Wednesday's Woe - The Family Get Together that Included More than Just Family

"There is a feeling of disbelief that comes over you, that takes over, and you kind of go through the motions. You do what you're supposed to do, but in fact you're not there at all."

~Frederick Barthelme 

Wednesday's Woe

The Family Get Together that Included 

More than Just Family

"The loss of a future eroded the present. The long shadow of the past haunted the moment. I lived in fear – fear of no future, fear of the past and afraid the shrapnel of the present tense was going to be my demise. I was left fragmented, holding on and holding it all in."

~Benjamin Allen

~~~

Let me give you some background first… We have managed over the course of the last several months, to sequester ourselves fairly well from festive activities like holiday events, etc. We made sure we were alone at Christmas, New Years, Tommy's birthday, Easter, Merry Katherine's birthday, and Mother's Day; holidays and grief, for us, just do not mix well. They typically are the worst days of the year for us, and it is all we can do just to muddle our way through them in the sanctuary of our own home. Nathan had come home for his birthday, and we had had a sweet time with him, but there could be no large get together with all of us together because we knew we weren't up for that, so he celebrated in small gatherings instead.

So here it was, the first outing in quite awhile with all our little family gathered around. We were delighted Nathan was coming close by and wanted to introduce us to his new girlfriend he had met while living down in Georgia, but we had fear and trepidation about the family get together without our lively Merry Katherine in the thick of the action… We tried to be sure we were well-rested, well-grieved, and as prepared as we could be for the occasion. But we knew it probably would be difficult and have its painful moments anyway...

This is how I felt, sitting in a family gathering around the table at Cracker Barrel, (As I said, it was a rare event for all of us to get together, because as always, the Absence of her Presence would loom too large, and the shadow would overwhelm the entire event). Here we were, one son celebrating a new love, a beautiful bright moment in his life, and thus in our life, and the other son celebrating and sharing with us for the first time their discovery of new life in his wife's womb, with the hopes of a newborn to come into our presence in about seven months from now, and thus more great elation was there for the celebration in our family's hearts… !

But, where was I? O, I was there to celebrate alright; I wouldn't miss such a special time together, in their lives and mine, and yet somehow I was far far away at the same time… 

I could feel the tension in my insides. Here it was, a truly beautiful culmination of events in our family's lives all at one time, and yet why was my heart sitting in my chest still feeling crushed, pulverized, and dangerous, as if it could splat out on the table and ruin everyone's happiness all at once? 

I felt fear; I felt danger; I felt "un-me," and frightened, even while I too felt sparks of the joy my children were feeling, to some degree. My usual confidence was shaken, and what seemed to replace it was a gross insecurity that clouded my ability to relax and "be" in the moment. I felt on guard against potential disaster, and some of that disaster that might originate from within, from my own darkness that was overwhelming the lightness of the occasion, despite being now engulfed in my children's light-hearted banter. What was wrong with me? I love people; I love my children; I enjoy their quick, spontaneous humor; I love family time, and the sweetness that surrounds it!

Still, it was as if I knew Life and Death were sitting at the same table with me at one time. How can one singly celebrate Life when Death is sitting there tightly coiled, just waiting for its moment to lash out onto the table to totally spew the rest of  its poisons out, and take out all that was left of my family at one time?  Or, at the very least, spew out some of the poisons that seemed to have crept down into my own heart and soul, and thus potentially ruin a perfectly beautiful evening for my family.

How can one truly enjoy a shared meal with loved ones when we know Danger is lurking at our side all the while? Like Benjamin Allen says, "I was left fragmented, holding on and holding it all in." I was using what little energy I had available to try to hide that desperate negativity that was clawing at me, threatening to engulf my soul. In actuality, it was already ripping at my insides even as I knew it was threatening to swamp me, and take me down at any moment…). How do you smile and try to be festive with all that fear and turmoil going on in your heart and soul?

~~~

After the first thirty minutes to an hour of the meal, I was able to feel more and more of the love from my sons' hugs, and the laughter regarding their, and my grand baby girl's, shenanigans. I was beginning to be able to feel the joy in response to their joy as the night progressed. It morphed more and more into a sweet and peaceful time around people who are each full of grace. 

If I was not altogether present, I was mostly present during the remainder of the evening as opposed to the very rough start at first. 

Perhaps this is what it is like to grieve your child now after 7-and- 3/4 years; the grief-and-trauma does not leave (rather, it goes with us everywhere we go!) so we must make room for it, and over time and much grief work, our systems learn to make room for joy at the same time. 

There are times worse than others; I have not quite sorted out what all happened this time ~ I think I have been exhausted from a great deal of grief lately,  which leaves an aggravated adrenal system and its concomitant disrupted sleep, all of which culminates in a steady low-level state of exhaustion, leaving me just enough energy to function, but barely. And thus, I am left more vulnerable for the darkness of my grief to surface at all the wrong times…  

I am very grateful for what was mostly, ultimately, a sweet time with my family. 

I am also aware that we indeed walk in this world now ever accompanied not only by Life… but also Death. Yes, it was a family get-together than included more than just family; it also included my grief and my fear….

Towards the end of the evening, Tommy came up to me, saying, "We need to go now!" Evidently, the evening had been relatively good for him, until towards the end of the evening when the boys were showing off their antics, and the absence of Merry Katherine began to overtake Tommy as she would have been right alongside, in the thick of the playful action with them… He said he had felt tears threatening to come to the surface, so he had left abruptly to go "get gas for the car," and then returned to get me so that we could leave as soon as possible.

Yes, our Traumatic Grief goes along with us wherever we might go, and it often demands to make its presence known.

Those close to me could detect there was something wrong. "He's grieving... he's sad... he can't get over it..."

But they didn't know it was more than that. I was in freefall in every moment. I was in the dark every day.

I was in fear - fear that the unbearable pain could get worse.

~Benjamin Allen

Graphics, thanks to
The Afterloss / Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/a.450467991747451.1073741828.447234425404141/506370096157240/?type=1&permPage=1

https://www.facebook.com/TheAfterloss/photos/a.450467991747451.1073741828.447234425404141/506996909427892/?type=1&permPage=1

Wednesday's Woe - Grief's Prisoner

Wednesday's Woe

Grief's Prisoner

Prisoner in my own body. Held hostage. Can't trust my own being anymore.

3:00 a.m. ~ awake again. Not just awake. Wide awake. 4 hours of sleep. I need 8. But, I get up, go to the restroom...

Now I am awake. Strike that. It is more like, now I am Hypervigilant!

No longer can I just go to the restroom, then fall back in bed and crash back into a sound sleep. As Tommy realized I had awakened, we began to talk - he'd already awakened at 2:00. Neither of us could go back to sleep. As we talked, he asked a good question:

"Since Merry Katherine's death, over these past (what is now?) 5 1/2 years, have you had a good night's sleep?"

I had to honestly answer, "No." If I have had one, it's been the exception, but I honestly cannot remember a night of a solid 8-hours of sleep. He couldn't remember me having one either.

I have coped with that by finding some time during the day to take a long nap to ensure that my poor grief-torn body at least gets around 8 hours of sleep from somewhere.

But that's not all. The other development, really since Day One when we were told Merry Katherine was killed, is that stress takes its toll on me through my gastro-intestinal system. It's as if my body were wired to vent the stress through upsetting my tummy. Ouch. And my system must be finely wired, such that the alarm goes off with barely a trip of the wire it seems. And when that happens, then

I feel like I am a prisoner of my own body, and a prisoner of my own home.

The only people who can count on seeing me on a regular basis are my immediate family members, and my clients. A neighbor was teasing Tommy that he hadn't even gotten to meet me yet, and asked when was he going to get to meet me? Tommy teased back and said, "Nobody sees her. If you want to see her, call her and make an appointment and bring your checkbook with you, because all she sees are her clients." You remember the old saying, "There's a lot of truth in jest!" Well, there you go. That just about sums it up.

I don't like it. And I am trying to train my body to be more resilient with a pretty strong aerobic work-out routine, and a very mindful diet. But meanwhile, it is what it is, and I just deal with it.

For Tommy, his stress now sets off high blood pressure. And he thinks the wear and tear of the trauma of child-loss definitely contributed to his body succumbing to cancer (that he discovered he had just 5 months ago) as well. He too is working hard at trying to build up his immune system with proper exercise and proper diet, but it is a daily battle.

It is a daily battle for both of us. I wonder if the battle will ever subside to give us a few moments reprieve. I pray so. I miss my carefree health I could always count on.

And I am sometimes terrorized if I have some heavy-duty-traumatized clients scheduled, will my body cooperate today and allow me to help them?

Some of my clients have lasted the entire 5 1/2 years with me through the grief, and they learned they needed to call me 30 minutes before the appointment to ask, "Is this a good day?" before coming into their previously scheduled appointment. It has worked out fairly well that way. (So thankful to my clients who have been so graciously willing to be flexible!)

What about you?

How does the stress of the grief and trauma over your child's death play out in your body, or soul, or spirit, or mind, or behavior?

Do you ever feel like you are Grief's Prisoner?

Picture, thanks to FotoSearch

Thursday's Therapy - Self Care: "Conscious Living" Amidst Grief and Trauma ~by Tommy Prince

Thursday's Therapy

Self Care:

"Conscious Living"

Amidst Grief and Trauma

~by Tommy Prince

I was elementary-school age, at a summer day camp with my younger brother. In one of the more memorable activities of camp, the camp counselors took us out to one of the area lakes (Knoxville has about five lakes within it) and then put three life-jacketed kids in a small sailboat by ourselves (3 kids per boat, with around 6-8 boats in all), and set us off to sail with the wind at our back, so we could only follow where the wind was blowing. There was no teaching involved; we had to just get in and figure it out by ourselves, and learn the hard way. The only thing we knew to do was sail with the wind at our back. We used the rudder to steer somewhat, mostly side to side.

The instructions were, that when the whistle would blow, it would be time to turn around, and come back in! Well, the whistle blew. But we had no idea what to do to get our boat turned around. So, in order to come back in, I jumped out of the boat, and by swimming and kicking my legs, I was able to push the tail of my boat around so that the front of the boat was headed back to shore. Great idea, but big problem, I couldn't get back in the boat! When I attempted to get back in, I tilted the side of the boat down and a LOAD of water rushed in with me, and my brother, three years younger than me, shut his eyes, threw his head back, and started screaming for dear life, thinking we surely were going to drown!

Sound familiar? How many of us grievers swimming in the depths of our grief with no sight of land anywhere, begin to wonder,

"Am I just going to drown in all this grief???"

The camp counselors were in a motor boat and came around to all of us to tow us back in eventually. Now, maybe I am looking for a camp counselor to get me out of this grief morass, but there's not one to be found, it seems!

Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., stress and trauma expert, highly recommends the book, Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. ~ I love this quote in the introduction to the book:

"Sailors have to develop a sense of mindfulness about them, watching all the elements, and learning to work with the wind to get them where they need to go.

"If you hope to make use of the own force of your problems to propel you, you will have to be tuned in, just as the sailor is tuned in to the feel of the boat, the water, the wind, and his or her course. You will have to learn how to handle yourself under all kinds of stressful conditions, not just when the weather is sunny and the wind blowing exactly the way you want it to.

"We accept that no one controls the weather. Good sailors learn to read it carefully and respect its power. They will avoid storms if possible, but when caught in one, they know when to take down the sails, batten down the hatches, drop anchor, and ride things out, controlling what is controllable and letting go of the rest. Training, practice, and a lot of first-hand experience in all sorts of weather are required to develop such skills so that they work for you when you need them. Developing skill in facing and effectively handling the various "weather conditions" in your life is what we mean by the art of conscious living."

~Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Angie and I are in the "training" stages of learning to deal with this tsunami of grief by first learning to condition our bodies to be effective instruments to manage our grievous stress. After learning I had a sporadic range of volatility in my blood pressure that could be very dangerous to my cardiovascular system, I had to learn to do what I could do to manage that problem first. So I began my daily aerobic training for 20 minutes a day, first thing in the morning, before any coffee could be had!

This was after many sessions of negotiating with my doctor that I did plenty of yard work, and that should suffice for aerobic exercise, etc. Finally he lowered the boom, in regard to conquering the blood-pressure monster:

"You can do this! But, you have got to do this 20 minutes of aerobic exercise EVERY DAY! You will find that you will begin losing weight, you will lower your cholesterol level, and your blood pressure will normalize and not fluctuate so much."

Given several months of sporadic working out, hitting a lick here and there when I "felt like it," I finally got down to business. Amazingly, 16 days after starting such a 20-minute-in-the-morning-aerobic-exercise-regimen (plus watching my salt, watching my diet, getting 8-hours of sleep), I discovered I had lost ten (10) pounds, and my blood pressure had normalized throughout the day. (I had to buy my own blood pressure monitor.) So I am feeling pretty upbeat about getting my body better conditioned to handle the tumultuous stress of my child-loss grief.

I went to a neighborhood planning meeting last night and came home very bummed out and depressed because I had gotten triggered. So, out of curiosity, I took my blood pressure to see what it was. For the first time since getting everything normalized over the past seven days, my blood pressure had shot up into the abnormal range, and I realized that cortisol had begun to course through my system from being triggered. Within the hour, with deep breathing and meditation, I was able to get my blood pressure back into the normal range. I am training myself to be mindful of what is going on inside my body so that I can take better care of myself. I am learning that my grief and trauma "will follow me all the days of my life," so I am doing what I can to learn to manage it through "conscious living" amidst my trauma and grief.

Picture, thanks to FotoSearch.com

Wednesday's Woe - Child-Loss Grief and Trauma Throws You Back In Time... ~Tommy and Angie Prince

Wednesday's Woe

Child-Loss Grief and Trauma

Throws You Back In Time...

~Tommy and Angie Prince

In grieving Merry Katherine, we have noticed in our Loss-of-Child Grief and Trauma, this Grief is unlike anything we have ever experienced.

When we are so much in the throes of grief, as such intense grief is occurring, it feels like the devastating emotion will never end...

We are thrown back in time...

To as far back as the day we first found out...

Day One.

Ground Zero.

...We become debilitated and upset to the degree that we feel we will never come out of it again.

(And indeed, at some deep level in our bodies and souls, we never will completely come out of our deep sadness.)

But reprieves do come.

You just cannot envision such devastating emotion ever letting up as you are going through it.

All time melts away to nothing,

and you are Back There...

facing that Stark Reality in all its force:

My child is GONE.

Our world,

STOPPED.

Our hearts,

BROKEN.

Pictures thanks to Grieving Mothers (Facebook)

Thursday's Therapy - Unpackaging The Princes' Top Ten TRUTHs About Child-Loss Grief - Truth # 6 Old Losses Can Resurrect...

Thursday's Therapy

Unpackaging

The Princes' Top Ten TRUTHs

About Child-Loss Grief

Truth # 6 Old Losses Can Resurrect...

Truth #6) Old losses can get re-opened...as well as the old ways we used to cope with them. You can expect to regress, and old self-destructive acts and addictions to re-surface.

Life is real, and trauma, despite the best efforts of cultures or individuals, cannot always be worked through; its effects remain.

...the capacity to mourn is often impaired as a consequence of traumatization (Danieli, 1981 and Krystal, 1981). The mourning from previous, analogous losses is rarely completed, and new losses may well trigger suppressed and postponed grief. Grief was and is hard to bear not only because of the loss and death of loved ones, but also because of the loss of an empathic and positive self-image, of former beliefs, and of basic trust. The anxiety-arousing reminiscences of the traumatic past can be serious hindrances in the mourning process...

~Bessel A. van der Kolk

Beginning around year two into our grief, it seems our otherwise simple, nurturing world was turned on its head. We are not sure exactly what contributes to what as, other than what van der Kolk has written above about losses triggering losses, and Rando capturing the anxiety, fear, panic schemata that you're headed for, we think most so-called therapists DON'T HAVE A CLUE what you are grappling with.

What we believe to be happening is this scenario:

At the moment of any physically assaulting trauma and/or emotionally-assaulting trauma, the body releases high levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, to help you navigate through flight or fight. It also releases high levels of opiates! In the words of van der Kolk:

"When a person sustains a physical and/or a psychic or emotional injury, opiate receptors are activated, and the person goes numb, just to survive.

"Trauma survivors' blood streams are similar to drug addicts, they have high levels of opiates circulating in their system."

For us, these opiates served us well for about two years into our grief. BUT NOBODY WAS THERE TO WARN US ABOUT WHAT WAS SOON TO COME! THE HELPING FIELDS ARE SO NEW TO DISCOVERING SOME OF THESE DYNAMICS THAT THERE ARE NO "WARNING, DANGER AHEAD" SIGNS BECAUSE IT IS ALL SO NEW, AND IN MANY WAYS "CIVILIAN" (Non-Child-Loss Griever) HELPERS DON'T HAVE A CLUE THE PERVASIVENESS OF THE TRAUMA TO COME. (They tend to think our grief is just all about our child, and they forget, or never learned, the body has chemicals that begin to take on a life of their own that are about to set us up for EVEN FURTHER TRAUMA.)

So, for about two years of grief, the grief is incredibly raw yes, but typically we were able to manage it in our safe and sweet, nurturing environment with one another as a genuine, loving helper to our grief. And science now teaches us, we had hidden physiological helpers such as cortisol to help us deal with stressors, and opiates to numb us when the pain became too great.

BUT THEN, WHAM!

The extreme trauma wears out its physiological helpers. The cortisol levels DEPLETE. This injury is NOT a mental one; it is a PHYSICAL injury (that definitely impacts our mental state). And about the same time, the opiates that were so helpful to soothe us are no longer there - our opiate receptors are burnt out, another PHYSICAL injury from the demands of severe trauma. This too impacts our mental state. So, then we enter into this state of DYSREGULATION.

We then enter into Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

"People with PTSD tend to feel weird, defective, or crazy. Traumatic things happen so fast, they don't have enough time to be encoded into narrative memory... The symptoms of PTSD are far-reaching, intrusive, terrifying, and almost impossible for non-sufferers to comprehend."

~Bessel A. van der Kolk (as found online*)

The following After-Shocks of PTSD then begin to play out:

• Anxiety, fear, panic
• Hyperarousal; hypersensitivity; emotional lability; physical symptoms
• Avoidance, numbing, and forgetting
• Flashbacks, intrusions, and other reexperiences
• Anger
• Guilt
• Impaired mental functioning; confusion; bewilderment
• Focus on the traumatic aspects of the death
• Shattered assumptive world/loss of meaning
• Withdrawal/isolation from others
• Acting out/impulsvie/addictive compulsive behaviors such as the following 9 unhealthy regressions:
• Using substances for self-medication
• Gambling
• Sexual activity (compulsively or addictively)
• Working (compulsively or addictively)
• Eating (compulsively or addictively)
• Shopping/Spending (compulsively or addictively)
• Exercising (compulsively or addictively)
• Procrastinating
• Internet use (compulsively or addictively)

And don't forget, despite the above traumatic stimuli with which one may be grappling, there is still the ongoing parental bereavement over your precious child that must still be walked through!

List, by Therese A. Rando, (2011, In Press)

NOW, TOMMY AND I (IN HINDSIGHT) SAW AN INTERESTING PHENOMENON TAKE PLACE:

These physiologcal dysregulations of internal chemicals and anxiety states take us to SUCH A VULNERABLE AND UNSTABLE PLACE, that the HELPLESSNESS triggers OLD LOSSES, LOSSES WE EXPERIENCED PERHAPS WHEN WE WERE CHILDREN OR TEENAGERS, and for whatever reason were not completely resolved. Look back at the first statement of this post of van der Kolk's:

"Life is real, and trauma, despite the best efforts of cultures or individuals, cannot always be worked through; its effects remain."

SO, the extreme helplessness throws us into such anxiety states as to trigger hyperarousal (danger is coming from everywhere). The hippocampus is damaged by the prolonged release of cortisol (corticosterone), so the hippocampus physiologically shrinks. Our short-term memory becomes impaired. And our memory that places things in a temporal time and place is impaired. If we cannot sort out what was in the past and what is not, think about it - ALL OUR OLD PSYCHIC (EMOTIONAL) INJURIES CAN BE RESURRECTED AS IF THEY ARE IN THE HERE-AND-NOW. The body signals danger; the hippocampus cannot sort out whether the danger is relevant or not, so that everything frightens, and everything that frightens turns us into a hyper-alarmed state:

The hippocampus is involved in the evaluation of how incoming stimuli are spatially and temporally related to one another and with previously stored information. It also determines whether the new stimuli involve reward, punishment, novelty, or nonreward (Ademac, 1991; Gray, 1987). Decreased hippocampal functioning causes behavioral disinhibition and hyperresponsiveness to environmental stimuli (Altman, Brunner, and Bayer, 1973; O' Keefe and Nadel, 1978). The neurotransmitter serotonin plays a crucial role in the capacity of the septo-hippocampal system to activate inhibitory pathways that prevent the initiation of emergency responses until it is clear they will be of use (Gray, 1987).

~Bessel A. van der Kolk

Old injuries are resurrected. But so are our childish ways of coping with them. And remember, this all feels like it is in the Here and Now. So, like the child, we feel completely helpless, powerlessness, and at the mercy of our old woundedness. Whatever ways we used to cope as a child are resurrected. So we regress into child-like thinking to handle the very traumatic atmosphere in which we find ourselves!

So, now Angie experiences the Damaged Teenager in Tommy, and Tommy experiences the Damaged Teenager in Angie. Teenagers we never knew existed! What happened to our loving, mature, soothing soul-mate? They disappeared, and here comes the narcissistic, demanding teenager who is scared and threatened and is holding on for dear life to CHILDISH WAYS OF COPING such as Acting out/Impulsive/Addictive/ and or Compulsive behaviors.

Goodbye Happy Home.

Hello Hell.

And there is not a therapist out there that "gets it." Thank goodness we are both therapists and could find our way (barely) through the maze. And thank goodness, we left that traumatic two years of terror a little over five months ago!

Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society by Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D. (premier trauma therapist), pages 231, 369, and 404

Therese A. Rando, Ph.D., BCETS, BCBT (premier trauma therapist), July 10, 2010 Workshop: "Intervening After Sudden and Traumatic Death: Contending With A Special Type of Complicated Mourning"

* www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk2/