THE TRUTH ABOUT TRAUMA
When the funeral home employees rolled my son out our front door, I nearly collapsed with grief. This was the same door my son stood gleefully by on Halloween to hand candy to children. He was a giver of the sweetest sort – and he found more joy in giving candy to kids than getting treats for himself. This was the door Mitchell’s best friend would knock and ask to play. This was the door our hospice nurse told us Mitch was about to die … and in that same moment, heaven sent an angel to bear up our broken hearts.
When I first became a father, I wasn’t prepared to be a parent. Who is, really? I quickly discovered that when you have a child, your life changes. Forever. It doesn’t simply change because you’re responsible for the wellbeing of a baby, it changes because your soul somehow multiplies. Once someone has a child, they stop belonging to themselves. It’s as if part of our soul is cloned and whatever happens to our child may as well happen to us. We’re pained when they hurt, overjoyed when they’re happy, and when they die … our very souls shatter. Though we may put our pieces back together, eventually, we’re never the same.
I was terrified of this moment. I knew this time was near, so I tried to put it out of my mind and live in fragile moments that remained. We didn’t know if we had 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 days with our son, we just knew that he was on the thinnest of ice and it was about to break.
Suddenly, in a blink, I found myself watching two strangers roll my sweet son into the bitter winter’s air. I was mortified. Incredulous. I was just talking to Mitch the day before, and he was very much alive … so sweet, tender, and innocent. As they loaded my boy into the back of the vehicle and drove away, panic shot through my body, tears rolled down my cheeks and began to freeze. I physically gasped for air as though I was watching my child in the act of being kidnapped.
As they drove away, every part of me wanted to run down the street and stop them. I wanted to say, “Please, let me get in the back with my boy. He must be so scared, cold, and lonely. I need to comfort him during this difficult time.”
I cannot conjure the words to describe the trauma I experienced at this moment – and the subsequent traumas of grief I felt a million times thereafter. I wept so hard that morning I threw up. Then, I wept even harder, and I thought I broke a rib. Although the sun was rising, the long night of grief was only just beginning. Over the next few years, I began to learn some painful truths about grief. I learned some truths about trauma.
You learn to live with fear.
Grief and fear feel identical in many respects. C.S. Lewis said it best, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” Looking back on the early years of my grief journey, I was living in a deep, emotionally traumatic state that felt like fear. And when the night came, I felt feelings of terror. Every. Single. Day.
Deep grief is prolonged trauma.
If ever you get impatient, wondering when your friend or family member who grieves will get over their sorrow, if you’re ever tempted to think its time for them to move on, remember that grief is trauma in slow motion. Everyone on this planet would do well to remember Shakespeare’s observation, “Everyone can master a grief, but he that has it.”
Others will move on, but you will not.
Another brutal truth about trauma is that for spectators of sorrow, empathy has a comparatively short shelf-life. Others will move on, as they should. But you will not. At least not for a very long time.
Perhaps the best counsel to those who suffer is this: don’t expect others to understand your sorrow or to linger as long as your sorrow will. They cannot – for after all is said and done, the journey of grief is traveled by one.
To the spectators of sorrow, don’t expect the one who suffers to move on at your leisure or burden-free pace. Remember that it is they who carry the weight of sorrow – a weight you cannot imagine, not even in your nightmares. If you’re to serve them, you can lift their weary hearts with words of compassion. I’ve found that saying, “I’m sorry that you hurt. I care” is enough, and more.
It Gets Worse, Sometimes Much Worse, Before It Gets Better
I’ve said this often: death is the easy part, it’s the aftermath that’s hardest. So, when you see someone who's lost someone – know that they’ll need your love, compassion, and empathy gently at the funeral and the months to come – but more profoundly in the lonely years that follow.
I’ll repeat the last part: they’ll need your love more profoundly in the lonely years that follow.
Time & Healing
When it comes to the trauma of grief, time doesn’t heal. Instead, time creates space for us to heal if we tend to our wounds with care. I think of trauma like the adrenaline one might feel just after a ride on a terrifying rollercoaster. It takes time for fear to leave your body. The first 15 minutes we feel the trauma course through our veins – but over time, we go back to our regular state of serenity. The mistake we sometimes make is thinking the death of a loved is the rollercoaster. It is not. It is only the beginning. The rollercoaster of trauma comes from feelings of self-doubt, regret, endless what-ifs, and longing to see our loved one again. That trauma is a ride that takes many, many years to fade away.
Trauma Shatters You
Trauma doesn’t just break a part of you; it shatters many parts of you. Sometimes all of you. Yet, somehow, some way, we gather our broken pieces and slowly reassemble ourselves. Depending on the nature of loss, it can take many, many years. We are never the same person on the other side of trauma – instead, we become a mosaic of our former self. Sometimes jagged and fragile as our pieces begin to set into their new arrangement. But always, we emerge a new kind of beautiful.
The truth about trauma is that until we experience it first-hand, it isn’t just harder than we imagine, it's harder than we are capable of imagining. Yet, another hopeful truth about trauma is that it lessens over time – how fast and how much is determined by a multitude of factors, most of which are under our control.
At first, I wondered if the sun would ever rise and that I might live out my days in the dark shadow of grief. There was a time I used to look at this photo and weep. Today, I look at this moment and say reverently, “I remember you, son. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to honor yours.”
Christopher M. Jones
What I Wish More People Understood About Losing A Child
Four and half years after the death of my oldest son, I finally went to a grief support group for parents who have lost children. I went to support a friend who recently lost her son. I'm not sure I would've gone except that when I was in her shoes, four years ago, I wish I would've had a friend to go with me. Losing a child is the loneliest, most desolate journey a person can take and the only people who can come close to appreciating it are those who share the experience.
The meeting was a local chapter of The Compassionate Friends, an organization solely dedicated to providing support for those who have lost children, grandchildren or siblings. The facilitator was a tall gentleman who had lost his 17 year old son eight years ago. He opened the meeting by saying that dues to belong to the club are more than anyone would ever want to pay. Well, he couldn't be more correct: no one wants to belong to this group.
The group of incredible survivors included parents whose children had been killed by drunk drivers, murdered, accidental overdose, alcoholism, suicide and freak accidents. The children's ages ranged from 6-38 years old. When hearing the stories, I had a visceral reaction to being part of this "club," but was also humbled by the greatness of these mothers and fathers.
Most of what I share in this article came from this meeting, but also from my own experience of having lost a child and being four years into that lifelong journey of healing from deep grief. The following five tips can be your compass to help you navigate how to give support to grieving parents on a sacred journey they never wanted to take.
1. Remember our children.
The loss of children is a pain all bereaved parents share, and it is a degree of suffering that is impossible to grasp without experiencing it first hand. Often, when we know someone else is experiencing grief, our discomfort keeps us from approaching it head on. But we want the world to remember our child or children, no matter how young or old our child was.
If you see something that reminds you of my child, tell me. If you are reminded at the holidays or on his birthday that I am missing my son, please tell me you remember him. And when I speak his name or relive memories relive them with me, don't shrink away. If you never met my son, don't be afraid to ask about him. One of my greatest joys is talking about Brandon.
2. Accept that you can't "fix" us.
An out-of-order death such as child loss breaks a person (especially a parent) in a way that is not fixable or solvable — ever! We will learn to pick up the pieces and move forward, but our lives will never be the same.
Every grieving parent must find a way to continue to live with loss, and it's a solitary journey. We appreciate your support and hope you can be patient with us as we find our way.
Please: don't tell us it's time to get back to life, that's it's been long enough, or that time heals all wounds. We welcome your support and love, and we know sometimes it hard to watch, but our sense of brokenness isn't going to go away. It is something to observe, recognize, accept.
3. Know that there are at least two days a year we need a time out.
We still count birthdays and fantasize what our child would be like if he/she were still living. Birthdays are especially hard for us. Our hearts ache to celebrate our child's arrival into this world, but we are left becoming intensely aware of the hole in our hearts instead. Some parents create rituals or have parties while others prefer solitude. Either way, we are likely going to need time to process the marking of another year without our child.
Then there's the anniversary of the date our child became an angel. This is a remarkable process similar to a parent of a newborn, first counting the days, then months then the one year anniversary, marking the time on the other side of that crevasse in our lives.
No matter how many years go by, the anniversary date of when our child died brings back deeply emotional memories and painful feelings (particularly if there is trauma associated with the child's death). The days leading up to that day can feel like impending doom or like it's hard to breathe. We may or may not share with you what's happening.
This is where the process of remembrance will help. If you have heard me speak of my child or supported me in remembering him/her, you will be able to put the pieces together and know when these tough days are approaching.
4. Realize that we struggle every day with happiness.
It's an ongoing battle to balance the pain and guilt of outliving your child with the desire to live in a way that honors them and their time on this earth.
I remember going on a family cruise eighteen months after Brandon died. On the first day, I stood at the back of the ship and bawled that I wasn't sharing this experience with him. Then I had to steady myself, and recognize that I was also creating memories with my surviving sons, and enjoying the time with them in the present moment.
As bereaved parents, we are constantly balancing holding grief in one hand and a happy life after loss in the other. You might observe this when you are with us at a wedding, graduation or other milestone celebration. Don't walk away — witness it with us and be part of our process.
5. Accept the fact that our loss might make you uncomfortable.
Our loss is unnatural, out-of-order; it challenges your sense of safety. You may not know what to say or do, and you're afraid you might make us lose it. We've learned all of this as part of what we're learning about grief.
We will never forget our child. And in fact, our loss is always right under the surface of other emotions, even happiness. We would rather lose it because you spoke his/her name and remembered our child, than try and shield ourselves from the pain and live in denial.
Grief is the pendulum swing of love. The stronger and deeper the love the more grief will be created on the other side. Consider it a sacred opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone who have endured one of life's most frightening events. Rise up with us.
Stifled Grief: How the West Has It Wrong
Michelle E. Steinke
After nearly seven years of personal experience surrounding loss, I can tell who is going to read, share and comment on this article and it’s not necessarily the audience I’ve intended. Those who have walked the horrific road of loss will shake their collective heads “Yes” at many of my points below and share with pleads for the rest of the Western World to read, learn, evolve and embrace these concepts. Unfortunately, my words will fall short for my intended audience because the premise does not yet apply to their lives...yet. In time, my words will resonate with every human on the face of this earth, but until a personal journey with loss takes place, my words will be passed over in exchange for articles about gorillas and fights over public bathroom usage.
There is nothing sexy or exciting about grief.
There is nothing that grabs a reader with no personal interest to open my words and take heed to my writing.
I’m here to say that the West has the concept of grieving all wrong.
I’d like to point out that we are a culture of emotionally stunted individuals who are scared of our mortality and have mastered the concept of stuffing our pain. Western society has created a neat little “grief box” where we place the grieving and wait for them to emerge fixed and whole again. The grief box is small and compact, and it comes full of expectations like that range from time frames to physical appearance. Everyone who has been pushed into the grief box understands it’s confining limitations, but all of our collective voices together can’t seem to change the intense indignation of a society too emotionally stifled to speak the truth. It’s become easier to hide our emotional depth than to reveal our vulnerability and risk harsh judgment. When asked if we are alright, it’s simpler to say yes and fake a smile then, to be honest, and show genuine human emotion.
Let me share below a few of the expectations and realities that surround grief for those who are open to listening. None of my concepts fit into societies grief box and despite the resounding amount of mutual support by the grieving for what I write below, many will discount my words and label us as “stuck” or “in need of good therapy.” I’m here to say those who are honest with the emotions that surround loss are the ones who are the least “stuck” and have received the best therapy around. You see, getting in touch with our true feelings, embracing the honest emotions of death only serve to expand the heart and allow us to move forward in a genuine and honest way. Death happens to us all so let’s turn the corner and embrace the truth behind life after loss.
Expectation: Grief looks a certain way in the early days. Tears, intense sadness, and hopelessness.
Reality: Grief looks different for every single person. Some people cry intensely, and some don’t cry at all. Some people break down, and others stand firm. There is no way to label what raw grief looks like as we all handle our loss in different ways due to different circumstances and various life backgrounds that shape who we are.
Expectation: The grieving need about a year to heal.
Reality: Sometimes grief does not even get started till after the first year. I’ve heard countless grieving people say year two is harder than year one. There is the shock, end of life arrangements and other business matters that often consume the first year and the grieving do not have the time actually to sit back and take the time to grieve. The reality is there is no acceptable time frame associated with grief.
Expectation: The grieving will need you most the first few weeks.
Reality: The grieving are flooded with offers of help the first few weeks. In many cases, helping the grieving six months or a year down the line can be far more helpful because everyone has returned to their lives and the grief stricken are left to figure it out alone.
Expectation: The grieving should bury the dead forever. After a year, it is uncomfortable for the grieving to speak of their lost loved one. If they continue to talk about them, they are stuck in their grief and need to “move on.”
Reality: The grieving should speak of the dead forever if that’s what they wish to do. When someone dies, that does not erase the memories you made, the love you shared and their place in your heart. It is not only okay to speak of the dead after they are gone, but it’s also a healthy and peaceful way to move forward.
Expectation: For the widowed - If you remarry you shouldn’t speak of your lost loved one otherwise you take away from your new spouse.
Reality: You never stop loving what came before, and that does not in any way lessen the love you have for what comes after. When you lose a friend - you don’t stop having friends, and you love them all uniquely. If you lose a child and have another, the next child does not replace or diminish the love you had for the first. If you lose a spouse, you are capable of loving what was and loving what is....one does not cancel out or minimize the next. Love expands the heart, and it’s okay to honor the past and embrace the future.
Expectation: Time heals all wounds.
Reality: Time softens the impact of the pain, but you are never completely healed. Rather than setting up false expectations of healing let’s talk about realistic expectations of growth and forward movement. Grief changes who you are at the deepest levels and while you may not forever be in an active mode of grief you will forever be shaped by the loss you have endured.
Expectation: If you reflect on loss beyond a year you are “stuck.”
Reality: Not a day goes by where I am not personally affected by my loss. Seeing my children play sports, looking at my son who is the carbon copy of his Dad or hearing a song on the radio or smell in the air. Loss becomes part of who you are and even though I don’t choose to dwell on grief it has a way of sneaking in now and again even when I’m most in love with life at the current moment. It’s not because we dwell or focus, and it’s not because we don’t make daily choices to move forward. It’s because we loved and we lost, and it touches us for the remainder of our days in the most profound ways.
Expectation: When you speak of the dead you make the griever sad, so it’s best not to bring them up.
Reality: When we talk about our lost loved one we are often happy and filled with joy. My loss was six and a half years ago and to this day, my late husband is one of my favorite people to talk and hear about. Hearing his name makes me smile and floods my mind with happy memories of a life well lived. It makes the grieving sadder when everyone around them refuses to say their name. Forgetting they existed is cruel and a perfect example of our stifled need to fix the unfixable.
Expectation: If you move forward you never loved them or conversely if you don’t move forward you never loved them.
Reality: The grieving need to do what is right for them, and nobody knows what that is except the person going through it.
Expectation: It’s time to “move on.”
Reality: There is no moving on - there is only moving forward. From the time death touches our lives we move forward, in fact, we are not given a choice but to move forward. However, we never get to a place where the words move on resonate. The words “move on” have a negative connotation to the grieving. They suggest a closure that is nonexistent and a fictitious door we pass through.
Expectation: Grief is a linear process and a series of steps to be taken. Each level is neatly defined and the order predetermined.
Reality: Grief is an ugly mess full of pitfalls, missteps, sinking, and swimming. Like a game of shoots and ladders, you never know when the board might pull you back and send you down the ladder screaming at the top of your lungs. Just when you think you’ve arrived at the finish, you draw a card that sends you back to start and just when it appears you’ve lost the game you jump ahead and come one step closer to the front of the line.
Expectation: The grieving should seek professional forms of counseling exclusively.
Reality: The grieving should seek professional forms of counseling but also the grieving should look strongly towards alternative modes of therapy like fitness, art, music, meditation, journaling and animal therapy. The grieving should take an “active” part in their grief process and understand that coping comes in many different forms for all the different people who walk this earth.
Expectation: The grieving either live in the past or the present. IT is not possible to have a multitude of emotions.
Reality: The grieving live their lives with intense moments of duality. Moments of incredible happiness mixed with feelings of deep sadness. There is a depth of emotion that forever accompany those who have lived with a loss. That duality can cause constant reflection, and a deeper appreciation of all life has to offer.
Expectation: The grieving should be able to handle business as usual within a few weeks.
Reality: The brain of a grieving person can be in a thick fog, especially for those who have experienced extreme shock, for more than a year. Expect forgetfulness, a reduced ability to handle stress and grayness to be commonplace after a loss.
I’ve just scratched the surface above on the many areas where grief is misunderstood in our society.
One hundred percent of the people who walk this earth will deal with death. Each of us will experience the passing of someone close that we love or our personal morality. It is about time we open up the discussion around death, dying and grief and stop the stigma that surrounds our common bond. Judgment, time frames, and neat little grief boxes have no place in the reality that surrounds loss. Western culture asks us to suppress our pain, stuff our emotions and restrain our cries. Social media has given many who grieve the opportunity to open up dialogue, be vulnerable on a large scale level and take the combined heat that comes with that honesty. As a whole, society does not want to hear or accept that grief stays with us in some capacity for the rest of our lives. Just like so many other aspects of our culture, we want to hear there is a quick fix, a cure-all, a pill or a healthy dose of “get over it” to be handed out discreetly and dealt with quietly.
The reality is you will grieve in some capacity for the rest of your life. Once loss touches you-you are forever changed despite what society tells you. Stop looking at the expectations of an emotionally numbed society as your threshold and measuring stick for success. Instead, turn inward and look at the vulnerable reality of a heart that knows the truth about loss. With your firsthand knowledge escape the grief box and run out screaming truth as you go. If we make enough noise maybe someday societies warped expectation will shift to align with reality.
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