Help! I’m Stuck!
I’ve been thinking, contemplating, meditating, writing, talking about being stuck after the loss of a loved one. My story is one in which I fought desperately not to be stuck in grief. I did not want to be sad. I wanted to be “normal”. I did not want to be a widow at 29 or 49. However, I was. Do you have these conversations in your head about being a widow, feeling stuck in your grief, or not enjoying the place where you find yourself? If you have, what have those conversations been about? Have you tried to convince yourself that you were going to be okay or do you just feel the weight of grief so heavy that you had to give in to it. I have done all of this but I hated feeling stuck. I ran so fast away from grief as much as I could but it would still catch me, slam me down to the ground, and take over on some days.
I remember coming home from the hospital after the accident where my 2nd husband passed away and feeling the weight of grief as I walked back into my house.
I remember the first time I attended church after my husband passed away and being recognized by the pastor and feeling the weight of the grief.
I remember hearing the highway patrolman tell me my husband did not make it. Oh, the weight.
I remember seeing my children under the weight of grief and feeling it push me down under it’s extreme pressure.
Yes. It is so easy to get stuck under the power of the emotion of grief. Remember, we talked about how the emotions of grief are like a ball of yarn just all woven together. Anger, sadness, frustration, disappointment, unbelief, abandonment....
7 Factors That Affect the Grieving Process
These ideas are adapted from Seven Choices: Finding Daylight after Loss Shatters Your World. It’s an excellent book on dealing with grief after losing a loved one — I’ll link to it at the end of this article.
1. Your Personality and Style of Dealing with Difficult Events
Are you willing to make the hard choice of actively grieving the loss of your loved one? Then your grieving process won’t take as long.
However, if you tend to avoid making decisions on your own – and if you are dependent on other people – then you will find that dealing with grief takes longer than you expect. If you tend to avoid painful situations and realizations, withdraw from working through difficult problems, or avoid feeling the pain of your loss, then the grieving process takes longer.
How well do you know yourself? The sooner you’re willing to recognize your habits and patterns, the faster you’ll move through the grieving process.
2. How Involved Your Lost Loved One Was in Your Life
If the person you lost was central to your life – or your sense of self – then dealing with grief will take longer than you might expect. For example, if your whole identity was centered on being a wife for the past 47 years, then your husband’s death will hit you hard. On the other hand, if you loved your life partner but had a full, vibrant sense of self and life outside of your relationship, then you’ll continue to find meaning and fulfillment in external factors.
“This means that it is not possible to make blanket judgments about what one individual’s death will mean to another,” writes Neeld. “It is possible, for instance, for the death of a brother whom one seldom saw and did not know well to have less impact than the death of a next-door neighbor who was central in those things that gave life meaning. And a husband who is violent and despicable may have to be mourned as extensively as if he had been loving and generous, simply because he was central to the organization and structure of the life of the family.”
3. The Nature of Your Loss
“Sudden deaths or losses, the death of a child or young person, violent or traumatic deaths, and suicides present special problems in grieving,” writes Neeld in Seven Choices. “There is often more shock, a greater sense of injustice, more guilt and blame, and a greater sense of helplessness in such situations. This greatly complicates mourning.”
She adds that although knowing in advance that you’ll lose a loved one does give you a chance to prepare for the grieving process, this preparation may not, in the long run, help you deal with grief quicker. You anticipated and planned for the loss, but you’re also dealing with the emotional drain of a long illness, conflicting feelings of both relief and sadness that occur after the death, and emotional bonding and attachment that developed while you were losing your loved one.
If you’re emotionally drained, read Why You Have No Energy When You’re Grieving – and How to Re-Energize.
4. Feelings of Support From your Family and Friends
If your companions and family members understand the grieving process, it may not take as long to deal with the grief of losing a loved one. The more loved and supported you feel, the less time grief takes.
Also, if your friends and family are comfortable with mourning and able to talk about your lost loved one – and if they take actions to help you grieve because they know what it's like – then your grieving process may be easier to bear. On the other hand, if your friends and family are uncomfortable with the grieving process and push you to “get over” the loss of a loved one, then you’ll feel unhappier and lonelier. And, some people encourage mourners to remain helpless and dependent, which of course doesn’t help anyone deal with grief.
5. The Degree to Which You Grieved Your Past Losses
“Imagine that when a woman was a child of seven or eight, her mother died,” writes Neeld in Seven Choices: Finding Daylight after Loss Shatters Your World. “And imagine that, as a child, the woman had no guidance on how to grieve and, subsequently, buried the loss as best she could, developing a way of life that always managed to skirt that delicate, painful, and complex issue. Then the woman’s husband died. His death, reaching deep into her psyche, activates the earlier, unresolved grief of the loss of her mother and possibly many more losses. In such a circumstance, the length of the grieving process may reflect the fact that multiple losses must be mourned.”
In other words, your grieving process will take longer if you haven’t actively grieved your past losses. And it’s not just losing a loved one that causes grief…it’s losing a cherished possession or even losing your sense of security and safety in the world because of a violent attack.
6. Your Unacknowledged Ambivalent (Mixed) Feelings About Your Loved One
Ambivalent feelings are mixed or contradictory feelings you have about your loved one — and it’s worse if they’re unexpressed.
For example, if you feel resentment and anger towards a loved one — or if you have guilty feelings about his or her death — then your grieving process will not only take longer, it’ll also be more difficult. If your disagreements and arguments were never resolved, it will take longer to get over the pain of losing a loved one.
“Perhaps there is relief that the person is gone,” writes Neeld, “even while there is sorrow. If the grieving person does not forgive herself or himself for this seeming contradiction, it will take longer to get over the loss. To deny negative aspects of life with the lost person, individuals may idealize the past and thereby make their mourning more difficult.”
If your situation is unusually difficult – such as not finding out that your husband was cheating on you until after he died – your grief will be complicated by betrayal and other intense emotions.
7. Your Social, Economic, and Personal Circumstances
And finally, if you’re dealing with financial difficulties, health problems, or other personal issues, then dealing with grief will take longer and be more painful. Neeld adds that if you’re also constrained by stereotypical societal conditioning such as “men don’t cry” or “women are helpless when it comes to making decisions”, then the grieving process is more complicated.
“If you are willing and able to display grief to others, reach out to one or more people around you, and talk openly about your loss, then your grieving process won’t take as long,” says Neeld. “On the other hand, if you keep your grief to yourself, work hard to avoid losing control in front of others, and refrain from asking for help, then it’ll take longer to deal with grief over losing your loved one.”
Working through individual stuck points takes patience, perseverance, the courage to examine one’s thoughts and emotions, and the cognitive flexibility to change them. Stuck points are unique to the individual and their experiences, so we encourage you to spend some time reflecting on any stuck points possibly impacting you in your grief and coping.
Also, try and notice the relationship between your thoughts and emotions. A simple way to do this is to find a piece of paper and divide it down the middle. On the top of the left-hand side write “When I have the thought that…” and on the top of the right-hand side write “I feel…”. Then reflect on the last week or so and try to identify some of the thoughts you’ve been having and their emotional consequences. If it’s easier for you, you can also start by identifying the feelings you’ve been having and then trace them back to the thoughts or situations that preceded them.
At the very least, you’re likely to identify some of the thoughts and emotions that have been most challenging to you in your grief. Perhaps these are areas where you will want to focus your coping – whether it’s through reading articles like this one, journaling, support groups, or one-on-one counseling.
Comments