Grief Heals

Grief and Abuse: When abuse is in the mix

Every so often I get a message from someone who is grieving the death of someone, usually a parent, who was abusive. To say this complicates grief is the understatement of all time.

The mix of grief and abuse is so confusing. So what’s really going on?

This one death is triggering multiple losses.

1. The actual death of someone you love in spite of the abuse. No matter how horrific the abuse this person was still someone you loved and the grief you feel is very real.

2. The hope that you might someday get the relationship you always wanted. No matter how much we know intellectually that we’ll never have the parent we want, there is always a part of us that keeps hoping…and when they die that hope dies too.

3. Not only the hope is lost but also whatever relationship you were able to establish as an adult. These adult relationships tend to be rather tenuous at best, and yet many manage to establish some kind of relationship with the former abuser. This hard won relationship also dies when they die.

There is no easy solution for this kind of grief. It is by definition complicated grief and therapy is what’s called for. The issues involved are just too complex to treat this as a normal grieving process.

What this death can be is an opening to doing the healing work necessary to move forward in life without the brokenness and shame that abuse creates.

If you’re looking for a therapist who can address all these levels of grief, you might find this article helpful. I would ask the same questions about their experience with abuse as I suggest for grief.

I hope this helps,

Photo Credit: Billy Alexander

Tags: grief and abuse, multiple losses
Posted in Complicated Grief

Grieving in private vs trying to be strong

Is there a difference between “trying to be strong” and choosing to grieve privately?

In our culture, we are applauded for “being strong” after we’ve experienced a profound loss. We actually get a tremendous about of approval for being strong in the face of any kind of pain.

So rather than allowing ourselves to be vulnerable we’re encouraged to be stoic.

As I said in a recent post, moving through grief requires us to be vulnerable.

We’re supposed to feel the pain. Not because life is supposed to be terrible and painful. Not because we’re being punished. Not because we’re being disloyal for feeling anything other than pain but rather…

We’re supposed to feel the pain because the pain opens the pathway out of our grief and back into life. It’s a life transformed, certainly, but it is life nonetheless.

On the other hand, being stoic closes every possible exit until we’re left with nothing but a brittle shell of who we once were.

Does that mean we’re supposed to be a blubbering mass of hysteria every minute of every day? Of course not. Many of us choose to grieve privately…alone or with a few trusted friends.

The issue isn’t about who sees our pain. What matters is that we acknowledge our own pain, that we are willing to face it and feel it. That’s what matters. It’s what happens in the privacy of our own hearts that makes the difference.

So yes there is a huge difference between pretending to ourselves and everybody else that we’re okay and making the choice to acknowledge the pain of grief in private.

P.S. I share more on this topic in the free download How to Avoid the 5 Most Common Myths about Grief. Check it out.

Tweetable…
It’s what happens in the privacy of our own hearts that makes the difference.

Photo Credit: Mingret

Tags: grieve privately, grieving in private, trying to be strong
Posted in Grieving Process

Grief does not require strength it requires vulnerability

We are helpless when it comes to death. There is absolutely no way we can manage, control or stop it. It’s going to happen to each and every one of us. And before it’s our turn at the deli counter, we will be confronted with the deaths of those we cannot imagine living without.

And we HATE that. We hate that we might lose them. We hate that we have lost them. We hate that death could creep up on us at any moment. We HATE it all.

So when death pays a visit and we come face to face with how truly vulnerable we are, the most natural response in the world is to try to outrun those feelings of helplessness.

And many do manage to outrun the feelings for a time at least, but the “trying to be strong” strategy almost always backfires by either creating chronic depression or delaying the ultimate confrontation with loss.

Trying to be strong.

Yes, we can put on a happy face and bury the pain. We can lock it away with all of the other painful experiences of our lives. Just pile it in there one pain, one disappointment, one loss, one death at a time…

Until one day we can’t keep the lid on. We’ve turned ourselves into a festering pit of pain that starts oozing out…or one tiny last straw brings about a volcanic explosion of every painful emotion we have ever tried to stuff.

Sometimes the explosion feels totally unrelated to any of our losses but manifests instead as irrational, explosive rage or unexplained, unstoppable tears.

For those of us who are more adept at “being strong,” the grief and anger most often turn inward leading to depression.

No matter how it plays out, sooner or later, the buried pain of grief raises its ugly head and it can bring us to our knees…and there we are again, face to face with our own vulnerability.

So is there an alternative? Yes there is. The key to moving through the pain and suffering of grief is to yield to our vulnerability. I know it sounds so counterintuitive but there it is.

Allowing the vulnerability.

In How to Survive Your Grief I write about how incredibly wise grief is when we give it free reign to go where it needs to go.

Though I know that to be true, I certainly understand why it sounds outlandish to so many. Grief feels wrong, so very wrong. It’s hard to imagine anything positive coming out of it. When we’re in the earliest days of grief, it’s impossible to even imagine feeling any better never mind trusting there might be some wisdom there of which we might partake.

Yet, I believe, this is exactly what grief asks of us…to open our hearts to the pain, to the truth, to the memories. To yield to our vulnerability rather than running from it. To embrace the brokenness rather than trying to hold it all together. It comes back together in time reconfigured and whole, but it only works when we allow ourselves the vulnerability of falling apart, of being broken.

It is out of our vulnerability and brokenness that we are reborn, able to taste the real joy life still has to offer and embrace the sweet memory of the loved one who died.

Tweetable…
“Grief does not require us to be strong it requires us to be vulnerable” @survivegrief

Photo Credit:Asif Akbar