Learning more about Grief

Although the Grief Recovery Method teaches us that “Grief Is a normal & natural reaction to loss”, when it happened to me, it felt like the world as I knew it fell apart.

When I was 19, my mother decided to try & take her own life. It was following a period of sustained depression & whilst we all did what we could to help, we had no idea she felt so bad & so desperate, she felt there was no other alternative. However in trying to take her own life, sadly mum damaged her brain to the point where she couldn’t look after herself. Whilst she didn’t physically die that day, to me she did, because her spirit & the person I knew disappeared forever. 

At the time, my family were all in shock & perhaps because my mum didn’t die, no one acknowledged or recognised this as a “grief” event, after all she was still alive…….so on the face of it nothing had changed……. But in reality it had.

Back in those days, there was little help & support for people suffering grief or mental health issues & so my family all carried on, effectively burying our feelings & pain, because we didn’t know what else to do. By that stage, I had also learnt that you kept your feelings to yourself & just got on with things when something like this happened, because that was what was considered “normal”

But what is “normal” ?

Essentially it is just learnt behaviour from others & society, which we take on board almost without question, but that doesn’t make things better. In War times they used to say “keep calm and carry on” primarily to keep people focused on the War effort but also to stop them from thinking about the harsh realities of what was going on around them, crucially though this advice directs them to continue as they had before; the difficulty is that when a loss of any kind occurs, things aren’t the same & people are unable to carry on in the same vein; the result being that people may feel “stuck”, unable to move forward or back & this is where the Grief Recovery Method can help.

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In session 2, following a brief recap of session 1 & after re-affirming our commitments to one another, we will start to explore the myths surrounding grief which are often said by well meaning people to grievers whether they be widows, divorcees, etc, the reasons why they are said & how they may be received by grievers. This is important because it allows us to question the information we have learnt & how appropriate the tools are that we have been given when dealing with loss.

As part of this session we will also be referring to the written task you will have completed during the week & discussing this together, before moving on to the next topic which will be the focus for the next “gap” task in preparation for week 3.

Lisa Richards: Certified Grief Recovery Specialist