Wednesday's Woe - Where Was Your Guardian Angel?

Wednesday's Woe

Where Was Your Guardian Angel?

Where was your Guardian Angel?

Did she need a rest?

Of all the work that you'd required,

Did it put her to the test?

Where was your Guardian Angel

On that fateful night?

Did she need to take her leave

When you felt such horrific fright?

Where was your Guardian Angel

When you took that final fall?

Was she not there to catch you

When you needed her most of all?

God, it's so confusing...

From this world we cannot see

The methods of Your choosing

In Your view from Eternity.

Picture: Heilige Schutzengel Art Print, thanks to Irene Wilson on Pinterest

Poem: Where Was Your Guardian Angel, by Angie Bennett Prince, 2/18/2014

Tuesday's Trust - Amidst Complexity, Trust the Simple

Tuesday's Trust

Amidst Complexity

Trust the Simple

In Complicated Child-Loss Grief, LIFE is forced to be simple.

We CANNOT do complicated. We cannot do confusing. We cannot do unnecessary conflict.

We CAN do situations that are healing. helpful. loving. merciful. pure. soothing.

We CANNOT do toxic. deceitful. unkind. hateful. even ignorant.

Child-Loss Grief is very complex; in many ways, it is not simple.

The simpletons that want our Child-Loss Grief to be over are overbearingly simplistic; they want our grief to be simplistic. It is not; they need to DEAL with their ignorance and leave well enough alone. To those ignorant people who want to tell us how grief is done, it would be very helpful to us for you to KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW. You have NO WAY of knowing what CHILD-LOSS GRIEF ENTAILS. You may think you do, but you do not. You cannot, unless you have been through it.

Because Child-Loss Grief is complex, we often have to think ahead as to how we can best keep life as simple as possible. There is too much going on in our hearts, minds, souls, and spirits to have life situations become needlessly complicated. Stimuli needs to be minimized; we have enough stimuli swirling around inside us.

Simple is key. If we are going out the door, when is the best time to go? When do the crowds thin out? Who are the people we can be around, or the ones we cannot afford to be around? What situations will probably be fairly manageable, and which ones will not? If an event is an important one to attend, how can we keep it as centered, safe, and protected as possible? If we cannot ensure a fair amount of emotional safety, we may have to decide we will not attend after all.

Sometimes getting to "simple" is going to take a long time. If we have a trial ahead of us, there is much time needed simply to prepare for it. Our focus has to be narrowed on what is called for in order for us to carry out our part in it. We may have assignments from attorneys, policemen, or the district attorney. We may want to be present when the Grand Jury meets. Oftentimes there is Media to manage, interviews to give. We may be called upon to give an impact statement in court. We have to summons up the strength needed for all the myriad roles we must play in the interest of our child's justice.

Even before trials are prepared for, we have to find out what happened to our child. We may be interviewing policemen, both face-to-face and by phone, sometimes traveling out of state to talk to the professionals who interacted with our child's particular situation upon death. Policemen. Firemen. Coroners. Medical Examiners. Any attending Doctors, Nurses, or other Hospital Staff. Witnesses. Towing Service workmen. Ambulance drivers. Paramedics. Private Investigators hired if desired or when needed information is not forthcoming. Attorneys may need to be consulted. Other interviews may be desired. With Perpetrators, Surviving Victims, Friends: Those who had been with your child shortly before his or her demise. You may not be able to get all your information at once. Little pieces of information may trickle down over time, each time re-traumatizing you. There may be mis-information that can be equally if not more traumatizing. There may be gaping holes in the story, many unanswered questions. There may be toxicology reports that take months and months before you will get answers. There may be pictures to view, or a body to view. All of these traumatizing to the parents, or family who is assisting. Even traumatizing to the lawyers or professionals helping you, or who tried to help your child. And then there is the Autopsy Report...

Also, there may be insurance demands to which we have to attend. Records to copy. Reports to gather. A learning curve to climb. Even our own insurance companies can refuse to pay what they rightfully should pay. Professional relationships that have been helpful in the past with insurance agents may now become adversarial. There may be interviews to tackle with the unwilling-to-comply insurance company's hawks, some of whom can be downright toxic (on purpose). Lawyers to retain. Calls to make to keep the professionals fired up on our behalf. We need guidance, wisdom and support. And good professional advice from those in the know.

These are just a few of the complications upon which we are called to tackle, at the very times we are at our weakest. We need to be able to focus at the very times our brains have been traumatized and will not cooperate. We really need to be able to hold onto one another within our families, even when we may be at odds about the particulars within any given situation. We need to have family support, community support, and support from other child-loss grievers who have "been there."

And above all, for peace amidst the complexities of grief, we need to keep life simple...

Wednesday's Woe - Why Child-Loss Grief is So Different from Other Grief... ~by Tommy and Angie Prince

Used by gracious permission of Artist Crawfurd Adamson

Wednesday's Woe

Why Child-Loss Grief is So Different from Other Grief...

~by Tommy and Angie Prince

When a parent dies, though an extreme bond is there, somehow you are able to go on with your life; you can function.

Tommy lost his mother when he was just 14 years old. I lost my precious daddy in 2004. As much as we loved and were bonded with our parents, we were able to grieve even while we went on with our lives, functioning fairly normally even amidst our grief. Parent-loss is not easy. It is very painful to lose a parent who poured so much of themselves into your life that they basically influenced every aspect of your being: body, soul, heart, mind, and spirit. And the love they gave is beyond compare!

While you love them and appreciate all that they have poured into you, thanks to all of their sacrificial love for you, you can stand on your own two feet to function, face the world, and walk through it.

There is something inside you to call upon, that gives you the "oomph" to move forward, to go on with your life. There is a sweet peace inside you that you know they are okay, as you know they are in Heaven and that we will all be together again someday. So now you must live your life with all that they taught you, and attempt—with God's help—to be faithful now to God's calling upon your life for your time remaining on this earth.

When your child dies, however, grief is traumatic.

In fact, it seems when your child dies, at some level you die too.

Your life stops.

Everything you have stood for, everything you have been about, is stood on its ear.

Your life has been turned upside down.

Your heart has been ripped out of you, so there is nothing left to pull from; there are no resources available with which to function. It seems all systems are shut down in order to grieve and to walk through such heavy loss. "Moving on" is a luxury you don't have.

In Child-Loss Grief, all is geared for walking through the Unthinkable, the Tragic, the Great Loss, the Mangled mind, the Broken body, the Spent Spirit, the Hurt Heart, and the Shattered Soul.

With this loss, there is nothing there to call upon, to say "you can move on from this."

Indeed, as Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. says, with this kind of severe loss, we are learning from the newly-available brain scans that after the severe loss of one's child, the grief-traumatized brain IS DAMAGED. (Whether this damage is temporary or not has not yet been ascertained.) The part of the brain that even helps you to do the routine habits and procedures of everyday life is damaged, so that just walking through a day with its normal functions is almost impossible to do, much less trying to tackle the more complex problems of a demanding occupation, raising children, or other major life concerns.

Child-loss grief is debilitating, for our hearts, our souls, and our spirits are crushed!

The scripture that speaks to this so well is

"A man's spirit sustains him in sickness,

but a crushed spirit, who can bear?"

~Proverbs 18:14

But our Lord says He will be there for us to pick us up...

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and

saves those who are crushed in spirit."

~Psalm 34:18

Because He Himself has been there...for our sake...

"Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows...He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed."

~Isaiah 53:4-5

He was crushed that we might live; He was wounded that we might heal...

"But for you who revere My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings..."

~Malachi 4:2a

So for the remainder of our lives we will be in a healing process with our ultimate healing culminating when we reach Heaven. At that time, God says,

"(Then) you will go out and leap (for joy) like calves released from the stall."

~Malachi 4:2b

Until then, may God bless us in our very painful healing process...

Feel free to share your experiences with us with a comment at the very bottom of this post. (Just punch the "Comment" button, and post your comment.) If you are not up to it, that is fine. That is the way we are most of the time! I think that is just the way Child-Loss Grief is much of the time. We just appreciate your being here with us...

Painting used by gracious permission of Crawfurd Adamson: "Knot" Oil Painting by Crawfurd Adamson. Website: http://crawfurdadamson.com Email: And thank you to Diane at http://dancindianern.blogspot.com for sharing him with us!

Wednesday's Woe - Metamorphosis: The Need to Cocoon

Wednesday's Woe

Metamorphosis:

The Need to Cocoon

The presence of that absence is everywhere.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Failure to mourn impairs a life. Most people's problems with mourning are not caused by compounded losses; their problems are caused by other people's desires to get mourning over with.

Family, friends, and medical staff want accommodation of the loss as quickly as possible. Only through mourning can we find a life on the other side of loss.

We need to grieve losses and find people who will accept that grieving. To grieve well is to value what you have lost.

~Arthur Frank At the Will of the Body

The simple fact is that what is considered abnormal or pathological in other losses is typical after the death of a child in the sense that it is experienced by the majority of bereaved parents.

Failure to delineate a new, more appropriate model of mourning and to determine what constitutes pathology within this group has resulted in the development of inappropriate and unrealistic expectations for bereaved parents, who cannot and must not be expected to have the same bereavement experiences as other mourners.

~Therese Rando, Treatment of Complicated Grief

**********

The Need to Cocoon

Coming to understand that most of us bereaved parents will have the symptoms of "complicated grief" as a normal part of our grief to one degree or another, perhaps you will understand why we have felt the need to "cocoon." As bereaved parents of our precious Merry Katherine, we have needed to "hole-up" in the safety of our home to do a massive amount of grief work alone, together, and with our Lord...

It is hard work.

We feel like we are walking around with no skin on.

We cannot handle any additional stimuli to our already overburdened hearts.

Our belief-system has been attacked.

Our view of God has changed. (Of necessity, our view of God needs to be cleansed of some of the *pagan-infiltration we didn't even realize had seeped in until a tragedy as great as this occurred... And so, we must work hard to cull away the false, and to cling to the true that is of our Lord, for He is Truth.)

Our view of our very selves has changed.

Our view of our parenting has been challenged.

Our view of our career has been impacted.

So, our philosophy is that a natural part of grieving the death of a child is the need to cocoon into the safety of our chrysalis. In this chrysalis, it may "look" like nothing is happening... But inside, there is an enormous amount of energy being expended.

A tremendous amount of emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual energy is being expended to process through our losses - yes the loss of our child, but also the loss of many other facets of our lives as well.

******

Search: what happens inside a cocoon

Answer: Lots!

1. When the caterpillar has eaten enough, it turns into a pupa. It stops eating, finds somewhere safe, and becomes very still. Pupa never eat and seldom move at all.
2. It molts its skin the same as it does when growing, but instead of another larval skin, it secretes a thicker, stronger pupal skin. Generally, the pupa then breaks out of the old larval skin, though in many moths, the pupa remains inside the old larval skin. You can often find the remains of the caterpillar skin around the tail of a Butterfly pupa. {Some of the elements of the old life become part of the components of the "new normal"?!}
3. A lot of the caterpillar's old body dies. It is attacked by the same sort of juices the caterpillar used in its earlier life to digest its food - it sort of digests itself from the inside out in a process called histolysis. Not all the tissue is destroyed, however; some of the old tissue passes on to the next stage.
4. Special formative cells called histoblasts - until now dormant in the larval body - come into action. They form a new body out of the soupy mess that the digestive juices have made of the old caterpillar body. They do this using histogenesis, which is the same biochemical process that all insects use to turn food into part of their bodies. They make a new heart, new muscles, new digestive system - everything. {A new normal?!}
5. During this whole time, the butterfly or moth can't excrete anything, so all the waste products accumulate. When it emerges from the chrysalis, it leaves behind a reddish-brown meconium that is made up of all the nitrogenous waste.

The Beautiful Glass-Wing Butterfly!

*See Frank Viola's book, Pagan Christianity

Search: what happens inside a cocoon

http://carlygoogles.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-happens-inside-cocoon.html

with highlights and {notes in parentheses} mine

Thursday's Therapy - What is Complicated Grief, and What is "Complicated Grief Therapy"?

Thursday's Therapy

What is Complicated Grief,

and

What is "Complicated Grief Therapy"?

Notes taken from

American Journal of Psychiatry, July, 2009

American Psychiatric Association

Editorial

Grief and Depression: Treatment Decisions for Bereaved Children and Adults

By M. Katherine Shear, M.D.

What is the difference between Grief and Depression?

Yearning (passionately missing and/or desiring to be with your loved one) is the sine qua non (indispensable factor) of grief and is not seen in depression. Yearning is the experience of wanting, a component of the brain reward system thought to be deactivated in depression. By contrast, even during the initial period of acute grief, bereaved people retain the ability to experience positive emotions. Positive emotions may be evoked in a bereaved person when recalling pleasant experiences with the deceased or when expressing pride in the loved one or telling amusing anecdotes. Moreover, sadness is not usually pervasive during grief; rather, it occurs in waves or pangs of emotion. Acute grief is associated with preoccupation with thoughts and memories of the deceased, while depression is associated with self-critical or pessimistic rumination.

What is Complicated Grief?

Complicated grief is "a form of prolonged acute grief that is clinically significant and occurs in about 10% of bereaved individuals."

Key features of Complicated Grief include:

§ Persistent intense yearning and longing for the person who died

§ Disruptive preoccupation with thoughts and memories of this person

§ Disruptive preoccupation with thoughts and memories of this person

§ Disruptive Avoidance of reminders that the person is gone

§ A range of negative emotions that include

o Deep relentless sadness

o Self-blame

o Bitterness or anger in connection with death

o An inability to gain satisfaction or joy through engaging in meaningful activities or relationships with significant others

It has been discovered that complicated grief increases activation of brain reward centers when exposed to stimuli that were reminders of the deceased loved one; this (relief factor) supports the difference between complicated grief and depression.

Complicated grief can co-occur with other psychiatric disorders, meaning the grief itself does not necessarily "create" the other disorders.

However Complicated grief can contribute to

§ Psychological Impairment

§ Functional Impairment

§ (even) Suicidality

independent of any other disorders.

Dr. Shear's belief is, "Complicated grief needs to be treated and is refractory (resistant) to standard treatment for depression. A targeted treatment may be required."

....

In summary, studies of adults as well as children indicate that most bereaved people experience a painful period of acute grief and go on to make a good adjustment and to restore their ability to attain joy and satisfaction in their ongoing lives.

A clinically significant minority do not enjoy this positive outcome and instead experience psychiatric sequelae, the most common of which are

§ Major Depression

§ Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

§ Alcohol or Substance Abuse

§ Complicated Grief.

Each of these conditions needs to be recognized as early as possible and treated appropriately to prevent the development of enduring disruptive illness.

*****

Complicated Grief shares elements of Major Depression and PTSD (See below). However treatments typically used for these disorders don't work well for people with Complicated Grief. (Below, you will see the proper grief therapy indicated for bereaved parents who decide they want therapy, according to the latest grief research (2005). It is called "Complicated-Grief Therapy.)

Elements in common with Major Depression:

§ Sadness

§ Guilt

§ Social Withdrawal

Elements in common with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

§ Disbelief

§ Intrusive Images

§ Avoidance Behaviors

**********

Psychotherapy - What is Complicated-Grief Therapy?

If a grieving person does decide to pursue psychotherapy for complicated grief, be sure your therapist is well-trained in the latest "Complicated-Grief Therapy." Typically, Complicated-Grief Therapy involves several components. The therapist will help you to recall stories of your loved one's death as the therapist tape-records your recollections. Periodically, the therapist will ask you to report your level of distress. Then the therapist will have you listen to the tape between sessions.

Your therapist will try to reduce your distress levels during each session by "promoting a sense of connection to the loved one" such as

* Imagining having conversations with your deceased loved one

* Discussing positive and negative memories about him or her.

The Complicated-Grief Therapy trained therapist will also ask you to discuss what your plans and goals would be if your grief were not so intense.

**********

Note:

"Complicated grief is common in unexpected and violent deaths," says Keith Hawton, professor of psychiatry in his Editorial: "Complicated grief after bereavement."

I would argue Complicated Grief is the norm with any parent's loss of a child.

M. Katherine Shear, M.D. – Editorial: Grief and Depression: Treatment Decisions for Bereaved Children and Adults http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/166/7/746?ijkey=acb0bd6aa2a2b140c47b20e80900b8e7d254e008&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

Psychiatry Professor Keith Hawton – Editorial: Complicated grief after bereavement http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/334/7601/962

picture - http://mlmcored.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/a439_longleat.jpg