Find and learn from role models
I am really, really ambiguous about this one.
On the one hand, I strongly recommend finding some kind of grief support group. This may be your friends, although that is unlikely. People who have not suffered bereavement have a very difficult time understanding bereavement. You may be fortunate enough to join a grief support group which continues after its formal close. Grief support groups are composed of people who, by definition, understand bereavement. Unfortunately, most grief support groups seem to end when the formal group ends. However, if you find a grief support group that continues, you are fortunate, and will find a great deal of support, help, and insight, from the other members of the group. It may not be simply a grief support group remnant. One of the hospice societies with which I had some connection had a Saturday tea, which anyone who had taken either individual counseling, or group grief support, through that hospice society was allowed to attend. (I referred to it as the Grief Alumni Tea.) There were people from different grief support groups, and some who had just had individual counseling, but all were bereaved, and all were able to provide support, and insight, to each other.
The thing is, these groups seem to be quite rare. There do appear to be some similar groups which exist online. I have not, myself, been able to find one.
However, this doesn't exactly sound like what the author of this list had in mind. These groups are not exactly composed of role models. The author of this list seems to have some kind of grief mentorship in mind. I strongly suspect that he sees himself as some kind of a grief mentor.
I'm not quite sure how useful a grief mentor, or role model, would be. As the more recent grief literature has it (somewhat in opposition to the misuse of the five stages of dying as five stages of grief), "everyone grieves in their own way." Then there is the continuum between intuitive and instrumental styles of grieving. While there is no dichotomy, and probably most people will have something of a mix of intuitive and instrumental styles of grieving, the grief work involved tends to be quite different. If you are an intuitive griever, and happen upon an instrumental role model, it likely won't do you an awful lot of good. If you pick a role model who grieves in a different way from you, it might not be particularly helpful. It might, most commonly, give you the message that, yes, everyone grieves in their own way, but *you* are doing it wrong.
It is probably much safer to go to someone with formal counseling training. These people are much more likely to understand the traps involved in being too doctrinaire in terms of how someone else should handle a difficulty as traumatic as bereavement. Simply looking around and finding a role model, and asking them to be your mentor, probably is not the best course of action.
Focus on who you are becoming
Yes, that is likely reasonably good advice. I say "reasonably," because it can be difficult to achieve. It may be difficult to see who you are becoming, while still in the midst of grief.
In addition, this is likely more appropriate to those who are on the instrumental side of the grieving continuum. Those who are grieving in an instrumental manner, will be focused on planning, and on the future, as well as based in cognitive types of grief work, which will be most appropriate to analyzing who you are becoming. Those who are intuitive grievers will likely require grief work that concentrates more on the past, and more how they are feeling in the midst of the grief work and process.
Find a new identity
Isn't this just saying the same thing in a different way? Also, it's not necessarily terribly easy to find a new identity. I have been trying for three and a half years, and I really can't say that I have found anything like a satisfying new identity.
Believe life will get better
Okay, I think we're into toxic positivity again. Yes, some level of positivity is probably good, at least in terms of a distraction from a constant stream of negative thoughts. But it can be really, really difficult to believe, in the midst of a desperately tragic situation, that life will get better. And if you aren't able to force yourself to believe that life will get better, it just becomes one more thing at which you fail.
Believe you will survive
This is probably a bit better. It's not quite as toxically positive as believing that life will get better, and it's probably more realistic. But we did cover it already. Very few people actually die of a broken heart. (Although some of us, sometimes rather desperately, wish that we could.)
Identify and dispel grief myths
It's hard to react to this one, since I have trouble figuring out what this guy had in mind in terms of grief myths. In general, most of the population, being terrified of actually thinking about, or talking about, yes, lost, or grief, has very little idea about the reality of all of the above. However, in a sense, I am trying to do just that. This entire list seems to me to be comprised primarily of myths about grief. So, yes, I would say that you should try and dispel myths about grief. But it's hard to do that when all you are told is dispel myths about grief. A little detail might be helpful.
Let grief be your friend
I've got to admit, my first reaction to this is, with friends like these, who needs enemies?
I suppose that the one thing that I could say is about this is: don't fight grief. Grief is going to happen. If you have suffered a loss, you have to grieve. You have to go through grief work. You have to process the grief somehow.
But, of course, that "somehow" is the basis of "everyone grieves in their own way."
Quite aside from the fact that you have to do it, there are some benefits to grief. There is the old phrase about "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But, generally speaking, while what doesn't kill you may make you stronger, it usually makes you less sensitive. Grief is rather unique in that, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, but it also makes you *more* sensitive. Your grief probably isn't going to help *you*. But it will make you someone who is more attuned to, more sensitive to, and more able to accurately respond to the distress of others. The distress of others may not be grief, per se. It may not even involve loss, although generally speaking it will. But your own grief will make you someone who is better at responding to the trouble, distress, and grief of other people.
Be a stress buster
Well, yeah, we can all use better ways to handle stress. But I really think that this one comes under the heading of easier said than done.
No comments:
Post a Comment