trauma

Time To Grieve – How Long Will My Grief Last?

January 31, 2020 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Time To Grieve – How Long Will My Grief Last?

How long will I be grieving the death of my child? How long will my grief last? When will I feel better? Is there a time to grieve? Is it true that I need to ‘move on’ or ‘get over it’? What does ‘moving on’ look like?

How much time to grieve do I have?

I have been asked these and similar questions for years. Just last week, a member of the Grieving Parents Support Network asked:

“Hi. Do you know of any articles about ‘how long the grieving process is for losing a child’? I was told ‘fresh grief’ takes about 2 years and another said it takes 5 years. My adult daughter passed away 6.5 months ago.

When I post something about her on Facebook one was telling me I need to move on – that’s what my daughter would want me to do. Others haven’t been quite so blunt, but the message is still clear.

These comments hurt and make me angry. What shall I do? Ignore them or try to respond with a message about how hard it is to lose a child and that it takes a long time? I don’t know what to do.”

The question showed me a couple of things:

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Comparing Grief – Can It Be Helpful?

December 19, 2019 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Comparing Grief – Can It Be Helpful?

Comparing grief is something we all have done at some point.

“But you’ve only had a miscarriage.”
“I experienced the same when my grandpa died.”
“My stillbirth was … in comparison to my miscarriages.”
“I cannot imagine losing a teenager.”

All these are comparisons: a miscarriage versus a stillbirth or neonatal death, the experience of the death of a child versus the death of grandpa, my stillbirth versus my miscarriages, the loss of a teenager versus another loss (or no loss).

Invalidating

Statements that include a comparison are often uttered without any bad intention. They are often an opinion of someone from what they understand or not understand from their vantage point in life.

In many cases, they are helpless attempts at dealing with the unimaginable grief that follows a loss, your own or someone else’s.

In many cases, however, a comparison is invalidating someone’s experience and feelings. No matter the kind of loss, it involves grief and pain.

We cannot truly know what someone else is going through, even if our losses involve the same person or the person in the same relationship (for example grandpa).

Even after an extensive exchange with our partner in regard to the loss of our child we only know what they have shared. And even then, we only have ‘what we understood’ and not ‘what they truly meant’.

Gaining perspective

If the comparison helps you to see something good and helpful for yourself, then it can be helpful – but only to yourself.

For example, Katja, one of the contributors of the book ‘Surviving My First Year of Child Loss’ said in an interview: “I know the murderer of my child, I know he’s in jail and I’ve got a trial coming up. Some other parents don’t have that option.”

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The Healing Is In The Feeling

September 10, 2019 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

The Healing Is In The Feeling

… and that is why it doesn’t help to be told ‘you should just get over it’.

So many times bereaved parents hear sentences that proclaim myths about their grieving and healing. We all have heard those myths, so much so that we have come to believe many of them. So it’s no surprise we, as the bereaved, struggle with healing after loss because it’s so different than portrayed or spoken about in society.

That’s where…

YOU (the bereaved) talking about your loss
YOU being open about your feelings and thoughts
YOU remembering your child
YOU openly sharing your tears when grief is triggered
YOU celebrating your child’s memory
YOU standing tall accepting where you are on your journey with grief

… are making a difference.

You are a grief and healing warrior

You are a hope spreader, truth speaker, way bearer, silence breaker, taboo destroyer, meaning creator, new normal ambassador and a human resilient healer.

Some of the myths, that we have heard for aeons are the following, or versions of:

get over the loss, stop talking about it, move on, forget about it, time heals all wounds, have another baby (in the case of a bereaved parent), think about… (your husband, your other surviving children), keep yourself busy.

As you all know, most of those are not helpful and deny us of our experience that we have to the point were we ourselves say “I shouldn’t be crying…” or “I’m sorry I lost it” when we feel what is a natural part of healing.

Healing is in the feeling. Healing happens one conversation at the time, thought by thought, tear after tear that runs down our cheeks. Healing can also happen by doing something, creating new meaning, putting your brainpower into a project or your physical power into building something. Healing is so varied and often happens without us even knowing it is happening. It also happens when we think ‘I’m feeling worse again’ or ‘I’ve gone backwards’.

Stop denying your experience. Stop giving other people the power to deny your experience. What you experience naturally is just that: natural.

Yes, of course, you can increase your not so pleasant feelings by doing the very thing you know increases it: for example looking at photos, listening to specific music. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do that, it means to be mindful when and how you do it.

So, how can you own your experience? By becoming and being aware of your own emotions, thoughts, actions, behaviours and spoken words. By taking responsibility on those powers and not let those be directed by what other people or society think or feel.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Relationship Wisdom – Repairing Past Hurt

January 1, 2014 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Are you the caretaker of your soul's garden? — Are you the caretaker of your soul’s garden?

Whenever you find yourself in a relationship you will sooner or later undoubtedly feel hurt. When feeling hurt it is however important to gain awareness over whether this is due to a current situation only or due to accumulated unresolved hurt from your past.

Differentiating current and past

Imagine growing a garden. You plant flowers, trees and shrubs. No matter how well you water and fertilize them, they die after a while. You might investigate whether the plants died from a current problem, for example if they died because of a bug or due to sudden frost. If you encounter the same problem again and again, even after you have planted new plants, you might need to dig a bit deeper and find out whether the soil is the problem or if there is some toxic waste underground that is making the whole ground uninhabitable by plants.

When entering a new relationship we always carry some residual toxic waste with us, [Tweet “What toxic waste are you carrying over from one relationship to the next?”]which will make the ground for the new partnership shaky. In real life you will notice this ‘toxic waste’ if a recurring topic in your relationship(s) is creating havoc.

Differentiating trigger and cause

Another way to look at this is by making a distinction of trigger and cause. Some issue, remark, or situation, for example your partner stonewalling you, might trigger a certain emotional reaction in you however the cause could be lying in your unresolved childhood trauma of abandonment.

Setting healthy boundaries

In order to make yourself less sensitive to emotional reactivity, you need to clear your accumulated toxic waste in you psyche. First of all, it is about setting clear and healthy boundaries about what is appropriate and what is not. As a second step you need to look (dig deep) into potential causes for your current trigger. This is best done by talking to someone professionally trained in helping you deal with repairing and letting go of past hurt.

Conscious and unconscious causes

Some of the causes of emotional reactivity might be very obvious, like having been abandoned by your father in childhood. Other causes might lie hidden in your psyche, unconscious but still stored in your being and acting like silent saboteurs in every new relationship you enter.

Your relationship as a gift

There is nothing like intimate relationships when it comes to being emotionally triggered. The closer a person is to you, the more importance you give them, the more they will show you those places that need attention.

So the decision is yours: planting new plants, trees and shrubs or unearthing the toxic waste and getting rid of it so the next garden you plant will flourish?

DIY Time Line Therapy

March 6, 2010 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

Time Line Therapy is very useful to resolve past trauma and hurt.

Recently I found this suggestion in a book called ‘things to do now that you’re 40’ by Rebecca Hall:

Recall an insecure period in your childhood. Remember the things that troubled you. Now reach back over decades, with the wisdom you have now and tell that little child everything is going to be okay.

Great little technique – however if you’re aiming to resolve major trauma you’re better of going to see someone who can facilitate the process for you with experience.