insomnia

03/09/2016

“Be Strong” Is Wrong (for Grieving Friends)

When someone dies, don’t tell survivors how strong they are. Tell them you’ll be strong beside them so they don’t have to — and follow through.

The first times people called me strong after my husband died, I had no idea how to respond. Their expressions and tones made it clear they’d intended to compliment me, but I couldn’t accept their words. I’d look at them, thinking, How can I say the expected “thank you” to such a blatant lie? 

I was as fragile as dandelion fluff.

Mourning made my feelings as fragile as overripe dandelion fluff. (photo by Teresa TL Bruce, TealAshes.com)

The truth was, I was broken, shattered into a million loosely gathered shards. The softest puff of sympathy or the least gust of gruffness might send my fragmented psyche as irretrievably into the wind as overripe dandelions in the hands (and breath) of enthused toddlers.

I was not strong. And it puzzled me that anyone might think I was.

I cried all the time. All. The. Time.

Everyday chores I’d mastered years earlier now confused me.

New tasks (including seemingly endless death-related business matters) overwhelmed me.

The sudden, sole responsibilities of single parenting had my knees buckling.

Strong, I was not. But that’s what was expected (and even demanded) of me. “Don’t cry,” some said. “You have to be strong for your daughters.”

Such words (though intended as encouragement) deeply shamed me. Being anyone else’s rock is a heavy burden when you’re scarcely able to hold onto yourself. 

Didn’t they realize how much strength seeped from me in getting out of bed each morning? Didn’t they know how much energy I exerted just remembering to breathe? Had they no idea how sucked away my strength felt after days and weeks and months of only sparse, grief- and nightmare-riddled, interrupted naps instead of genuine sleep?

Telling me how strong I was didn’t feel like a compliment. It felt like being told I could and should be able to handle everything on my own.

But I couldn’t.

Telling me I was strong didn’t make me feel capable. It made me feel like I wasn’t worthy of asking for help.

So I didn’t.

Sorrow saps strength. Grieving grinds it away. Bereavement burdens and bruises the body. Mourning makes mincemeat of memory.

So step in.

How can you offer your strength to grieving friends?

  • Help your mourning friends with physical tasks like mowing the lawn or shoveling snow or washing the car or doing the dishes and laundry. (*See important note about this below!)
  • Go along on emotionally charged errands (like changing car titles, account names, or banking business into the survivors’ names). Don’t make general offers like “call me if you want me to go” — they won’t. Instead, be specific: “Can I take you to the auto tag office Thursday afternoon to help you transfer the title into your name?” or “Would Tuesday or Wednesday be better for me to drive you to the Social Security office to submit the claim for the kids’ benefits?” or “The minute the funeral home says you can pick up the death certificates, call me. I want to help.”
  • Look out for your bereaved friends’ health. Bring a healthy meal, invite your friends on nature walks, share your favorite sleep soundtrack, take them for a massage, mention you need your own six-month dental cleaning and ask if they need you to call their dentist to schedule theirs …
  • Make a list. Mourning makes remembering anything a challenge. Write down tasks your friend might mention in passing. Offer reminders of appointments. Write down memories of their deceased loved one. Write down all the kindnesses other friends extend to your grieving mutual friend.
  • Be present. The loneliness of mourning a person missing from your life is difficult to describe. Acknowledge your awareness your friend is hurting. Sometimes the bereaved need reminders they (the deceased and the bereaved) aren’t forgotten and that they are valued for themselves — not just for who they used to be in relation to the ones no longer living. If you live nearby, sitting in silence alongside your friends will strengthen them just by your willingness to witness their sorrow. If you live far from them, you can still be “present” with phone calls, texts, instant messages, and even old-fashioned snail mail.

Here’s the irony:

Now, five-plus years later, I can honestly say, I’ve become strong. I’ve had to.  I’ve become stronger than my pre-widowed self could have imagined. The bones of my broken soul reknit into a construction of titanium lace.

But it took being broken — and much, much longer than six to eight weeks — to grow that strength.

(Sometimes, I also admit, the holes in that titanium knit lace soul of mine still feel more jagged than smooth, more broken than whole. Grieving, like living, is a process.)

___

*Please note: ALWAYS, Always, always ask before washing or putting away or cleaning up after the deceased person’s clothing, dishes, or even apparent trash! (Mourners may need and want to handle those newly sacred, last-touched items themselves.)

01/27/2016

Crazy with Grief

If you want to comfort someone who is grieving, or if you’ve recently lost a loved one, here’s something you need to know:

Grief can make a person feel crazy.

Stark. Raving. Crazy.

Before I go on, please accept that I don’t use the word “crazy” lightly. I mean no offense to any individuals living with mental illnesses. On the contrary. I have a glimmer of understanding — just a little bit — about how difficult it can be to live with mental health challenges. I have relatives and friends whose diagnoses impact their day-to-day lives.

My late husband grappled with severe, life-impeding OCD. During his last two years, other mental and/or neurological symptoms (which were never adequately diagnosed) infected his thinking and behavior, bringing our home life to its own level of … no other way to put it … crazy.

After my husband’s unexpected death, I thought I was losing my mind; it didn’t work right.

  • My short-term memory stunk. I couldn’t hold simple to-do lists. I’d flit from the start of one to the middle of another. (Why am I standing in the laundry room holding my toothbrush wearing only one shoe?) For the first time in my life, I forgot to pay bills on time. When I remembered to attempt cooking, I left perishable food on the counter or in the stove or microwave until it turned on me and I had to throw it out. I had too many near-misses forgetting I’d turned on the stove or lit a candle. (NOTE: SET A NOISY, OBNOXIOUS TIMER IF YOU’RE GRIEVING AND TRYING TO COOK.)
  • I lost time. It took twice as long (or more) to do routine things like putting on clothes or brushing my teeth. Even pouring a bowl of cereal and slicing a banana took longer. More taxing tasks (like paying bills) took three to four times longer (and I didn’t do them very well).
  • Showering was a sob-fest. I fell apart every time. The solitary vulnerability allowed too much time for thinking, reflecting, and mourning. The waterworks were so bad, for a while I put off showering as long as I (and my family) could stand it.
  • Sleep was a nightmare. Literally — I had soul-waking, body-shaking nightmares. That is, when I could sleep.  For months I avoided sleeping, no matter how exhausted I became, in hopes of avoiding (or at least delaying) the nightmares.

    After my husband died, my brown eyes looked green to me. (Photo by Teresa TL Bruce/TealAshes.com

    After my husband died, my brown eyes looked green to me. (Photo by Teresa TL Bruce/TealAshes.com

  • I couldn’t look myself in the eye. My reflection looked wrong. Instead of seeing myself — the self I’d always seen before — I saw only the emptiness in my eyes. (Emptiness, that is, except for the bloodshot insomnia tinting the whites.) It was unsettling. I knew I’d lost my husband (my other half) and the mirror flaunted I’d also lost myself. I had to avert my gaze, careful not to look too closely into my soul’s windows.
  • I couldn’t stop looking at my eyes. (Yes, that sounds like a contradiction, which seems a little crazy. Which is my point …) All my life, I thought I had clear brown eyes. It may be scientifically impossible, but after my husband died, my eyes looked more green than brown. (Yes, I felt irrational green-eyed jealousy over couples who got to keep their spouses to ripe old ages, but I’m not talking about their metaphoric hue.) My irises still look more green than brown to me.
  • I couldn’t stand to be photographed, either. I remembered as a child reading in National Geographic of a tribe of people who feared that cameras somehow captured their souls. The thought of documenting the emptiness in my eyes brought panic. I still remember one person telling me to smile for the camera and when I told her no, I didn’t want my picture taken, she did it anyway. The violation chilled me, left me shaking.
  • Making business phone calls felt like mountain climbing. (No, I’ve never actually been mountain climbing, and if I could have avoided all reasons for using the phone during that period, I wouldn’t have made those necessary calls, either.) Every time I called another organization regarding the business side of my husband’s death, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. (And yes, thanks to a bigger-than-me-boy-bully from elementary school, I do know how that feels.)
  • Personal calls were harder. I can’t count how many well-meaning souls said, “Call me if you need anything.” I knew they were my friends. I knew they meant it, but their offer was too general, too much from a perspective of not understanding what that “anything” might have been. (I didn’t know what I needed, and besides, didn’t they know how HEAVY the phone felt?) Even as the words came out of their mouths, I knew I would not call them. Could not.* 
  • My body betrayed me. In the first weeks of widowhood, I didn’t remember I was supposed to eat. When I complied with reminders, my body wouldn’t keep food inside. (I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pretty.) Eventually, it overcompensated, telling me I was hungry when I wasn’t. Of course, there was also the nightly insomnia (and the need for daytime naps to compensate). I forgot to breathe fully. And my skin went crazy, peeling and cracking as if it were dehydrated while also creating acne like I hadn’t seen since adolescence. Even my sense of smell went haywire as I perceived the presence of smells that weren’t there.
  • I followed a stranger. With my car. For a couple of blocks. I knew — KNEW — it couldn’t possibly be my husband walking down the street with his build and gait and hair color and wearing a striped shirt like his. It couldn’t be. But I had to follow until I could see the front of him. Because it looked just like him. And I knew we’d buried my husband, but what if we hadn’t? What if it was him?

In short, I felt crazy.

For all the examples above (except the eye color thing), I’ve heard other bereaved souls acknowledge similar irrational thoughts while mourning. Finding out I wasn’t alone in my mind-mush helped me cope.

But that wasn’t enough.

Before I talked myself into giving grief counseling a try, I pondered the advice of several widowed friends who’d found the process helpful.** Those who got the most out of grief counseling plunged themselves into the process without holding anything  back. They told their therapists everything. Everything.

That scared me.

There were elements of my husband’s mental illness I hadn’t shared with anyone. Some of his symptoms were obvious to those around him; others were more subtle, known only to those closest to our family; a few issues I learned only over the course of our 24 years together. I never wanted to undermine him or betray his confidence, so I spoke of them to no one. Most people had no idea of the depth of his struggles or how they impacted both of us in our shared life.

So during my first appointment with a grief counselor, I let it all out. Everything. All the grief-related craziness and all the new-widow insecurities and all the old-life abnormal-normalcy of living with my husband’s mental illness.

It helped. Telling one nonjudgmental, neutral person everything brought a balance to my grieving. More importantly, the therapist validated the life-altering impact of losing a loved one. She helped me reframe my perceptions of how to move forward in the newly-revised, work-in-progress, ongoing version of my life.

I wasn’t crazy, she assured me. I was grieving.

If you’ve thought your grieving friends were going crazy, or if you’ve thought it of yourself while mourning, I hope this has helped you feel less alone. Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

___

*I believe I made only ONE middle of the night call during the first couple of years. It was to a dear friend I met through a widows network, Shelby Ketchen. Because she’d been a widow for about six months before me, I was able to trust the sincerity of her offer to call “day or night” more than I could trust myself to call upon people I’d known much longer. I knew that as a recent widow, she understood my post-midnight madness. She shared her experience, her faith, and her friendship at a time I most needed to quell the desperation I dared not show in daylight.

___

See the Mayo Clinic’s page on Complicated Grief for more information on warning signs that your friend may need professional help adjusting after a loss.

**For a related post, see Grief therapy and a friend’s counsel.

12/05/2014

Taboo Topics When Someone Dies–Part 4, Appearance

Grief is more than an emotional response to bereavement. Grieving impacts every aspect of mourners’ lives — including body systems — in ways they shouldn’t be pressed to discuss. Avoid personal comments about the appearances of mourning friends.* Even if you have a professional, looks-related relationship (as a dermatologist, hairdresser, personal trainer …), or even if the bereaved asks your opinion, guard your tongue. Comments on visible physical symptoms of my loss only deepened my distress.

Stop and think before making personal comments on mourners' appearances

Stop and think before making personal comments on mourners’ appearances

Avoid “about face” comments.

I’ve always been suntan-challenged, but as a new widow I looked paler than usual. I didn’t benefit from others pointing it out. In shock for weeks (months, really), I was oxygen-deprived from improper, incomplete breathing.  I’d taken only shallow breaths — for weeks. It took conscious effort to fill my lungs. Most people grieving new loss forget to breathe fully. An acupuncturist friend, Natalie Doliner, taught me that in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) the lungs are recognized as “organs of grief.”

My skin went crazy. Within days after my husband’s death, my face started shedding. I looked as if I’d suffered a colorless, peeling sunburn. Self-conscious, I preferred not to be seen in public. When I ventured outside, comments like “Do you know you’re peeling?” sent me back into my shell.

My hands, arms, and legs bore scratches, scrapes, and bruises, though in new grief’s fog I seldom noticed what I’d run into or how I’d cut myself. It was helpful to hear “Excuse me, do you know you’re bleeding?” It was never helpful to hear “Wow, what happened to your arms?” I didn’t know.

Avoid “tiresome” reminders of exhaustion.

I never appreciated comments about dark circles beneath (or bloodshot veins in) my eyes. I already knew I looked tired! Hearing “You should get more sleep” didn’t prevent grief-related nightmares from jolting me awake (on the rare occasions grief insomnia allowed me to sleep at all). Such comments felt like unjust scolding and reminded me there was too much empty space in my bed.

Avoid mentioning “weighty matters,” either gained or lost. 

Mourners won’t tell you embarrassing ways grief impacts digestion — and they shouldn’t have to. I hated explaining (as diplomatically as I could), “I can’t keep anything down,” or “Everything I eat rushes out the other end.” Nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea (I later learned) are common in bereavement. Mourners shouldn’t have to justify why they do (or don’t) want to eat or how that impacts their appearance. 

This should be obvious (but my experiences proved otherwise): I didn’t appreciate reminders that I’d lost or gained weight while grieving. Unless mourners mention their weight to you (and perhaps even then), keep weight-related observations and opinions to yourself. 

I lost more than 20 pounds in a few weeks as a new widow, more than 30 in a few months, but it certainly wasn’t a healthy (or sustainable) way to lose weight! I despised everything about the grief-induced “death diet” inflicted on me, including well-intended reminders about how “good” I looked because of it. Over and over I endured conversations like this:

“Wow, you look great! How’d you lose so much weight?”
“Umm … I forgot to eat.”  Or couldn’t keep it down …
“No, really. How’d you find the willpower? I’d kill to lose that much.” [Yes, someone said that.]
“My husband died.”
“Oh … [insert awkward pause and/or dismissive shrug] Well, at least you look good.”

There was nothing “helpful” about being urged to eat more when I had no appetite — or to eat less when my appetite resurfaced with a vengeance that was (pardon the pun) “fed” by grief. Within months I gained double the amount I’d lost. It took a full year of hard work to reach a zero net weight change before I began moving toward a healthier range.

Picture the whole person before you click.

I still seethe over one  against-my-protest  snapshot taken during my first year as a widow. It wasn’t about my bad hair day or ill-fitting outfit (though if it had been, even those concerns should have warranted better respect). It was about the PAIN of LOSS I saw EVERY time I couldn’t avoid a mirror. My eyes reflected bereavement, and (like people who believe cameras steal souls) I felt that shutter sever my gossamer connection to my surroundings that day — and (even though I’ve long-since forgiven the snapshot-taker, sort of) I still feel the reverberations of that click. If mourners balk at having pictures taken (of themselves or the deceased), LISTEN — and honor their requests! 

When it comes to personal comments about bereaved friends’ appearances, “no comment” is the best option.  Instead say, “It’s good to see you,” and leave it at that.

___

*I talk about other taboo topics — politics, religion, money, and legal status — in other posts. (And yes, I still appreciate the irony of talking about things you shouldn’t talk about.)

12/11/2013

Grief Can’t Be Scheduled

Grief can’t be scheduled.

When it comes to timetables for how long a person will grieve in a particular way, there’s one rule that applies to everyone: there is no timetable.

Processing grief takes as long as it takes and can’t be rushed — so don’t try to speed it along.

When you want to comfort or support someone whose loved one has died, avoid making comments like:

“Are you feeling better yet?”
“I thought you’d be more like yourself by now.”
“When are you going to get over it?”
“Why haven’t you already …  [anything!]?”
“Are you still sad?”
“But you were doing better, so why are you having a hard time again?”

These and other “time trigger” words indicate disapproval to the bereaved. Hearing your expectations of what you think they “should” feel or accomplish does not motivate or inspire grieving survivors toward healing. Rather, it reinforces the enormity of change wrought in their lives. Consider, for a moment, what the bereaved have been doing with their time and energy.

Working through the emotional pain of grief is exhausting. In the earliest weeks and months after my husband’s death, getting out of bed in the morning or, more often, rolling off the couch (as most nights I couldn’t face our empty bed) took as much physical strength and concentration as I could muster. Not that I’d slept much or well in either place. Showering and putting on clean clothes was daunting. Remembering to fill my lungs and to empty my water glass on a regular basis required excruciating effort. On top of that, I took on the legal and financial tasks of closing his accounts and tending to all the “costs of death.” (If you haven’t done this, I’m glad for you. If you have, you’re wincing now, aren’t you?) Most importantly, I was a widowed parent — all the responsibilities of parenting were mine alone.

In summary, I didn’t sleep, seldom remembered to eat or drink, and shouldered sole responsibility for upkeep of finances, house, yard, and car — as well as my far more important daughter (and the dog). I was mourning the loss of my husband and all our future plans.  I was mourning the loss of my children’s father and all that they were mourning, too.

So on days when I managed to arise from a soft surface, wash my face and brush my hair, slip into appropriate attire, and venture into public, I felt pretty good about my accomplishments! Until I met someone who greeted me with their expectation of my “recovery” timetable.

Then I just wanted to crawl back to bed.

When you talk with your grieving friends, tell them you’re proud of them for whatever they have achieved — no matter how small it may seem to you. Let them know it’s okay they’re feeling whatever emotions are roiling at the moment. Reassure them they’ll get wherever they wish to go whenever the time is right for them.

You might just leave them with a smile that keeps them out of bed for the day.

(And if your distraught friend needs a day to climb back into pajamas, hand over your teddy bear.)