Tuesday's Trust - Can We Trust...Things Will Get Better?

A silent hug means a thousands words to the unhappy heart.

Tuesday's Trust

Can We Trust...Things Will Get Better?

The death of a child shakes our trust in the world at the most primal level.

We know the world is full of disorder and catastrophe but, for the most part, we count on things happening reliably in our daily lives. Then, that which is so integral to our lives that it seems almost our reason for being, is taken away, gone.

Our whole sense of ourselves is so disoriented and confused, the organizing patterns of our lives will not work anymore. Is it any wonder we “can’t believe it”?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

Over the months and years we will learn to say it more calmly. Yet each time we say it—and we must, it is a part of our learning our own terrible truth—the heart will jump, the stomach contract, the tempo of the body will shift in acknowledgment: I had a child who died.

But there is little to help us. It is not expected in our culture that children will die. Children grow up and become adults and perhaps marry and have children of their own, and they come home for Christmas, and they call us on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We get together and watch their children and reminisce how it was when they were small and we were younger. We pass on to them not only our genes—our blue eyes and the shape of our fee—but our ancestral pictures, our family recipes, our holiday customs, and when we are old and frail they will come to see us and love us. And we will leave them. They won’t leave us.

And then it is over. It is not going to happen. We are in a shambles, wounded by the event of their death.

With an ache that is physical and encompassing, we miss their presence now. And that space which in our fantasy they were to have filled until the end of our life is empty, and will be, until the end of our life. There will be others we love—other children, other smiles and tilts of head, other voices, but not theirs.

And we wonder, how could so small a complex of blood and tissue, nerve and bone and love contain so much of our heart’s lode?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

It is an affront. It is a reversal of nature. It is terror. It is panic. It will break our heart. And for a while we think maybe that will happen. We, too, will die and be spared. We will flee away. And it will be over.

But life does not treat us like that. Nor, except in our worst moments, is that what we want.

We do want life… But how?

~Matha Whitmore Hickman

***

With what a deep devotedness of woe

I wept thy absence - o'er and o'er again

Thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain,

And memory, like a drop that, night and day,

Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away!

~Thomas Moore

And yet...

Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said

Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days

That are no more, and shall no more return.

Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed;

I stay a little longer, as one stays

To cover up the embers that still burn.

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

***

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

***

Life is eternal, and love is immortal,

and death is only a horizon;

and

a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

~Rossiter Worthington Raymond

***

Love is missing someone whenever you're apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you're close in heart.

~Kay Knudsen

Picture: http://twitpic.com/15xdu1

~Matha Whitmore Hickmanm, I Will Not Leave You Desolate

Monday's Mourning Ministry - Que Sara, Sara / Now What?

Monday's Mourning Ministry

Que Sara, Sara

Now What?

I look out into my vast, wide future.

I cannot ascertain what it will hold.

This hole in my heart won't stitch up by suture.

What repercussions from trauma unfold?

Then I thought of this childhood song,

My mother once sang to me...

When I was just a little girl,

I asked my mother, "What will I be?

Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"

Here's what she said to me:

"Que sera, sera,

What ever will be, will be.

The future's not ours to see.

Que sera, sera.

What will be, will be.'"

When I grew up and fell in love,

I asked my sweetheart,

"What lies ahead?"

Will we have rainbows, day after day?"

Here's what my sweetheart said:

"Que sera, sera,

What ever will be, will be.

The future's not ours to see.

Que sera, sera.

What will be, will be."

Now I have children of my own

They ask their mommy, "What will I be?

Will I be handsome, will I be rich?"

I tell them tenderly,

"Que sera, sera,

Whatever will be, will be.

The future's not ours to see,

Que sera, sera,

What will be, will be.

Que sera, sera!"

{Then I add verses of my own

Addressing my Father upon His throne,}

Now that I've lost this child of my own,

I asked my Father, "What will come of me?

Will I be heartsick, day after day?"

Here's what He said to me,

"Que sera, sera.

Whatever will be, will be.

The future's not yours to see,

Que sera sera,

Put your trust in Me!

"Que sera sera,

Put your trust in Me!

"I too have lost a Child of My Own:

He asked Me, 'Father, must I die for Thee?

Yet not My will but, Thine be done.'

Likewise, I ask of thee,

"Que sera, sera.

Whatever will be, will be.

The future's not yours to see,

Que sera sera,

Will you follow Me?

"Que sera, sera.

Lose your life. Follow Me.

"Que sera, sera.

Take thy cross. Follow Me."

Que Sara, Sara

by Doris Day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbKHDPPrrc

Friday's Faith - The “Unwanted” Guest

Friday's Faith

The “Unwanted” Guest

Grief moved into our house one dark, dreary day,

Asking if we minded for a time he stay—

I asked him how long did he have in mind

Before he could, some other lodging find.

He felt misunderstood and simply said,

“Mam, Heaven said your baby girl is dead...

That’s usually the time I move in awhile.”

He spoke tenderly—seemed to have no guile.

Not wanting to offend, I did amend

My words—like I was talking to a friend,

“Why exactly would I let you move in?

I’m not quite the type to have such a friend.”

He pitied my naïveté and said,

“Mam, your life’s changed now that your child is dead.”

“But when you’re here, I think I’ll cry all day;

How do I go on living life that way?”

“Your whole life has been consumed with this child;

You may need some help, her loss t’ reconcile.

Consumed with her for years, you’ll shed many tears;

I’m here to help you walk this ‘Trail of Tears.’”

We invited Grief to move in that day;

Now a welcome guest, we need him to stay.

(Our world’s been turned upside down and emptied;

God had heard our heart’s cry, and answered gently.)

Our Lord knows our heart, and knows our needs best;

We thank Him for sending this “unwanted” guest.

Poem - The "Unwanted" Guest - Angie Bennett Prince - 11/9/2008

Thursday's Therapy - Let Us Bury The Stages Of Grief -For Good! by Dr. Ursula Weide

Thursday's Therapy

Ways We Grieve

Part Eleven

Let Us Bury The Stages Of Grief -For Good!

by Dr. Ursula Weide




On April 17, 2007, one day after the Virginia Tech massacre of 32 students by another student, the Washington Post published an article entitled “Survivors of Shootings Grieve in Stages.” The author quotes an "educator" who counseled Columbine survivor families as describing specific, time-limited stages to occur in a particular order. The educator explained that in the first stage “the body shuts down in shock for seven days. It is a piercing grief; you stumble through what has to be done.” The second stage, beginning at about six months, “is defined by intense sorrow. You go back to doing normal things but everything is colored steel-grey.” One of my bereavement support group members pointed out that, apparently, the survivors cease to exist from day eight until the beginning of the second stage. And since she herself was just a few days beyond the six-month anniversary of the sudden death of her young husband and clearly able to perceive my fuchsia outfit while not seeing “steel-grey”, the group - facetiously - concluded that she must "not be grieving right." According to the educator, the third stage, “about a year after the event, is sadness tempered with joy at getting on with your own life.” None of us, past our first-year anniversary, recalled having jumped with “joy.” But there is hope: “You know that you’re there when it does not feel bad to feel good.” We are still waiting!

Needless to say, the above meaningless language is easily picked up by a society which itself wants to “be done” with death and trauma and thus is reassured that there is an orderly course of grief and that, yes, you will actually “get over it.”

But does this reassurance help the survivors? The so-called "stages of grief" theory originated in the 1980s when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross had the temerity to put the subject of death, considered rather taboo until then, on the national agenda. While she deserves much credit, it is common knowledge by now among mental health experts that there is no particular sequence of "stages" as Kubler-Ross had initially postulated. Neither does a survivor experience all or necessarily even any one of them.

Kubler-Ross provided us with some early concepts of "grief responses" such as denial and acceptance which were helpful for further research but are not necessarily useful descriptions of a person's emotional responses. Neither are they necessarily concepts upon which grief therapy should be based.

The impact of a person having experienced traumatic death or violence belongs on a much higher-order level - that of the acute traumatic stress syndrome, occurring immediately after the event, followed by the post-traumatic stress syndrome if symptoms of trauma persist, as described in the DSM-IV.

Whether someone is a shooting victim, sibling or parent of a victim, or a witness; a soldier or journalist returning from duty in Iraq after exposure to violence and destruction; or has lost a loved one through traumatic death (defined as untimely, sudden, violent – an accident, suicide, homicide - , or the witnessing of and/or participation in terminal care), becomes irrelevant when looked at from this point of view.

What does matter is the combination and severity of the symptoms of trauma such as

• memory impairment,
• difficulty concentrating,
• irritability and anger,
• flashbacks and frightening dreams,
• hyper-arousal,
• insomnia,
• loss of interest in formerly pleasurable activities,
• dissociative symptoms.

Symptom combinations and severity depend on numerous individual factors, both situational and personal. What matters in addition is the degree of interference with daily functioning. Traumatic stress debriefing, conducted shortly after the events in a professional and carefully structured fashion (International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, www.icisf.org), helps with trauma prevention. This may be followed by

Trauma Therapy:

• supportive counseling,
• cognitive-behavioral therapy,
• psycho-dynamic work,
• survivor group support,
• relaxation techniques,
• desensitization,
• the development of coping skills to manage the course of grief over time, and
• any combination of the above.

The problem with postulating stages and time frames is that survivors are traumatized even more when they do not see themselves live up to what their environment apparently considers to be "normal” – universal emotional states resolving within a pre-determined, fairly short period of time.

Advice dispensed by the uninitiated adds to the trauma of now living in an unfamiliar and extremely distressing emotional dimension, unimaginable to those who have not been there themselves.

Attempting to focus on others presumed to be “worse off” or on “all the good things in life” has no effect whatsoever and hence induces even greater distress in the survivor.

As a psychologist and traumatologist, I regularly hear the question, "Am I going crazy?" The proper response is that the unfamiliar feelings, thoughts and behaviors occurring under traumatic stress are normal reactions to an abnormal experience. And that there is no “one size fits all” approach to grief therapy leading to a uniform outcome.

Traumatic stress produces neurophysiological and neurobiological changes. Imaging techniques such as functional MRIs and PET scans have shown a

• hyper-activation of the amygdala while
• the medial pre-frontal cortex, modulating the intensity of emotions by inhibiting the amygdala, is under-activated.
• In addition, the hippocampus, contributing to memory functioning, shrinks in size and responds abnormally to memory tasks.

So far, we have no studies indicating whether the original size is recovered after most symptoms of trauma have abated. What we do know is that prior trauma such as childhood abuse or adult trauma create permanent neural pathways, rapidly triggered by another traumatic experience and inducing more severe traumatic stress symptoms. Furthermore, we now can also demonstrate what we have known since Freud - that talking contributes to the “cure”: whenever the language centers are activated, amygdala activation and consequently emotional intensity are reduced.

One last word of caution: there are numerous, often commercial organizations, promising “certification in grief counseling” in four days to teach “anyone to heal grief, from the break-up of a romantic relationship to death” (in one single sentence!). None of these organizations would receive continuing education accreditation by the American Psychological Association or the American Psychiatric Association. Hopefully, the horrifying events at Virginia Tech will bring the country several steps closer to a better understanding of the burdens on the survivors of traumatic death and the highly specialized care needed to manage them appropriately.

Ursula Weide, PhD, JD, LPC, CT, Licensed Psychologist, Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Thanatologist
 (Association for Death Education and Counseling)

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Let_Is_Bury_The_Stages_Of_Grief_fFor_Good.html

www.coping-with-loss-and-grief.com

blog: griefhelpdoctorweide.wordpress.com