We cannot know what another feels unless we have “walked a mile in their shoes”. Sometimes we can’t relate to their pain even if we HAVE been there because every grief is different. Some seem to handle great loss with grace and aplomb. Others seem to be crushed by the same set of circumstances. If you are the crushed one, you must not compare your capacity to cope with someone else who looks like she is getting along beautifully. You don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors when they are at home.

I’ve been reading about complicated grief. It is not recognized with a diagnostic category, yet it is real. In the first few months, up to 50% of those who have suffered the loss of a loved one experience clinical symptoms typical of major depression. If you have had tendencies toward depression or have had major traumas in your life already, complicated grief is more prevalent. I suffered a major depression as well as childhood sexual abuse and alcoholism in the family. I am a ripe candidate for complicated grief, which is really in the same category as PTSD. Recognizing this, I sought the guidance of a grief counselor. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) helped relieve my PTSD symptoms and I believe I have avoided going down the path of extended grief. I know I am blessed.

These symptoms are typical in the early stages of grief and normally do not need treatment. But if your symptoms linger or worsen, if you become increasingly debilitated by your grief, if you have intrusive thoughts or images of your loved one that pop up unbidden, if you deny the loss or fantasize that your loved one is alive somewhere and will come home any day, if you are desperately lonely, angry or bitter…please seek help. Clergy, grief counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists…all can help you formulate a plan that may ease your pain and assist you in reintegrating into life again.

My prayers are always with you.

<3 Ginny