Drive-In Vigil to Provide Support to Loved Ones of Those Lost to Suicide

September 10, 2020 by Leave a Comment

September 10th is World Suicide Prevention Day

Thursday, 10th September, ‘World Suicide Prevention Day’, will see the world’s first pop up drive-in cinema being erected by START a mental health charity, in Salford, to mark World Suicide Prevention Day with their annual Vigil of Remembrance. The Vigil of Remembrance will also be broadcast in a worldwide live stream by the charity.

An online YouGov survey, commissioned by the UK’s leading funeral provider Co-op Funeralcare, shows that in the weeks following the start of the UK’s lockdown on 23rd March, 47% of bereaved adults in Manchester have been denied their final farewell. The grief process is always difficult. But a loss through suicide is like no other, and grieving can be especially complex and traumatic. People coping with this kind of loss often need more support than others, but may get less.

What to Say to Someone Grieving … or Not Say

Death by suicide, even more than other types of bereavement, makes many people uncomfortable and unsure how to react. There is still a stigma attached to suicide, rooted in centuries of history and this generates misplaced associations of weakness, blame, shame or even sin or crime. This stigma can prevent people from seeking help when they need it and others from offering support …

Six Steps to Help Prevent Suicide – a great read from GriefHelp.org.

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Virtual care offered for families of pandemic victims

July 4, 2020 by Leave a Comment

CLEVELAND — The American Red Cross of Northern Ohio has launched a Virtual Family Assistance Center to support families struggling with loss and grief during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Those interested can visit redcross.org/get-help to access a support hub with special virtual programs, information, referrals and services to support families in need.

Those without internet access can call 1-833-492-0094 for help.

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Understanding Grief

February 19, 2020 by Leave a Comment

by Rich Nilsen

“Grief only comes in one size, extra large.” — Dennis Manning

If grief can be summed up in a nutshell, it is how we feel now that an important person is no longer in our life. In essence, we hurt and feel sorry for ourselves. Our focus is usually on what WE lost. Grief, of course, is a normal reaction to the loss of someone or something. Each of us will handle these feelings in our own way and in our own time. There is no blueprint to the process and no timetable to how long you will hurt.

 

Author J. William Worden describes four facets of mourning:

1 – Accepting the reality of the loss

2 – Experiencing the pain of grief

3 – Adjusting to an environment without the lost loved one

4 – Reinvesting emotional energy in life

 

Having been through the complete grief process, I can relate to each of these “steps.” Accepting the loss almost immediately helped me move on with my mourning quicker, although it didn’t make anything easier.

I cannot help you acknowledge the reality of your loss. Only you can do that, and hopefully you are well past that stage by the time you receive this book.

Sometimes, intense feelings of grief will catch us by surprise. It may startle you when you fall “into the pits” several months after the tragedy. It is at this time that many people will be expecting you to be over your loss. Don’t believe them. It is only normal for this to happen. Just remember your grief is unique. No one else is just like you. No one else had the same relationship with the person who died.

Understand that a main purpose of grief is to help you reach the point in your life when you can remember without the pain.

What I present later in this guide are several steps to help you get through the grieving process in a positive way.

 

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How To Get Through Unexpected Grief

November 25, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Grief Continues at Unexpected Times

I was traveling for work when the call came in — my dad wasn’t going to make it through the night. The world fell away, like everything was loud and silent at the same time. Nothing would ever be the same.

I didn’t have time to get to the airport. I didn’t have time to see him one last time.

I didn’t have time.

My mind floated back to the conversation I had with my dad six weeks prior. He called to tell me he’d been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. It felt like my body had been invaded with a mix of anger, anxiety, fear, and call to service that I didn’t even know was possible. All I could do at that moment was cling to his every word.

But now, at this moment, there were no words left.

This is the unexpected moment I was prepared for, even though I would never be ready for it. I knew grief would strike me when my dad passed. I knew that there would be a period of my life that I wanted to shut the world out to process my emotions. But there was so much to the grieving process I didn’t expect…

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Grieving? How to Heal Yourself

June 14, 2019 by Leave a Comment

One of life’s most difficult challenges is dealing with grief, the feeling of sadness over the loss of someone or something significant. Although grief is normal, the pain can be overwhelming, and the sorrow so profound that it defies description. You wonder if you can ever heal yourself.

The most common causes of grief are the death of a loved one, divorce or breakup, diagnosis of a grave illness, and loss of a job. You’ll experience a plethora of emotions, such as anger, despondency, guilt, anguish, and despair. The intensity and duration of grief differ in each situation. The death of a child can bring on excruciating pain that may diminish over time but never go away while an aging parent’s demise is expected, making the loss more acceptable…

Take your time and put major life decisions on hold.

The grieving process is fraught with emotions that can interfere with your rational decision-making mind. You might regret impulsive actions, such as moving to another place, getting married again too soon, or suing the boss who sacked you.

Learn about “The Road to Recovery” here

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Grieving? How to Cope with the Loss of a Loved One in a Healthy Way

April 9, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Are you currently dealing with the death of a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a close friend, or another loved one? The pain that comes along with the loss of a loved one can be too much to take for some people. It can take weeks, months, and, in …

There are five stages of grief that people must go through after the loss of a loved one. Those stages are:

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

Some people can move through these five stages on their own. But if you’re having a tough time doing it, grief counseling can help.

In grief counseling, you’ll learn how to process certain feelings and come to terms with them. You’ll also uncover feelings that might be sitting right below the surface…

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Grieving? Don’t overlook potential side effects of your Grief

February 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Stress and grief

Grieving takes a toll on the body in the form of stress. “That affects the whole body and all organ systems, and especially the immune system,” Dr. Malin says. Evidence suggests that immune cell function falls and inflammatory responses rise in people who are grieving. That may be why people often get sick more often and use more health care resources during this period.

But why is stress so hard on us? It’s because the body unleashes a flood of stress hormones that can make many existing conditions worse, such as heart failure or diabetes, or lead to new conditions, such as high blood pressure or heartburn. Stress can also cause insomnia and changes in appetite.

Extreme stress, the kind experienced after the loss of a loved one, is associated with changes in heart muscle cells or coronary blood vessels (or both) that prevent the left ventricle from contracting effectively. It’s a condition called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, or broken-heart syndrome. The symptoms are similar to those of a heart attack: chest pain and …

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Grief Help: Couple opens grieving room in honor of stillborn daughter Jane

January 29, 2019 by Leave a Comment

WINNETKA, Ill. — Bob and Berkley Wellstein were thrilled to be expecting their first child. The baby’s room was ready. They had the crib and the clothes.

And then, one day in the 32nd week of an easy pregnancy, Berkley noticed that her baby hadn’t been moving. She tried lying on her side. She had some sugar. Then she went to the hospital for an innocent-sounding “reassurance check,” only to learn that medical staff could not detect a heartbeat. The Wellsteins’ daughter, Jane, had died in utero in a rare accident in which the umbilical cord becomes wrapped tightly around the baby’s neck.

“It was just complete destruction. It was devastation,” Bob Wellstein said of the loss seven years ago.

But even as the Wellsteins left the hospital with Jane’s footprints and a snip of her bright blond hair, the Winnetka couple knew that their little girl’s story wasn’t over. They wanted to do something to honor her and to help other parents who experience similar losses, including miscarriages and newborn deaths. Within a year of Jane’s death in January 2012, they’d opened the first Jane’s Room — a comfortable, homelike space for grieving parents and family members — at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago. On Thursday, Jan. 17, the newest Chicago-area Jane’s Room was unveiled at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights.

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8 Ways to support a woman after she’s had a miscarriage

January 9, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Acknowledge they are parents

Even if the miscarried child was their only pregnancy, that couple is still a mother and a father. Schwob says it’s important to “Validate the child as a precious life and acknowledge the mothers and fathers.”

Many mothers who miscarry feel like a failure. They feel guilt, thinking they could have avoided it somehow if only they’d been more aware of what was happening or taken care of their bodies in a different way. Schwob says, “Pregnant women immediately start planning and their nature is to protect that child. It’s a common thought that they have failed to do their job.” The feeling of guilt is common but it doesn’t make it true. Fathers have a hard time, too, because they cannot “fix” the problem. Help families grapple with guilt and understand that they aren’t failures.

Simply because the baby had a shorter life doesn’t mean mom and dad didn’t love their little one with all their heart. The grief process isn’t shorter and there should be no expectations for the couple to get over it, move on, and forget about the miscarriage. We can help by encouraging them to …

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Don’t hide your grief from children. Grief can help bring you closer

December 26, 2018 by Leave a Comment

…but like a great number of mothers (and fathers) after a bereavement, it wasn’t long before I attempted to pull myself together and go back to normal. And although at the heart of this was a desire to protect my daughter from my grief, I ended up distancing myself, creating a strained, unhealthy atmosphere. My understandable worry over the effect on her of what she’d seen made me cautious and reticent. It was as though we were communicating through glass, and the result was that I was no longer present as a mother in the way she needed me to be.

It’s impossible to be the parent you were after someone you love dies, because you aren’t the same person. But how do we explain this to our children? Death is one thing. But revealing your vulnerability too? This can feel irresponsible and unfair…

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