Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

from personal experience

The Pandemic of Grief and Loss

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You and I are not as different as it might seem…

I will never forget my father’s first words on January 19th, 2012 as I finally reached him: ‘You have got to be strong now.’

I knew what he was going to say next and I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want it to become the reality we had been dreading: My mother was dead.

It was only 4,5 months after my daughters were born and the younger twin had died 3 days after birth.

By now, you might be wondering why I started this post with the statement above. Hear me out…

Have you been touched by loss?

In the past 2 years as we all dealt with the worldwide effects of a pandemic, a situation no one would have or could have imagined, we have all been touched by loss in one way or another.

From letting go of personal freedom to move to no longer being able to meet and be close with people, from losing loved ones, through separation of space, different views, ideas, or all the way to loved ones who died from Covid.

Loss upon loss

The losses that we all had to deal with or face, in one way or another, have made grief an experience closer than we might even fully realize.

  • loss of people through death
  • loss of personal freedom
  • loss of health
  • loss of income, job, career
  • loss of closeness and intimacy
  • loss of friendships
  • loss of freedom of choice
  • loss of ease with which we decided to go about our lives
  • loss of relationships
  • loss of humanity
  • loss of unity
  • loss of individuality
  • loss of trust in self, in others, in society, in …
  • loss of potential
  • loss of safety
  • loss of belonging
  • loss of connection through isolation
  • loss of clarity
  • loss of individual rights

… just to name a few.

Changes and letting go

The increase of fear and worry goes side by side with the changes we all had to go through. Changes inevitably bring emotions: some changes bring relief, others fear, uncertainty, and many if not all mean letting go of what we are or have been used to.

Letting go involves grieving what no longer is. Maybe the grief is subtle, and going under the radar of your awareness. Sometimes it shows up through physical, emotional, or cognitive symptoms such as, for example, a lack of motivation.

Are there any other kinds of losses you have experienced? I’d love to add them to the list. Share them in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Photo by Amin Moshrefi on Unsplash

Grief 10 years on

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Even though the time that has passed since death
does not determine the amount of grief left to be felt,
it still gives us information
on the length of time
we managed to survive without them.

Nathalie Himmelrich
From Nathalie Himmelrich´s private archives

What does grief and grief work look like 10 years on?

Today is my mother’s 10th year death anniversary. She died from suicide following years of depression, just 4.5 months after my daughter’s death.

First of all, it feels partly unreal that it’s already 10 years and partly I’m in sort of disbelief about the fact that she died at all.

Let me be clear: I’m cognitively absolutely clear that she is dead. And still, it’s somehow strangely unreal.

Grief still works through me

Today, I noticed feeling on edge, easily annoyed by trivial things. That’s normal and to be expected when the layer of ice over grief is thinned through an anniversary date. Honestly, I think my physical body is aware of and reacting in response to the approaching anniversary way before the mind catches up.

Feelings come and go

I let myself sit with feelings as they come and go, choose to look at memories and photos in honour of her, become teary looking at certain ones, plan to visit the cemetery, and leave ten roses for her. I feel restless, a bit lost, and let myself be in it. And then I do something else for a while and let it rest.

How long has it been for you? How do you feel around your loved one’s death anniversary? Share with me here.

Grief over time

If you want to read more about how grief changed over the years, you might find the following articles interesting to read:

10 years into grief (child loss)

7 years into grief (child loss)

6 years into grief (child loss)

5 years into grief (child loss)

4 years into grief (sibling loss, mother loss, child loss)

3 years into grief (child loss)

2 months into grief (child loss)

This really hurt

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image from personal archive

With a pain in my stomach, I write to you today. This week I received an email from one of my subscribers that really hurt.

She wrote:

I wish ppl would stop trying to make money off us. If you’ve known this kind of tragedy (losing your only child) you know there are setbacks, depression, loss of job, spouse, etc. It’s so unnecessary. So I’m unsubscribing and marking spam.

It pains me to be misunderstood, my passion to be taken the wrong way.

I do know of setbacks: I have experienced the loss of a child, dealt with trauma from the aftermath of my mother’s suicide, sexual abuse, and burnout. And – most recently – divorce.

This is part of why I’m doing what I’m doing!

I want to be honest with you: This is my passion:

–> to support YOU who are dealing with grief and trauma.

It is my life’s work.

My heart is in my work

Still, I also earn my living from supporting people: working with clients, writing and selling books, giving courses. All of this requires my time and my creative work.

It requires investment in my personal as well as professional resources outside of myself. For example:

  • costs for book self-publishing: cost for a editor and interior designer,
  • costs for my therapeutic work: on-going professional training and memberships,
  • everyday business expenses such as: web hosting, book keeping and accounting, membership for the platform that sends you email newsletters.

…just to name a few.

I also do and have done a lot of unpaid work for the community and outreach work, donate my books regularly to grief support groups, give away free spots on my courses, etc. I feel in balance.

My work is not only born from personal life experience, it is grounded in solid professional training and years of professional experience.

Making money from people’s pain

If you believe, people like me ‘are making money off people in pain’, you’ve got it the wrong way around:

We are not making money off your pain, we are supporting your healing because we are passionate about healing and are earning our living while doing what is our passion.

Unsubscribe

The subscriber I quoted above did not unsubscribe. I deleted her email address because I do not need to pay to send her stuff she does not want.

Please, if you no longer benefit from the content I provide in my newsletters, unsubscribe through the link at the bottom of the email. No explanation is needed.

And: I’m surprised you’re reading this far.

Much Love ♥️

💭 I daydream…

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I daydream about … 💫 who they would have become ✨

Grief Quote by Nathalie Himmelrich

Last night I went to Ananda Mae’s parents’ evening at the school. Every parent had to introduce their child given it was a new formation of kids.

As I heard the other parents describe their child, mentioning their siblings, I went off daydreaming about AM’s sister, A’Mya.

Who would you have become? What would it be like for the two to go to the same school, or even class? To share friends, experiences, and birthdays?

Just the other day Ananda Mae had asked me to daydream with her about her sister. She asked exactly those questions. “Mum, would A’Mya look just like me?” “I imagine very similar, given you are identical twins,” I replied.

Go ahead, daydream

Daydreaming about a future that cannot be is a way of remembering. Remembering your loved one. Living a relationship, learning to be in a new relationship when the kind of relationship we would have wanted to live is no longer possible.

Whoever came up with the notion ‘not to grow up the child/baby who died’ (I remember it was a therapist 🤦🏽‍♀️ – not me though) was wrong. It is completely normal and natural to do so, at least in my experience and the experience of her surviving twin.

Thank you for being right here and now with me 🕊

The Purpose of Grief

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Anniversaries, as you know, have a way of being remembered in the body way before they get consciously registered in the mind. It is as if our body remembers first. 

And, most important of all, EVERY BODY remembers differently because every body IS different. 

Is there a purpose in grieving 10 years later? 

Private archive

… I asked myself. I like to think there is. I don’t know what the purpose might be but I do trust the body is doing its best to integrate loss into life. 

What are your thoughts? Why do you think we grieve, why grieving might be necessary? 

Grief 10 years later

You might have read in my last newsletter, you will have read that last week was my twin daughter’s birthday and also my younger daughter’s 10th death anniversary. 

The following is what I wrote this year on the anniversary:

It’s been 10 years and it still hurts. Most of the time, I’m not actively grieving. But then there are times when it overcomes me. This was today, the 10th anniversary of A’Mya’s death. 

This week where birthday and death anniversary collide is usually the most intense in the whole year. 

So, what happens after death, after grief no longer runs your life on a daily or regular basis? 

Grief triggers will bring up memories

The following I wrote yesterday:

Today, as I watched the Grey’s Anatomy series, the tiny premmie in the NICU died. I watched the mother in the scene hold her baby for the first, last, and only time… “I’m not ready yet”, the uttered through tears streaming down her face, as he stopped breathing. That was me, 10 years ago. 
And I remember with every fiber of my being the gut-wrenching pain as well as the honor to hold her as she drew her last breath. 

Triggers will come up, no matter the time that has passed since the death. For me, it isn’t about avoiding triggers. It is about riding the waves and letting them wash up the shore until the sea has calmed down again. 

And then there is life, continuing 

The week of birth and death anniversaries has come to an end… and life goes on… and continues… turning and turning like the big Ferris wheel 🎡 currently in our village.

The hardest part of grief is learning to go on living without them. ​

The Relationship Between Trauma & Grief

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Many of the people I have been working with have shown signs of Trauma & Grief intertwined. So, you might wonder, what is the difference and how do I know whether I or someone else is experience grief, trauma, or both?

Defining experiences

Normal Grief, as defined by MedicineNet, is: The normal process of reacting to a loss. The loss may be physical (such as a death), social (such as divorce), or occupational (such as a job). Segen’s Medical Dictionary says: Grief over the loss of a loved one begins to fade into adequate coping mechanisms within six months. This is obviously a very general definition. It leaves me wondering what they define as adequate coping mechanisms. It also does not incorporate the fact that it is highly dependent on which loved one it is (child, parent, partner, or friend?) or through what circumstances the loss occurred (old age, illness, accident, or, for example, murder?)

There is no such thing as ‘normal’ grief. Grievers know that there is nothing that feels normal in their experience. Grief makes them feel like they are going crazy. Normal Grief is grief that follows expected reactions and responses (check out Chapter 2 – Understanding Grief and the Bereaved in the book Bridging the Grief Gap). From a therapeutic point of view, grief progresses in a normal way when the bereaved gradually moves towards acceptance of the loss, and, as time goes by, they are able to re-enter life and engage in daily activities. It can also be called Uncomplicated Grief. 

Traumatic Grief is a normal grief response to a loved one’s death that is perceived to be horrifying, unexpected, violent, or traumatic. This includes accidents, murder, abduction, abuse, or cruelty happening to the loved one. Trauma needs to be treated as well as the grief response. The distress experienced may be severe enough to impair daily functioning. 

Trauma isn’t what happens to you
It is what happens inside of you as a result of that.

Gabor Mate

Grief, trauma or both?

If you or someone else is experiencing a loss that is paired with horror, violence, or happened suddenly, out of order, or unexpected there is also trauma involved.

Trauma is stored in the body, in the tissue, in the muscles, bones, ligaments. It leads to people’s responses that can be classified into four categories:

  • fight
  • flight
  • freeze or
  • submission

Most often we are used to or have heard of the fight or flight reaction to trauma. In the event of traumatic loss, freeze is more often the case. Traumatic loss often leaves people helpless, hopeless, overwhelmed, and in despair.

It is important to be aware of the trauma aspect and have support in treating not just the grief, but also the trauma.

Permanent change

Grief changes people. They see life in a different light and speak a different language. One sentence I hear from grievers over and over: “I will never be the same again.” And even though they can’t know for sure what happens until the end of their life, they express the immensity of the effects of the life-altering experience: a significant loss. 

Having studied trauma and the effects on human beings, I’ve come to realise that even though not all losses are experienced as traumatic many grievers grapple with the effects of the trauma related to their loss. The following paragraph is a summary of the effect of trauma in relation to loss, and its neuroscientific effect on the brain. 

Following the death of her dad, journalist Amy Paturel wrote a story which appeared in the Discover magazine called The Traumatic Loss of a Loved One Is Like Experiencing a Brain Injury. “According to a 2019 study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, grievers minimize awareness of thoughts related to their loss. The result: heightened anxiety and an inability to think straight” wrote Paturel. Additionally, Paturel shares scientists increasingly view the experience of traumatic loss as a type of brain injury. 

Grief affects the brain. The loss of someone meaningful is a stressor that triggers the pituitary gland to release adrenocorticotrohin (ACTH). This sends a signal to the adrenal glands to release cortisone, a stress hormone. Given that the stressor isn’t temporary but intense, the body remains flooded by cortisone. This can cause your immune system to falter which leads to a run-down feeling. A traumatized brain leads to the primitive areas (including the fear centre) being overactive adding to feelings of stress and despair. Higher cortical areas are underactive, for example, the area that regulates emotions. 

“The problem isn’t sorrow; it’s a fog of confusion, disorientation, and delusions of magical thinking,” writes Lisa Shulman, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in a blog post for Johns Hopkins University Press about her book Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain. Shulman also explained that the emotional trauma of loss results in serious changes in brain function that endure.

References:

Paturel, Amy (2020). The Traumatic Loss of a Loved One Is Like Experiencing a Brain Injury,

https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/the-traumatic-loss-of-a-loved-one-is-like-experiencing-a-brain-injury

Shulman, Lisa (2018). Before and After Loss: A Neurologist’s Perspective on Loss, Grief, and Our Brain, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press

Photo by Shifaaz shamoon on Unsplash