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Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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depression

The Sensitivity Of A Grieving Parent

March 19, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

flower tulip
Photo by BENCE BOROS on Unsplash

The sensitivity of grieving parents is huge. The trauma associated with the loss of a child leaves lifelong wounds. Eventually, they turn into scars, but they can remain utterly sensitive, even while seemingly invisible to the eye.

Hurtful comments

It’s true. Those who haven’t experienced child loss even though they have good intention often try to make helpful suggestions. The effect, however, is pain upon pain. For the grieving heart, it’s unbelievable that others don’t realise. Mostly they don’t. Still, where does that leave the ravaged broken parents’ heart?

Lost friends

Those hurtful comments can also lead to secondary losses of friends. Emotional firefighters or builders are a rare breed and so many friends lack the stamina it takes to truly support parents after a loss. Relationships become strained from the long-lasting effects of the emotional rollercoaster. Those unaffected cannot relate to the grief remaining and find it hard to fully comprehend why parents still talk about their child years after the death.

Unprepared

A society focused on ‘happier, more successful and busy’ doesn’t know how to deal with those frozen in time, shell-shocked by the always untimely death of a child. We were unprepared in our own grief. We all lack education on how to be with someone who has experienced it. Death is removed from old people’s homes and hospitals. We no longer tend to experience death in our family home and remove ourselves from the emotional consequences.

Overwhelmed

This is my personal most used statement. I’ve lost my ability to be productive, to multi-task, to remember names, places etc. If my computer fails to be working without interruption, I walk away. I just can’t deal with it as I did before.

Who am I?

If I am somehow puzzled with who I’ve become, still trying to find archived skills or long-lost memories in my brain, what happens to those who knew the ‘Nathalie-from-before’? I’ve heard some comments, disguised cries for me to ‘come back’ or ‘focus on the living’. Let me tell you, I’ve done nothing else but that: It’s a continuous step-by-step process to ‘come back’ and daily I’m living in the here and now, focusing on finding and creating meaning. But it’s hard work and that’s what makes me tired and sensitive.

Like a burn injury is said to be a lifelong injury, so is the grief after child loss.

Filed Under: child loss, depression, emotions/feelings, grief/loss Tagged With: child loss, dealing with emotions, grieving parents, hurtful comments, sensitivity grieving parent

Do More Than Survive The First Year After Loss

March 1, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

writing in a book
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

They did not survive. I did.

Having lost our daughter at 3 days old and then my mother through suicide just four and a half month later I often doubted I would survive this emotional intensity called grief. I was tired of living. I was exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster. Yet suicide was totally out of the question for me as I was acutely aware of the emotional turmoil my mother had left behind in the family surviving her self-chosen death and I was absolutely clear of the important role I played as the mother to my other child.

Did I do more than survive?

How did I survive the first year? I wonder as I’m looking back. Big sigh. Something in me knows but somehow my memory can’t take me there because it’s not necessary to re-live those days? I don’t know. I find it hard to recall the time besides certain moments that have carved their mark on my soul. Luckily I ofter wrote so I can go and read about it. Journal entries, notes to my friends and family, emails, poems and I wrote a blog. All these writings are what lead to friends encouraging me to write a book.

Writing a book wasn’t part of my life’s aspiration. I regularly wrote articles as part of my professional website as a psychotherapist. Even though I had no idea what writing a book would entail, I knew everything could be learned. Fast forward to today I have written and self-published three books and am working on a not-for-profit community project book. The fourth book I’ll be publishing will be an anthology containing the writing of many mothers and fathers like you. They describe the challenges of the first year after the loss, an account of how they managed to survive.

Writing helps

Having just emerged from reading the submissions we’ve received I was taken on a journey back into the experience of the first year. Not just mine but in fact over 50 mothers’ and fathers’ experiences that they candidly shared with me. These essays took my breath away, left me gasping for air and drying my tears. Even though each parent’s experience is unique I could relate, as a mother, as a bereaved mother and as a human being, touched by their loss in the many-faceted challenges it brings.

What I didn’t fully realise when calling for submissions for this new book, was the potential for healing that this project offers. Writing and its healing potential has been researched widely (for example here and here) but reading the essays I noticed so much more. I remember now that I had already noticed this when doing the research and interviews for my first book Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple. The intense involvement with my own and other people’s stories, their ways in which they confronted and handled challenges and what happened inside of me in effect to all of this offered a huge shift in my grief towards healing. And it won’t end with me because given the end product is a book many people will receive; it offers this potential to all those who read it.

This post was originally posten on March 1st, 2017.

Filed Under: child loss, depression, emotions/feelings, grief/loss, grieving parents Tagged With: book, child loss, first year, grief and loss, grieving, grieving a child, grieving parents, grieving timeline, share your story, writing, writing your story

Why You Will Never Fully Understand My Grief Experience As A Bereaved Mother

February 19, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

woman crouched up
Photo by Ava Sol on Unsplash

The experience of every bereaved mother (or father) is unique and so is their grieving experience. You can never fully understand another bereaved mother’s experience, even if you sit with her through the dark of the night, talk to her for hours, cry endless tears in compassion. I’ve tried. And I might have one advantage: I myself am a bereaved mother.

Let go

As much I have been hoping that I could, I can’t fully understand what another bereaved parent is going through. I still do my best at understanding the bereaved families I’m working with and according to them, I’m doing a great job but I have let go of the unattainable: to totally and utterly understand their despair.

In that letting go, there is something else that opens up, something with far greater potential. Rather than trying to enter their experience and in that wondering how that would feel within me, I stay with them. It takes courage and compassion to totally be with someone else, without an ounce of the self who is ‘wanting to make it better for them’ or ‘helping’ them. After all that’s my job, supporting them in finding healing. But here is the thing: the pain of missing someone who is no longer physically present is not something that needs healing or fixing.

Grieving parents have something in common. They must continue their life without seeing their babies grow up to be children or their children to grow up to become adults. Grief is like unrequited love but one where the relationship hasn’t ended even though the person has left and is not contactable. That’s the paradox of child loss.

What if I’m not a bereaved mother?

As someone who hasn’t experienced the loss of a child, you can still be there for bereaved parents. You can walk side by side with them and support them with your love. You don’t need to understand their experience to accept how they express or live with it.

So, be there. Don’t try to fix them but stay with them through the darkness. The presence you show by your willingness to fully be there, is enough. You are enough, even if you don’t fully understand the grief experience.

Filed Under: child loss, depression, emotions/feelings, grief/loss, grieving parents, health Tagged With: grief and loss, griever, grieving parents, supporter, understanding grief

Dear Old Me

February 5, 2021 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

grief quote

It’s been a long time since I last saw you, in fact it seems like an eternity. Still, I remember you. And I miss you, old me.

You had an air of realistic positivity. New things you approached with curiosity and delight. Even though I would say you were cautious, you also loved the thrill of skydiving or meeting new people. Your open and friendly nature was easy to be around and you generally enjoyed life.

You were not ‘old me*’ then, you were young and energetic. It’s just to me, it’s seem that you are no longer…

By no means were you completely naive but you had this childlike openness to new things. You even approached pregnancy with this openness, even though you weren’t considered ‘young’ anymore. The unexpected news of identical twins was met with a burst of laughter and delight.

Even though you had a sensitive nature all along and experienced deep emotions, you enjoyed life and took its experiences with glee. The picture I keep in my mind is you skipping along the path, pointing out the colors of the clouds in the evening sky and hugging trees.

I don’t do that anymore. Serious and many times overly anxious would be the words to describe the new normal me. Highly sensitive to noises and crowds, nowadays I prefer to stay at home over a night out. People around me probably don’t think of me as easy to be around.

The forest and its natural beauty still brings me absolute pleasure and joy, or should I say ‘again’ as it hasn’t for what seems years. Just yesterday I laid under the warm towels from the dryer, enjoying the smell and the comfort of the warmness. You did enjoy this and I just remembered as I was doing it. I had forgotten you, old me …

There seems to be many things that I have forgotten about you. First I was upset, really upset that you were no longer around. Screaming and shouting for you to return, for things to be like when you were me. After some time I realized that loss had stolen you from me. The only way to continue was to get to know the new normal me. Forced acceptance.

After some months or years I slowly forgot you. With that I noticed that (many) friends of the old me had also disappeared. The new me made new friends, mostly other new normal ones. And life moved on as much as I wished to turn back the clock.

The link between you, dear old me, and the new me is however never forgotten. It’s right here in my heart. The child we both dearly miss.

Maybe you would have never left, if the child was still with us.

Missing you,

The New Normal Me

*NOTE REGARDING THE USE OF ‘OLD ME’:

The term ‘old’ is not to mean old by age, but the person before the loss.

This article was first published November 2, 2016 in Still Standing Magazine.

Filed Under: authenticity, child loss, dear... letters, depression, emotions/feelings, from personal experience, grief/loss Tagged With: after loss, before loss, child loss, loss changes, new normal, old me, the changes that come with loss

The Evolution Of Grief: Grieving In The Seventh Year

August 12, 2018 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Image: From Nathalie Himmelrich’s private archives

What is it like in the seventh year of grief? Is the grieving still there all the time? Is it gone, mostly gone, or never gone completely?

My daughter A’Mya died on September 3rd, 2011, just 3 days old. In the first few months, I couldn’t see further than feeding her twin sister and getting some sleep. There were really hard times in raw grief.

It’s not all roses

Four months after A’Mya’s death, the day before my mother died, I wrote:

The face I show the world is not usually the one where my eyes are filled with tears and where I’m sobbing with the grief of missing A’Mya.

Comments about how good I look or how happy I seem are describing the surface of that very same face in just another moment of life. But the heart feels everything and different emotions on various levels no matter what shows up on the surface.

Well-meant comments

Sometimes these well-meant comments make me feel angry as they so miss the point of how I’m really feeling. What you see is not all there is… And yet, I realize, we all portray only a part of ourselves to the world and so do I. Have a look at the photos you’ve posted on Facebook and you’ll realize what I mean.

Much processing happens internally or in my personal space. Few have shared some pretty tough and unpleasant moments with me when all the emotions pour out. If you have you may consider yourself a close friend who I trust won’t turn away because of my sudden outbreak of emotions. 

Dealing wiht emotions while grieving

Having said that, recently I experience a lot of anger and frustration, anger in response to many things, situations, and people. Even though I’m aware of this too being part of the grief it is still difficult to be with those unpleasant feelings, even for myself.

Many, even close friends, have become silent or distant. Who would want to get themselves in the line of fire by saying something that might trigger a bolt of emotions? Some who spoke said ‘I don’t know what to say…’. I understand and yet it feels lonely. I miss simply being myself with some mundane life issues to deal with.

I keep A’Mya in my heart and Ananda Mae close to my heart.

If life gets challenging, meet it.

Two months later, I wrote:

Looking back over the last 6 months I haven’t been writing as much as I usually do and definitely not as much as I would like to.

LIFE HAS BEEN CHALLENGING AS I…

… have gone through a twin pregnancy
… have been emotionally and physically challenged 
… have been told by a doctor at 26 weeks that one of my babies would most likely not survive
… have been living with the fear of losing my child who was clearly very alive in my tummy
… was dealing with my mum’s depression and supporting her and my family living overseas
… was giving birth and then, 2 days later, having to make the decision to let our little daughter go
… was holding her in my arms as she was disconnected from life support
… was grieving the loss of my child and at the same time caring for my other newborn daughter
… am learning to be a parent and dealing with sleepless nights
… have been dealing with the edges of post-natal depression and the joys of motherhood at the same time as going through the grieving process
… was facing the news of my mother’s suicide overseas

Life is full of challenges

Sounds like I’ve got the disaster bug. I notice how challenged people I met are when hearing my news. Some wonder how I’m able to deal with all of this, others are just worried that if they talk to me about any of the above I might crumble or fall into a heap of tears. But I’m not! Life just happened to hand me a handful of tough challenges and I believe that I will deal and learn to live with them over time. I’m not in denial. I feel the pain and I feel the joy. Even though all the challenges hit hard there was and is always beauty and there are many amazing moments also part of the last 6 months.  

We all face challenges and even though you might compare and think yours are more or less bad than someone else’s challenges, in the end, you have to deal with YOURS. 

It is true though that when I feel challenged my view for those amazing moments gets clouded and I’m less able to take them in. That’s when I’ve needed help. 

Finding help to deal with grief

I went to see someone because I’m very aware that even though I’m an experienced counsellor and coach it does not give me absolution of experiencing, feeling, and thinking. I wanted to make sure that I’m dealing with this, that I’m not in denial, that I’m checking in not just with myself but with someone who has an outside perspective and the psychological training and experience to keep me in check. Someone that is there for me but not a friend that I had to go easy on or remember not to overdraw on favours.

I haven’t heard from some of my friends. I refrain from making any assumptions or judgments as I’m reminded that I don’t really have any idea of what’s been going on in their lives.

It makes me sad to realise that in our culture we are not used to talking openly about death, depression and suicide. Often these topics are taboo, and it seems that we are afraid to meet our own mortality and meet the emotions of shock, sadness, grief, fear…by avoiding looking into what’s the unavoidable outcome for all of us.

Grief changes us

I have changed.
I’m making fewer excuses. 
I’m more open and honest, even if it means confronting a friend. 
I take less bullshit. 
I’m more open to accepting help and am immensely grateful for it.
I’m no longer overly accommodating or accepting of bad behaviour.  

In my experience of meeting my challenges remaining factual doesn’t cut it. I had and still have to meet it, feel it, and experience it.  Diving right into all of it doesn’t mean drowning. That’s where I’m finding the balance between meeting the demands of daily life and giving to myself (like this reflection, even if it happens to be at 3 am after not being able to fall back asleep for 2 hours after feeding the baby). It also means accepting help and taking my support network into consideration. 

It’s not about ‘soldiering’ on and keeping my head down marching no matter what but it is about staying vulnerable in the depth of my heart and soul and sometimes in public, sharing myself without the fear of being judged or pitied.

I feel the need to share maybe because on some level all the dealing with it becomes too much to be contained. 

There is Hope

Seven years later I have mostly integrated the loss of my daughter into my life. She is part of my life, but her death does not define me anymore. Triggers like National Twins Day still affect me, but I take a deep breath, grit my teeth and let out a sigh. I sometimes feel jealous of parents with identical twin girls. I’m aware of my daughter’s grief over not having her sister with her.

In order to answer the question above whether the grieving is still there, we need to define ‘grief and grieving’. Oxford Dictionaries define it as an ‘Intense sorrow, especially caused by someone’s death’.

I do not experience intense sorrow anymore or only on very rare occasions regarding A’Mya’s (or my mother’s) death. This is my personal experience and I’m well aware others might experience it in different ways.

What I know is that I have done a huge amount of work on my grief, both personally, in therapy, in groups, through reading and writing, through interviewing and talking to other bereaved parents. I know this has helped me to find ways to deal with my emotions and find ways to incorporate the loss into my life. Yes, my situation is not like yours, but no situation is like any other. Even though we all have lost a child, the individual story and history with grief and loss are as personal as the relationship with the person who died.

Filed Under: child loss, counselling, depression, emotions/feelings, from personal experience, grief/loss, grieving parents Tagged With: child loss, grief after 7 years, grieving, grieving over time, grieving timeline

Grief: Emotional, Physical and Cognitive Reactions

January 8, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

teary eyes
Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash

No one is ever prepared to lose a loved one. Whether it was expected or not, it still comes accompanied by shock. Even though we know rationally that death is inescapable we always hope that it won’t or won’t yet happen.

Even though grief is an experience that feels like you are going crazy, there are a range of reactions and responses that are normal. Some of the possible reactions may be on the emotional, physical, cognitive, behavioral and spiritual level. ‘Normal’ does however not mean that they are in any way easy to experience.

In the following article we will look at the emotional, physical and cognitive reactions.

Emotional reactions may include

  • Sadness
  • Shock
  • Anger
  • Guilt
  • Jealousy
  • Anxiety and fear
  • Shame
  • Relief
  • Feeling powerless and hopeless or helpless
  • Feeling irritable and frustrated
  • Loneliness
  • Yearning/Longing
  • Numbness
  • Depression
  • Lack of control
  • Resentment
  • “Grief Attacks”

Often, it is normal that as a bereaved person you experience all kinds of emotional reactions, even contradictory ones at the same time. You might not know yourself reacting in that way normally and struggle with self-judgment.

The main and important point to stress here is that emotional reactions are just one way in which grief may be expressed. It does not have to be the best and only way to work through the grieving process.

Physical reactions may include

  • Headaches
  • Nausea
  • Tiredness
  • Loss of appetite
  • Insomnia
  • Sensitivity to various stimuli, in particular noise
  • Muscular tension
  • Exhaustion
  • Pain
  • Lack of energy
  • Tightness in chest
  • Shortness of breath

Physical pains are often a way to channel grief’s energy. Most people experience one or many of the physical symptoms and some even predominantly experience grief physically. Again, physical reactions are just one way and neither better or worse than emotional reactions.

If you experience physical ailments it is advisable to get them checked out and exclude any other causes. Also remember that exercise is a good means to deal with stress.

Cognitive reactions may include

  • Disbelief
  • Obsessive thinking
  • Apathy or numbness
  • Being unable to concentrate and remember
  • Looping thinking and continuous ‘what if’ scenarios
  • Disorientation and confusion
  • Lack of motivation and focus
  • Impaired judgment
  • Thinking about wanting to find a culprit or damage something to ease the pain
  • Dreaming
  • Diminished self-concern
  • Emptiness
  • Replaying images of loss

Cognitive reactions are another way to try and make some sense of the loss. Asking yourself the “Why?” questions is part of this level and it very common, not just in the immediate time after the loss of your loved one.

Talking, whether that is with your partner, a friend or family member or with a professional has been found to be helpful in reducing and dealing with obsessive thinking.

Often people who show cognitive reactions but lack emotional responses have been thought not to grieve ‘properly’. This is not the case. Neither way is better or worse, they are just different. Be mindful not to impose your way of grieving onto another person.

Filed Under: child loss, depression, grief/loss Tagged With: cognitive grief reaction, emotional grief reaction, grief reaction, physical grief reaction

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