be a pill that would take the edge off of my pain would have made life a helluv a lot easier to live.

But I also know that at that point in my life I could very easily have become dependent on any pill that would have made me feel so good.  Somewhere inside me I knew that the last thing that I needed was to be doped up when I had so much responsibility.  I never went to my doctor and asked for a pain or anxiety prescription because I knew that eventually I was going to have to feel the raw sadness of my loss and find a way to get on the other side of it.

There are cases when people do need medical help with their grieving process and I know that this needs to be taken into consideration but I think medicine already exists to take care of it.

 

How do you feel about this issue?

 

Make up your own mind by reading this link to The Washington Post story:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/antidepressants-to-treat-grief-psychiatry-panelists-with-ties-to-drug-industry-say-yes/2012/12/26/ca09cde6-3d60-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story_3.html

The 64 Untalked About Ways of Grief

People love to read lists.  I'm not sure why, but it could be because all of the best ideas relating to a particular subject are organized in one place.  Or maybe it's because people want to see if what they guessed would be on the list is actually on the list.

I think that sometimes lists are over used but not in this case.

Today's list comes from a wonderful website I recently discovered called What's Your Grief? (www.whatsyourgrief.com) and I bet you a million dollars that you probably have never read a list like this one.

Titled "64 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Grief," it is refreshing and revealing because of the stigma surrounding the subject of grief.  People don't want to talk about it and will go out of their way to make sure that it isn't brought up in conversation.  If you are grieving, people act as though you have an infectious disease and being around you will cause them to catch it (#9).  And then there is the idea that you think you know what it's about until it actually happens to you (#1).

#23 really resonated for me.  "Grief  doesn't come in five neat stages.  Grief is messy and confusing."  I didn't experience grief in the prescribed five stages that are always written about and I don't think anyone ever has.  You do feel denial, sadness, frustration and many other emotions but sometimes you feel some of them one at a time, sometimes none of them for a long time and sometimes you may feel them all in one day. 

It just depends on your relationship with that person, how they died and how you process your emotions concerning your loss.  Everyone's grief really and truly is unique.

A lot of thought went into making this list and I really think it's helpful to everyone, children and adults, because you may come across a truism that you have felt yet no one has acknowledged to you.  To find out that someone else has felt exactly as you have felt is comforting and tells you that it's okay.  You're not going crazy.  I think it is always a blessing to find out that you not alone.

In some ways, the list feels like a big hug!!  Please check out the What's Your Grief? list in the link below and share what you think so we can help each other.

http://whatsyourgrief.com/64-things-about-grief/

Amazing You!

A significant and ongoing part of the grieving process is learning what to do with the confusing feelings you experience.

 

What am I supposed to do with the sad, angry, and surreal emotions I have inside me about the person who used to be in my life?  That person who was here yesterday, but is not here today, and won't ever be here for a lot more todays in the future.  How can I turn those sad, angry, surreal feelings into constructive feelings so that I can make a future for myself?

Acceptance of my new life and my new status is something I work on all the time.  Sometimes I push myself even when I'm not really sure where I am going because I know I have to challenge myself.  We all need to have something in our lives, something that we are passionate about, that makes us want to get out of bed in the morning and get dressed and go out in the world and interact with others.

 

In the beginning, getting out of bed was the last thing I wanted to do after my husband died.  Fortunately, my wonderful son needed to go to school and more importantly, needed to see that his only parent was functioning on some level as a regular human being.  I ignored my desire to pull the covers over my head and numb myself.  It was hard, very hard, and I felt as though I was walking through cotton candy, but I put one foot in front of the other every day and somehow managed to push forward to rebuild our lives.

 

I found that these confusing feelings were their most intense after my husband's death but even now, nine years later, I still can have a wave of sadness come out of nowhere and totally wash over me.  Last week it was a beautiful, sunny, picture perfect September day and I left my office for a walk down to the Whole Foods store near George Washington University.

Nothing in particular was on my mind so when a slide show of memories of me, my husband and our son started playing in my head I really felt down.  "I don't want to go backwards," I said to myself.  "If I do, I will only feel sad." I kept walking and breathing deeply and eventually got back to my office.

  

It takes a while to wrap your brain around the fact that someone you love very much has died and they won't be with you anymore to do the things that the two of you did over and over again and probably always thought you would do over and over again.

 

In a sense, it is as if some gigantic arm swept across the table of your life and wiped it clean, pushing everything away and laying it bare.  Your life as you know it has disappeared and all the routines you established with this person have collapsed.



Photo Courtesy of Dr. Rennie

But there is still you.  Amazing you!

 

Don't count yourself out.  Ever.

You may feel broken into pieces right now but you are still beautiful and full of possibilities.  You just need to find some glue in the form of love and comfort from friends, family and even support groups.  You do have reserves of inner strength within you and as strange as it sounds, you'll find these reserves when you allow yourself to feel the pain of your loss.  You also find them when you do something by yourself that you never have done before.  I promise.

Naturally, no one wants to feel the pain or put themselves out there in a vulnerable way, but that's when you truly and authentically live life.  I have memories that are so painful that I have mentally put them in an imaginary box.  They are raw and scary feelings but experiencing them has made me live my life differently.

Don't be afraid to spend some quiet time; time thinking about what you have been through and where you may want to go in the future.  Eventually the pieces of your life will start to come together and slowly mend, forming a stronger person.

Let's go forward, for you and I are on new paths, and together we will accept and persevere.
 

Time Stands Still on Sept. 11

Time will stand still for me this morning around 8:45 a.m. when the clock will remind me that twelve years ago today, the first plane, a hijacked American Airlines jet flying out of Boston, crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, setting into motion national events and policies that permanently changed the way we as a nation live.

All I need to do is look at a picture of the Twin Towers and it all comes back to me.  Not only the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City, but also the terrorist attack on the Pentagon in the nation's capital and the downing of the fourth plane in Shanksville, PA.  Here in Washington, DC I remember a surreal and scary day that was filled with school lockdowns and the constant sound of low flying fighter jets.

Today my heart is with those who tragically lost friends, families and their futures.


People gather in Union Square to light candles and leave notes
 for those affected by September 11, 2001 attack.  (Magnum Photos)

September 11 also reminds me that it's healthy to allow your emotions to come to the surface in order to work through them because in blocking a grieving process you block the efforts used to try and rebuild your life and find new meaning in a life that you now must live without your loved one.

Let today be an opportunity for us to reflect and remember this sacred day and how far we have come in our own ways. 

For a guy in my office, it is a day for him to remember that he was scheduled to attend an early morning meeting in the financial district of New York City on September 11, 2001.

The meeting never happened.

He and two of his clients were in a building near the World Financial Center and heard the explosions of each of the planes separately hitting the towers of the World Trade Center.  Immediately they went outside to find the eerie site of a clear, crisp deep blue sky filled with ever increasing, billowing clouds of white and black smoke.

He says that at that point he didn't know that the explosions were caused by planes crashing into the building because you couldn't see the planes inside the buildings.  People stood on the streets frozen, staring at the burning buildings unable to process what had just happened.  Sirens filled the air.  People ran.  People cried.  Cellphones jammed.  Unbelievable amounts of paper floated from the buildings.

My colleague and his clients started slowly walking uptown through the chaos and away from the Twin Towers but didn't get very far.  Eventually, they found their way into a hotel where they went inside to get more information.  Their timing was incredible because they were lucky enough to be inside when both towers shockingly and incredibly collapsed.

As the cloud of debris from the collapse of the Twin Towers filled the air and roiled down the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, it reached their hotel.  He said some of the glass windows and doors blew out as the debris cloud passed by his block and afterwards everything stopped.  Grey and white dust covered everything and it looked as if it were night time.

No one went outside because you couldn't breath.  The dust in the air was that thick.  Hours later, the three went outside, covered their noses and mouths with cloth napkins, and walked their way to Chinatown, spending the night in a hotel room my colleague had checked into earlier on September 10.

His September 11th ritual includes a telephone call to the two people he spent the day with.  For the past twelve years, my colleague and his two clients reach out to each other on September 11, no matter what part of the world they are in, and take the time to stop and remember what happened that awful day and how fate put them together.

They catch up on each other's lives, talking about each other's families and share stories about the unique events that have happened in their lives since they last spoke.

They know that life is fragile and they remember how lucky and blessed each one was to wake up alive in New York City on September 12 and travel back home.

May we all connect with the special people in our lives today and continue to heal.
 

Insight From Grey's Anatomy

I was clicking around on Pinterest (which is truly a guilty pleasure!!!) yesterday and found this insightful and timely quote on one of my niece's boards.

How true! Grief is unpredictable!  And that's why people don't like to talk about it, or acknowledge it, and hope, hope, hope, that it will go away all on its own. 

But Cry, Laugh, Heal is all about having an honest dialogue about grief and resilience and sharing what helped me after my husband sadly died nine years ago.  I have found that time and support from friends and family have helped me but I also have discovered that you have to face grief straight on and feel its pain before you can start to recover and get to a place where you feel you can begin to let it go.

 

And even then, even when you feel you are letting it go, grief and its sadness still has the uncanny power to boomerang back on you. 

 

In the interest of sharing and letting you know that you are never alone in your roller coaster feelings of loss, let me tell you about a personal experience that brought home how you really can't control grief or the conflicting feelings that travel with it. 

 

This past Labor Day weekend I decided to clean my guest room which has been a mess for a few months.  I keep throwing things in there and yesterday I finally decided to wade into the clothes, books, boxes and papers and start to get rid of some of this ridiculous stuff.  To make room in the closet, I started at the very back of it and brought out the first batch of hanging clothes.

 

What do I spy with my unsuspecting eye? An old tweed jacket that belonged to my husband.  I had no idea that jacket was back there, hiding like an unexploded emotional time bomb, and I just stared at it for what seemed like a good 30 minutes.  I'm not even sure I remembered to take a breath.  Then I smelled it to see if his scent was still on it, but of course it wasn't.

 

Next I put my hand into the pocket inside his jacket and I found his checkbook!  No handwriting was on it anywhere but it was weird to open it and read his name on the clean pale blue checks.  Then I put my hand into one of the outside pockets and I found a pair of his black framed reading glasses; the ones where one of the arms was bent.  Another episode of staring and remembering.

 

But then in the breast pocket of the jacket, I found two cards that were the size of business cards, which is what I thought they were when I first touched them. I pulled them out and one was a business card but the other was a reminder card from his doctor.  You know the kind I mean; those cards the doctor gives you with the patient's name written in along with the time and the date of the next appointment.

 

Only this card had my husband's name on it and the date of the appointment was November 10, 2003 and the appointment was written in for 11 am.  I stared at date.  My husband died on November 12, 2003.  I called my son's name out and showed him what I had found.  He stared at the card for a long time too and didn't say anything.  Then he handed it back to me and just said "Wow."

 

We both felt as though my husband, his father was there in the room with us.  I half expected to hear his voice or see him walk into the room. 

 

We think he was trying to tell us that it's okay to let go; but please do not ever forget him.

 

Monkey Bars

Yesterday I wrote about one small aspect of holding on to a deceased loved one's material things for a long time.  It's a rather large emotional minefield of an issue but if you ride along with me for a bit more today maybe we can make some progress together and get on with it.

 

Let's be real:  nobody wants to hurt and nobody wants to feel pain.  It's in our DNA to try and protect ourselves and so we naturally want to run away from pain and suffering; even sometimes to deny its existence.  I think this is one of the main reasons why painful issues hang around for so long and aren't resolved quickly.  They just plain hurt.

Unfortunately, I know this for sure:  you are only delaying the inevitable.  At some point, you're going to have to feel the hurt and pain to get to the other side which actually can be very freeing.  This time around for me, it was a jar of Ovaltine, but it could be anything the next time: a possession, a feeling, a person or even a situation.

I think it's almost similiar to that feeling you may have had as a child while working your way across the metal monkey bars on the school playground.  You notice I said metal.  I'm old enough that those playground structures like monkey bars were made of metal so when you put your hands on them they were either blistering cold in the winter or burning hot in the summer.

 

 

While hanging from the bars and trying to swing my body back and forth, I knew I was in safe territory as I slowly but surely moved forward to the other side.  It was familiar and all I wanted to do was reach the other side and let go.  And then there were those times when I would miscalculate and I would get tired and be hanging somewhere in the middle.  "Oh no," I would think, "I'm almost over to the other side.  I don't want to drop and fall to the ground."  The ground seemed so far away and I didn't want to release my hands from the bars as much as my arms and hands might hurt.  I wanted to stay on the bars.

 

It's the same with being hooked on a comforting feeling that a possession, a person or a situation can give you.  You've convinced yourself that everything will be okay if you have that possession, person or are in that set of circumstances.  It helps you ride through the pain, at least for awhile. 

 

For me, pieces of paper with my husband's writing on it were comforting.  It didn't matter what he had written.  It was just the quick glance at his distinctive handwriting that would make me feel better, as though he had just handed them to me.  I would fold them and put them in my purse, pin them on the bulletin board behind my computer at home and generally just leave them lying around. 

 

Then one day, and I would say it took about a year for me to feel this way, I started to actually read the papers and really look at them and I realized that keeping all these papers was getting to be messy; that keeping one or two significant handwritten notes was enough and I could toss the rest in the trash.  The papers were getting in the way of moving forward.

 

The process of learning to let go happens at a different pace for all of us.  Sometimes we move quickly through anger or frustration and slowly through anxiety or it can be the other way around for another person.  We are all different in our ways of handling and expressing grief.

 

Just as we work our way across the monkey bars one by one, we work our way slowly but surely through the grief process, step by step, beginning to heal and feeling oh so much stronger as we reach the other side.

KissyFace

The picture posted on the Facebook page shows a CD leaning against a car dashboard with the following handwritten message written with a Sharpie:  "To KissyFace - From Your Number #1 Fan."

 

On a different Facebook page, a male friend enthusiastically writes about a recent Washington Nationals baseball game, what the score was and the important plays of the game.  He then ends his post by saying how much he misses his friend.  On the same page, a different friend posts a story that was in that day's newspaper and says, "I know you would like this story.  It's your kind of reporting."

 

These Facebook pages belong to people who have died but that doesn't matter to the people who knew and loved them best.

They continue to connect with the person's page by posting pictures, comments, messages and stories and continue to do so because it helps them feel connected to their friend or loved one.  It helps them heal. 

These postings represent the sorts of things they would be talking about to this person, if they were still alive.  They continue to post on the person's page because they don't want to let go of the relationship they had with this person and posting on their page almost feels as though the person at some point will actually read it.

 

The posts are tributes, in a way, to feelings of friendship, memories of good times and the camaraderie of people who share the same sense of humor or the same interests in life.  Those thoughts that immediately pop into your head when you see or hear something you know the other person would love to know about.

 

You can't help it.  Even now, nine years after my husband's death, when I see something in the newspaper or on television, or I run into a person I haven't seen for awhile, I think to myself, "I've got to tell Tommy."  But then I realize I can't, so sometimes I just say it out loud to myself.

 

My husband died before Facebook ever came to be so I am not faced with the question of whether to delete his Facebook page or not.  I probably would let it stay up because I think I would find it comforting to log on and read what others have written or write something myself.

 

 For those who feel it is too painful and want their loved one's Facebook pages gone, here is a helpful story that Liz Crenshaw, NBC Channel 4's consumer reporter did on how to delete a deceased person's Facebook page.

 

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/How-to-Delete-a-Deceased-Loved-Ones-Facebook-Page-211885391.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_DCBrand

Embrace Your Journey

"Embrace Your Journey."

You may have wondered why that phrase is listed at the top of my blog underneath the title, "Cry, Laugh, Heal. " 

"Embrace Your Journey" is something called a tagline, a phrase to give you -- my fantastic, wonderful and supportive readers -- a heads up about the things that I'm going to write about.  Things that have helped me to slowly but surely work my way through the loss of my husband, learn to be both mother and father to a young son and develop resilience.  "Embrace Your Journey" helps me to set a tone of strength and acceptance and even humor in the posts that I write for you and it lets you know this is my approach to living life -- no matter what hits the fan.

Embrace Your Journey No Matter Where It Leads

I came to call this phrase my own because I truly believe that I get out of life what I put into it.  Things may happen to me that I cannot control but I can choose how to react to it.  I can stay down for the count or I can choose to get up and try again.  I can choose whether to be positive or negative.  I can choose whether or not to hold on to something that hurt me, something that made me feel bad or something that didn't work out right.  Me.  All by myself in the driver's seat. 

Sounds simple right?  No way.  It is anything but simple.  It took me years of living and making mistakes and talking and support groups and feeling bad and more talking and gaining experience from all of that up and down and turned around rigamarole to get to this somewhat healthy point of view. 

It all hit the fan for me in 2003 when my husband died.  I had no idea what life had in store for me and our young son but I was sure that I was going to do my best to make a good life for us.  At the time, it looked like a dead end.  Truly I felt as if I were free falling off a cliff and who knew what was going to happen next?  But then daily small decisions and small steps built upon themselves and my confidence began to come back.  I actually began to believe that I would heal.  There were a lot of stops and starts, a lot of two steps forward and five backwards.  But eventually it all began to work together and I began to see that day by day life was going to stabilize and get better.

It will never be the life I had before but it is a different life and I am blessed to have what I have.

It is not easy, I will be honest with you about that.  There were times when I completely fell apart and also times when I forced myself to do things I really, really didn't want to do but knew were good for me.

For some reason, the pain made me grow.  The pain made me a better person.  Now isn't that weird?  I would never wish pain on anyone but sometimes you have to feel it to work through it, and when you find yourself on the other side of it, you feel emotionally stronger and confident.  You feel as though you can deal with anything that life might toss your way because you have already lost everything and come back from that deep pain.

The pain made me reshuffle my priorities and now I look at life differently.  I appreciate it more and I also understand how quickly it can change.

Your present journey may not be everything you want it to be, but don't be afraid to work on your journey and embrace it for what it is.  Embrace it for its beauty.  Embrace it for the pain.  Embrace it for the laughs.  Embrace it because it's yours.

Believing is half the battle.  I know you can do it.
 

The Uncertain Path of Newtown's Mourning Parents

It is rare for a national newspaper to begin a story on its Sunday front page that then continues to run for five pages of copy and pictures inside the paper and is dedicated to the subject of grief.

 

But that is just what The Washington Post did yesterday and Eli Saslow, who wrote and reported the devastating story, and Linda Davidson, who photographed the compelling pictures for the story, deserve a standing ovation for bringing much needed attention to what life is now like for the Barden family of Newtown, Connecticut, a family in the throes of raw, searingly painful grief as they try to figure out what to do next since 7-year-old Daniel Barden, the youngest in the Barden family, was shot and killed at his school.

 

Seven Year Old Daniel Barden

Mark and Jackie Barden's 7-year-old son, Daniel, attended Sandy Hook School Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot 20 children, including Daniel Barden, and 6 adults in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary.

 

Yesterday morning when I went out to the front yard to pick up The Washington Post, I pulled the paper out of it's plastic sleeve and flipped it over to see what was happening on the paper's front page.  I immediately saw the story's headline, "Into The Lonely Quiet," and started reading it as I went up the steps and back into the house.  I was riveted.  I continued to read the story about the Barden family as I found a chair and didn't stop reading it until I reached the last word at the end of the story that is so sad on so many levels.

 

Please read this insightful story about the Barden family.  My prayers are with them as they try to navigate the tragic loss of their young son, Daniel, pictured above.

Here is the link to The Washington Post story:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/after-newtown-shooting-mourning-parents-enter-into-the-lonely-quiet/2013/06/08/0235a882-cd32-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html

 

Digging Deep

I have previously written about people I know who are fighting the good fight against cancer.  Three of them at this point are in good health while one is gearing up for the fight of his life.

 

He is getting ready for surgery next week and after that he enters an intense, aggressive program aimed at totally killing this sucker in its tracks.  He has an amazing attitude towards this scary situation and I admire his calm and even demeanor.

 

 

Put in the same situation, I know I would not be faring so well and I don't think I would be inspiring anyone with my raw reaction to fighting a cancer within myself.

 

From talking to my friends, they say that first comes the disbelief that your body is so sick; that your body is basically at war with itself.  Your mind and heart are racing, racing at an incredible pace and you can't catch your breath as you take it all in.  While trying to come to grips with what the doctors are saying, you sometimes detach from reality a bit and feel as though you are outside yourself.  I understand this feeling very well because in the first few months after my husband's death, I definitely was outside myself.  I think it is your mind's way of temporarily buffering you from what's happening and giving you a way to cope.

Facing pain, whether physical, mental or a combination of both, can be isolating.  There is an intense feeling of letting the rest of the world fall away as you focus with laser concentration on what you need to do, have to do, to find wellness.

 

It is now a time of digging down deep and calling upon God to watch over him.  It is a time of feeling human and vulnerable.  It is a time of pulling out all the stops to give love, support and everything else we as a family can find to throw at him as he faces and fights this dreaded, yet survivable, disease.

Thank you for being here.  Peace.
 

Shrinks Redefine Grief

Grief is the normal, natural response to the death of someone you care about.

 

Grief happens because you connect with another human being through love.

 

But if it's up to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), people who experience the fundemental yet normal process of grief could be routinely diagnosed right away as in a major depression and then prescribed anti-depressants before they have even had a chance to try and work through their feelings of loss on their own.

 

That's because the APA is changing the definition of certain behaviors such as grief, hoarding and binge eating, among others, in the handbook that contains the guidelines psychiatrists use for diagnosing people. 

 

When I was in the throes of new grief, I may have made people feel uncomfortable in my reactions to daily life and I know I felt lost, but I also know my reactions were normal.  Yes, I cried and I felt pain and sadness but anyone would have felt the same way in the same situation.  I was trying to deal with the sudden death of my husband, becoming a single parent and all the emotional baggage that comes with that kind of a traumatic event.

 

It takes time to deal with pain.  No one wants to feel pain it but it is your body's way of telling you that you have been hurt.

Normal grieving is not a mental disorder.

 

According to Wikipedia, a psychiatrist specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.  I did feel at times as though I was "losing it" while I was grieving but I also sensed that it was a feeling that would feel less raw as time went on.  Grieving that continues for years and progressively gets worse to the point that the person is immobilized and stuck and unable to move forward with their life is called complicated grief and it can require psychiatric help but not all the time. 

 

Psychiatrists are trained to try help us and improve our mental wellness, not take the easy way out and automatically write a prescription.  Medication prescribed to me in the beginning of my grief process might have made me feel better, but I don't it would have been helpful.  I think it would have been an artificial way of feeling better and that feeling eventually would have disappeared as soon as I stopped taking the medication.  Sooner or later, I would have had to work my way through the pain of grieving.

 

But maybe that's the APA's point: people sometimes don't want to do the hard or painful work and when that happens the APA is sending the message that it is ready with its prescription pad.

Please read the Associated Press story below and see what you think.

Shrinks, Critics Face Off Over Psychiatric Manual

by The Associated Press

May 15, 2013 2:37 PM

CHICAGO (AP) — In the new psychiatric manual of mental disorders, grief soon after a loved one's death can be considered major depression. Extreme childhood temper tantrums get a fancy name. And certain "senior moments" are called "mild neurocognitive disorder."

 

Those changes are just some of the reasons prominent critics say the American Psychiatric Association is out of control, turning common human problems into mental illnesses in a trend they say will just make the "pop-a-pill" culture worse.

 

Says a former leader of the group: "Normal needs to be saved from powerful forces trying to convince us that we are all sick."

 

At issue is the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely known as the DSM-5. The DSM has long been considered the authoritative source for diagnosing mental problems.

 

 

 

The psychiatric association formally introduces the nearly 1,000-page revised version this weekend in San Francisco. It's the manual's first major update in nearly 20 years, and a backlash has taken shape in recent weeks:

 

— Two new books by mental health experts, "Saving Normal" and "The Book of Woe," say the world's most widely used psychiatric guide has lost credibility.

— A British psychologists' group is criticizing the DSM-5, calling for a "paradigm shift" away from viewing mental problems as a disease. An organization of German therapists also attacked the new guide.

— Even the head of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health complained that the book lacks scientific validity.

 

This week, the NIMH director, Dr. Thomas Insel, tried to patch things up as he and the psychiatrists group issued a joint statement saying they have similar goals for improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.

 

The manual's release comes at a time of increased scrutiny of health care costs and concern about drug company influence over doctors. Critics point to a landscape in which TV ads describe symptoms for mental disorders and promote certain drugs to treat them.

 

"Way too much treatment is given to the normal 'worried well' who are harmed by it; far too little help is available for those who are really ill and desperately need it," Dr. Allen Frances writes in "Saving Normal." He is a retired Duke University professor who headed the psychiatry group's task force that worked on the previous handbook.

 

He says the new version adds new diagnoses "that would turn everyday anxiety, eccentricity, forgetting and bad eating habits into mental disorders."

 

Previous revisions were also loudly criticized, but the latest one comes at a time of soaring diagnoses of illnesses listed in the manual — including autism, attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder — and billions of dollars spent each year on psychiatric drugs.

 

The group's 34,000 members are psychiatrists — medical doctors who specialize in treating mental illness. Unlike psychologists and other therapists without medical degrees, they can prescribe medication. While there has long been rivalry between the two groups, the DSM-5 revisions have stoked the tensions.

 

The most contentious changes include:

— Diagnosing as major depression the extreme sadness, weight loss, fatigue and trouble sleeping some people experience after a loved one's death. Major depression is typically treated with antidepressants.

— Calling frequent, extreme temper tantrums "disruptive mood dysregulation disorder," a new diagnosis. The psychiatric association says the label is meant to apply to youngsters who in the past might have been misdiagnosed as having bipolar disorder. Critics say it turns normal tantrums into mental illness.

— Diagnosing mental decline that goes a bit beyond normal aging as "mild neurocognitive disorder." Affected people may find it takes more effort to pay bills or manage their medications. Critics of the term say it will stigmatize "senior moments."

— Calling excessive thoughts or feelings about pain or other discomfort "somatic symptom disorder," something that could affect the healthy as well as cancer patients. Critics say the term turns normal reactions to a disease into mental illness.

— Adding binge eating as a new category for overeating that occurs at least once a week for at least three months. It could apply to people who sometimes gulp down a pint of ice cream when they're alone and then feel guilty about it.

— Removing Asperger's syndrome as a separate diagnosis and putting it under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder."

 

Dr. David Kupfer, chairman of the task force that oversaw the DSM-5, said the changes are based on solid research and will help make sure people get accurate diagnoses and treatment.

 

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, the psychiatry association's incoming president, said challenging the handbook's credibility "is completely unwarranted." The book establishes diagnoses "so patients can receive the best care," he said, adding that it takes into account the most up-to-date scientific knowledge.

 

But Insel, the government mental health agency chief, wrote in a recent blog posting that the guidebook is no better than a dictionary-like list of labels and definitions.

 

He told The Associated Press he favors a very different approach to diagnosis that is based more on biological information, similar to how doctors diagnose heart disease or problems with other organs.

 

Yet there's scant hard evidence pinpointing what goes wrong in the brain when someone develops mental illness. Insel's agency two years ago began a research project to create a new way to diagnose mental illness, using brain imaging, genetics and other evolving scientific evidence. That project will take years.

 

The revisions in the new guide were suggested by work groups the psychiatric association assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses and recent research advances. The association's board of trustees decided in December which recommendations to include.

 

Advocacy groups have threatened Occupy-style protests and boycotts at this week's meeting.

 

"The psychiatric industry, allied with Big Pharma, have massively misled the public," the Occupy Psychiatry group contends. Organizers include Alaska lawyer Jim Gottstein, who has long fought against overuse of psychiatric drugs.

 

The new manual "will drastically expand psychiatric diagnosis, mislabel millions of people as mentally ill, and cause unnecessary treatment with medication," says the website for the Committee to Boycott the DSM-5, organized by New York social worker Jack Carney.

 

Committee member Courtney Fitzpatrick, whose 9-year-old son died seven years ago while hospitalized for a blood vessel disease, said she has joined support groups for grieving parents "and by no means are we mentally ill because we are sad about our kids that have died."

 

Gary Greenberg, a Connecticut psychotherapist and author of "The Book of Woe," says pharmaceutical industry influence in psychiatry has contributed to turning normal conditions into diseases so that drugs can be prescribed to treat them.

 

Many of the 31 task force members involved in developing the revised guidebook have had financial ties to makers of psychiatric drugs, including consulting fees, research grants or stock.

 

Group leaders dismiss that criticism and emphasize they agreed not to collect more than $10,000 in industry money in the calendar year preceding publication of the manual.

___

Online:
American Psychiatric Association: http://www.psych.org
Occupy Psychiatry: http://occupypsychiatry.net
Committee to Boycott the DSM-5 : http://boycott5committee.com

___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Moving Day

I received a couple of texts over the weekend from a friend who lives in another city about how he now lives in a new place.

 

I didn't know he had moved from his home of almost 20 years so I was surprised by his news but I also knew that there was more to the story than just a regular heave-ho move from one place to another.

 

 

My friend lost his wife to cancer a number of years ago and she was a wonderful and talented person, but she also was the kind of person who kept everything.  She was not a hoarder but instead was a person who wanted to keep things so that she could pass these things along to other people because she knew that they would be perfect for someone else.  She kept all these things until she saw the person she had in mind or until she eventually got around to sending the item to the person.

 

This is why I knew that when my friend said he had just moved to a new apartment that it must have meant that he had come face to face with the dreaded day he had tried to put off for so long:  what to do with her possessions.

 

There are times when we all need to try and work through stuff by ourselves and then after a while of giving it our best shot, there comes a time when we need to talk to friends about what is going on.

 

And when what is going on is bad, I think the best thing to do is shut up and listen to the person who is going through a painful time. And listen. And listen some more until the person says they can't talk anymore and they have to get off the phone.

 

Which is what I did.

 

And I was happy to listen to him talk about the all of the tons of stuff he found and what he did with it.  I would go into more detail but this part is not my story to tell.

 

My part of the story is about the idea that even though you may not be in a crisis mode, it is always nice to have someone to reach out to.

 

To connect with someone else on a human level.  To be able to say this is what is happening to me and it sucks, big time!

 

To feel that another human being understands you and gets what you are going through.

 

To know that you are not alone.

 

And you never are either, my friends!!! Ever!!!!!

 

Lean In To Laughter

One of my brothers has a wacky way of making a joke exactly when it's needed.

His timing and dry delivery are impeccable.  Just when the situation is starting to get either too serious or is totally out of hand, I can always depend on my brother to throw an exclamation point into the conversation.

 

It's not an easy thing to do.  There's a fine line between funny and unfunny and once you cross over into unfunny, it's hard to undo and recover your mojo.

I've delivered some whoppers that have crashed on delivery but I don't try to cover it up by saying, "I'm only joking."  Usually when someone says that to me I know they are not really joking.  They're usually trying to tell me something by making it seem as if it's a joke.  NOT!

If I fall flat on my face, I try to own it immediately.  It's really the only way to go.

But the point is, making a joke gets me and maybe you through some rough times.

And humor also get writer Veronica Chambers through some life-changing moments with her husband.  As Chambers says, "I promise to laugh with my husband -- in sickness, in health, and everything in between."

Here's a short piece Veronica Chambers wrote for the February 2013 issue of O magazine that I think shows how humor diffuses those tense and  scary moments and puts life in perspective:

There's A Joke In There Somewhere
By Veronica Chambers
O Magazine/February 2013

Five years ago, I had an awful, soul-sucking year: During the birth of my child, my body went into organ failure, to the point where the doctors told my husband, Jason, I had begun to die.

Then my daughter, who was born weighing less than two pounds, spent three months in the hospital fighting for her life.  Then, just 14 weeks after we brought her home, my youngest brother, who was 28, died in a car accident, a crash that ended with an explosion so total there was nothing left to bury.

After his funeral, I drove to the Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania for a three-day Ayurvedic retreat meant to bring things back into balance.  Thanks to 72 hours of vegetarian meals, yoga classes and sessions with a holistic doctor, I returned home hopeful.

But less than two weeks later, a chaplain from my local hospital called to inform me that my husband had been the victim of a hit-and-run.  "Are you f--ing kidding me," I shrieked.

At the hospital, when I saw his face, so bruised it was almost unrecognizable, I realized there was no right way to absorb this kind of pain.  My life had become a cruel joke.

And yet.  When Jason came home, he immediately began cracking wise.  And that set the tone for how we regarded his situation: with levity and something like grace.

Him: "My arm hurts.  Take your top off -- it's the only thing that will help."

Me: "You got hit in a crosswalk at 7 A.M.?  Dude, I think God smited you."

When a stranger asked how he broke his arm, he said: "Arm wrestling with my mother-in-law.  I won."

We laughed every day, and despite all that we had endured, I was happy.  I won't go so far as to say that his being run over was a gift.  I will say that the accident reminded me how remarkable humor can be.

My husband's laughter is like medicine.  When times get tough, he finds the funny -- and I just lean in for the joke.

Isn't this an amazing way to look at life?

Seeking Support

Having spent almost two years going to group grief counseling sessions, I am a big believer in talking about the issues you need help with.

Whether it's grief, drug or alcohol addiction, weight issues or marriage problems, talking can help because you are taking your issues out of the dark and shining light on them for everyone to see.  You're not hiding your issues and acting as though everything is okay and being handled well. 

The idea of being part of a support group can seem very intimidating. It was not an easy decision for me: in talking about my pain, it was almost as though I was reliving it. But I was sick of the pain and it wasn't going away. I don't think I thought about what would happen when I began to talk about my emotional, painful and raw emotions to a group of strangers. You are opening up your heart, making yourself vulnerable and saying "I am so messed up right now. Please listen and support me."

I was really nervous when I went by myself to my first counseling session, totally unsure of what was going to happen.  But I think I am speaking for myself and definitely others when I say that it usually takes you a long time to decide that you need to go and receive counseling in the first place, so by the time you finally find a person or place that you trust and feel comfortable with, you are ready to participate.  I would have stayed in the group longer but one of the rules of the group was that you could only belong for two years.

 

In a surprising way, I found it freeing to be with other people who have experienced loss and listen to their stories and talk about feelings, thoughts, actions or regrets that were on the top of our minds.  There was a lot I didn't have to explain when I was talking about my loss.  I looked into the eyes of others in the group and could see that most people understood exactly what I was talking about and might have also felt it for themselves at some point.   We were there to get better and we were there because we know we needed help and guidance to get back to a place in our lives where it didn't hurt so much.

My first session was about two hours and there were about 12 people.  Two people who are trained therapists led the group's discussions and offered topics for us to think about from week to week. 

We started by introducing ourselves and giving a little bit of information as to why we were there in the counseling session.  When it was my turn, I started to introduce myself and my story and then I started to cry.  It was unexpected for I really thought I would be okay and could at least get through an introduction.  But no luck.  The group gave me the best response:  silence, a box of tissues and as much time as I need to get myself under control and let me speak about myself.

 

This may sound obvious but you can't go to individual or group counseling if you don't think you have a problem or if you think that counseling is shameful or humiliating.

Support groups can work well because each person is experiencing the same difficulty in their life even though each person may be handling it differently.  For me, it took away some of the feelings of aloneness and isolation. 

But the real work of group counseling happens between sessions when you are out in the real world and trying to use your new information to bring about change.  The group can guide you and give you support but ultimately it's up to you to figure out how to make it work.  Just like many things in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

Whether it's group counseling or one-on-one couseling, either way I hope you find an outlet for your pain.  Congratulations for being willing to take the important step of reaching out to others for support.

Best of luck to all!!