Positive outcomes | Beyond Grief and Loss Therapy

Mar 25

The Hard Things (Revisit)

Originally posted on July 3, 2023.

This past week has been a roller coaster of sadness, fear, contemplation, and soul-searching. I’ve had to step back and look at the last seven years of my life and reconnect with feelings that I thought were buried.

On August 29, 2016, I sat at my dining room table and wondered how I would get through life as a disabled person in a country where I didn’t have family or many friends. The fact is that I was traumatized, in shock, and trying to make sense of everything with no way to make sense of anything. And so, a journey began.

I began to read and learn and discard the useless junk books. People spout Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s stages, workbooks on working through it. They said that if you do this, that, or the other thing, you’ll work through your grief, and all will be well.

I call BS. Grief can’t be fixed or cured. I stumbled on one book that I will recommend. The author went through traumatic loss and did what she needed to do to come through things. It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine is an excellent book that portrays the awful, the trauma, and the struggle to stand up again when grief and loss enter our lives. Death, unlike other life events, presents unique challenges for each of us. Someone’s death by suicide adds to our saying goodbye in unique ways.

Devine’s experience was different from mine, and yet she touched on similarities: the inability to feed myself, to sleep, to drag myself into a new day or to know what to do. I’d had to shut work off and allow for healing time. I was compromised.

The only thing I fully understood on August 29, 2016, was that for the next year I would not be making any major life decisions that could be put off. My father had taught me this, and it served me well during a time of tears, fear, trauma, and uncertainty.

I was able to visit the US in the summer of 2017. It felt like I was in a foreign country. It wasn’t home. Europe was home. Going to the States was a chance to explore and connect with family, and to realize that I needed to find my own path. It was time to begin to do the deeper work of change.

I needed to let go, and to trust that the process of healing would occur as it needed to happen in my life. I let go and engaged in trusting the universe and myself. I had to trust that I would walk a path that needed to be walked. At the end of two years, the type of tears I was crying had begun to change. My life was changing, and I had begun to trust my process. I was headed into new territories. It was a velvet road that I walked. Yes, the road was bumpy, and there was much to learn. The transition was done on velvet and I only realized after the fact that I’d been moving to a new place.

Newbies to this process often ask when the tears will stop, when the pain will stop, when the missing will stop. Things change; things don’t stop. You don’t get over people you love; you work through it all. Learning to walk through things is the real work of grief, loss, and an acceptance of the life we move into. And so, I began my education in standing stronger and finding how to heal from the awful, and unthinkable, of surviving my husband’s suicide.

This last spring, I completed continuing education units (CEU’s) for my license renewal. The presenter on surviving a death by suicide had me until he played a snippet of a video on forgiveness. I thought about it and I asked why you would need to forgive someone for doing what they felt they needed to do in life. I realized at the end of those hours with him that he didn’t get it in the same way I got it. My husband’s death has never required my forgiveness. It never will. I digress.

In 2023 I’ve begun a new soul journey that calls me to an acceptance that my vision is changing. Once again, I must face the fact that it is harder to read, to see what I once saw, and to figure out what the new path forward will be. Once again, I’m grieving the loss of what was, and sitting with the fear of how bad it will get. Once again, I’m wondering if I can do this hard thing.

How does anyone get on doing the hard things? I got thinking about this yesterday when I realized that I had a friend who hasn’t quite walked the life path I’ve walked and doesn’t understand the messiness of facing the hard in the same way I do. I hold out space for this person because they’ve had different challenges.

I think some of us who have faced a constant stream of hard things tend to shortchange those whom we view as not having hard and challenging lives. I’ve had to call myself out on this. What looks like an easy, privileged life is seen from the outside. One of the things the past seven years has pounded into my head is that judging this type of thing is a trap. It’s a trap because we might look at ourselves as knowing more when it comes to doing life. I don’t think we know any more than others. We only know a different thing.

I get that my clients and directees come to me for various reasons. I expect them to need to deal with hard things. I’ve had to learn that I need to cut a great many people a great deal of slack. We each face our hard things differently.

I tell you all of this because I’m learning to graciously accept others’ sincere comments about my doing hard things. While it’s second nature to me, it isn’t to them. I realize that I want to respect their desire to support me just as I would support them. My journey is calling me out on being a judgmental person. Oh, this is a hard thing! This is deep soul work.

I think back to when I was in my twenties and I wondered how people older than I was got to where they understood all of this. It’s about not being afraid to call the old self out to the new self. That is what grief and loss are all about.

Jan 1

It Pays to Rethink Things (Revisit)

This post was originally published on November 28, 2023.

26 April, 2023, is the day I spoke my truth for the first time. I wrote about in “When Sanctuary is Offered.” I meant every word then. Really, I did. I was also willing to give up the social life that was so destructive to my mental health.

27 November, 2023: the day my hearing deficiency was dealt with.

I don’t do 9:00 a.m. appointments. If I have to walk, take the bus, and be out of the house that early, it doesn’t work. I’ve set that limit with people. Today I had no choice and arrived ten minutes late. As it turned out, 9:30 would have been soon enough. The Monday chaos of gathering, prepping for the day, and being ready for the first clientele was interesting, and frustrating, to watch. Oh well, with my morning caffeine in me, I walked into the room. I had an agenda: better hearing aids that would be covered by the insurance. I had a list of requirements. Was I nuts? I’d soon find out.

An intense trio of hearing tests confirmed my suspicions: I’d lost a wee bit more hearing. I wasn’t shocked by the news, as I was prepared to hear the number. What I wasn’t expecting was what happened next.

I love the “gadgets” that I’ve worn for seven years. I’ve put off getting new ones because they were the best! Well, they were the best until they weren’t, and I finally broke down and made the appointment at the ungodly hour of 9:00 in the morning. UGH!

If one has to do the unthinkable, then I advise a list of the absolute requirements. If those can’t be met, don’t do it. This is how the second half of the appointment began.

The new ear molds had been made. My ears are even petite. First item: Are these things covered? Yes. OK, let’s move on. I want the chargeable, and not the battery, type. Now, here’s the crazy part. If you go with batteries, the insurance will cover some of the cost. At 90 euros per box, and a three-week battery life per set, you will go through some boxes. I’ll buy the charger, thank you. Personally, I think the insurance didn’t think that all the way through.

Moving forward: What can you do for my hearing in a social situation? How about a microphone that does a couple of things? It will link with your desktop, and it will serve as a microphone when you need to talk with someone in a densely populated social setting. I WANT!!!! The insurance covers it. Oh yes, I’ll do it. This is the answer to multiple issues.

By now, I’m feeling like I just had Christmas, and Santa answered my every need and want. It is true that I just inherited more chargers that will replace the ones that will be given away, but it’s a good trade-off.

My bag had three boxes in it when I left some two and a half hours later. As I walked home, I noticed the feeling of gratitude that I was feeling and took the time to honor it properly. As the gentle rain hit my umbrella, I had to focus on the path I was on. My heart was full, and as I entered my home, I was excited to try out the new gadgets. I cried when the mic put the sound into a better hearing place for me. I was calm, relaxed as the stress of listening changed from difficult to much better.

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday. It is a day when people in the US give to charities. While I do have a co-pay on this new hearing aid, it is not what I would have needed to spend had the insurance not covered things.

I have no more words for what happened today. They aren’t needed. The gratitude that I feel for what I have sitting in my ears is goon enough.

The sun set around 4:30, and I’m thankful to be in a warm house. It is time for some dinner and a relaxing evening. I need to start thinking social again. Yes, I just said I’d socialize again.

Dec 4

Reworking Narratives

Our lives unfold in ways we’d hoped, and not hoped for. The paths we walk may be scripted or unscripted, and there are times when we find out about our paths only when we go exploring to figure out the why of it all.

And so, the story of our lives unravels with the truths and the lies we tell ourselves about who we are. We act and we react, or we choose to ignore it all and do nothing, hoping that it will all go away. When it doesn’t go away, I see the person in my online office. And the narrative of their life is laid out for both of us to see.

I once asked my husband to tell me what one gift he’d give me if he could. The problem with his well-meaning gift was that it would have erased a huge part of who I am. Knowing that I am a person with disabilities is something I accept. What I wish I didn’t have to accept is the junk society saddles me with as a disabled person. And so, this is how it is with my life narrative: I accept it. I wouldn’t swallow a pill or anything else that would change it.

The paths we walk shape who and what we are. Accepting both the good and bad choices, and their outcomes in our lives, is hard. Dealing with it in therapy is hard, and the result can be powerful and liberating.

Powerful outcomes result in posts like the ones in “Discharging Trauma” or “Soul Journeys.” It’s the lightbulb happenings in “Dancing in the Sunlight” that enable people to grasp that things are worth it.

Therapy is about reworking our narratives and coming to terms with them as they are and not how we wish they were. What we can’t change is linked to our past and present. What we can change is created by the choices we make for our future lives. It is like good soup.

I don’t offer a quick fix, and I don’t want it for myself. I want to build relationships with people. I’ve found that when we dig into our lives, it gets messy, and the process of digging out of our messiness is often not pleasant. What people need in therapy are tools, listening, and understanding, and to be called out on their stuff. Therapy is not for wimps.

While turning over the blockages in our lives is hard work, the results are worth it! I’ve learned that mental health planning is a good skill to have. If I can think ahead to how I can plan for some possibilities, I may be in a better place to manage the unwanted outcomes. I accept what I can’t control. I wholeheartedly embrace what I can control.

I want to take the path of openness, and I want to be able to turn over the rocks in front of me that stand as barriers, and not the old ones that got placed in my past. I’ve looked at the rocks of the past. Forward is a much better way of doing things.

As I write this, I realize that I want to chase the fly; I take delight in the adventures that I can have. Our life paths are narratives that we can watch and create in real time. Don’t just sit by the lake: chase the fly!

May 20

Going In and Coming Out (Revisit)

Originally posted on February 28, 2023.

It is a fact that grief is unique to each of us. We go into the process thinking that there are rules, and we emerge knowing there are no rules. Nothing is certain because nothing in life is certain. As much as we may deny it, at the beginning we’re grieving because something happened that was unexpected.

After Jon left this life, I didn’t do anything major for two years. My rule was simply to not make a life-changing decision during the first year of a life crisis, and I extended that to a second year.

When the severe crying was over, my days were mostly calm, and I was moving into year three when the real changes began. I’d taken over the larger room and turned it into my space for when I would return to work. This meant sorting through things that had to go. They were his, and I didn’t need his stuff in what had to become a new space. This process has taken several years.

I decided to let things happen in a natural manner. My desire to trash things has gotten the better of me at times, and this time I’ve exercised a great deal of caution.

The big change has been sitting with the space, thinking about what I really want for it, and allowing the thoughts to come as my head let them come. It is also about making decisions that are realistic. Like a person becoming sober and clearing their head, grief—and the journey out of grief—will take us to places where our heads clear up. Think of it as grief sobriety. This doesn’t happen rapidly; it takes distance and hard work. Sometimes clearing the head takes years because we don’t have the ability to ask the correct questions in the beginning.

Doing a reclaim of the self is about time. Who was I before this relationship? How did this relationship make me a better person? What did the relationship do to me that wasn’t good for me? How is my relationship with myself affected by this event occurring in my life? Each of these questions are questions that we answer as we look long and hard into a mirror. Ultimately, we answer the questions, and this allows us to move forward.

One of the tiny things that I realized was that I’m living with chipped cups and plates. It began to bother me each time I took a cup or plate out of the cabinet. Last night, the feeling hit a fever pitch when I saw something that I liked, and for a price I loved. The thought entered my mind that I didn’t need to live with what was not pleasing me. I could replace my daily table setting with something that would make me smile. Ordering that blue set was liberating. Ordering the set triggered an insight into what I was doing in the home to make it mine. Now, with my eyes open, I was seeing clearly. I need to let myself enjoy the space I have here. I’m widowed, loving my space, and I can do what I want, when I want to do it. That is the plus side of moving forward.

The Gift of Grief

There comes a time in the process when we ask ourselves: What do I want my life to look like moving forward? This is the gift of grief, growth, and exploration.

Creating our future comes our way when we’re able to make peace with the past and move ahead with an understanding that we’ve done the deep work of our past life. We are usually older, wiser, and with the living we’ve done comes a freedom to think it through at a slower pace.

The healthy side of grief allows us to slow down and to plan an unrushed future. I think of this place as being in a condition of contentment.

Coming out of grief could mean we’ve been deeply affected by any number of life situations: death, divorce, realizing that we are LGBTQIA+, coping with a disability, experiencing traumatic events, growing up and moving out on our own, or something else. Recognizing that we’ve been in a foggy place, and now the skies are clearing up, is what coming out of grief is all about. Most people quietly leave where they were for where they are. We don’t even think that we’re glad it’s over because it’s a velvet transition.

While entering the grief space is, for the most part, traumatic, walking into the future is soothing.

If had been told at four years after the loss that I had to sit down and plan the future, I would have planned a messed-up life. At four years, I was ready to work and to learn again. I was ready to think about what I wanted beyond that point in time. For instance: I wasn’t ready to consider new tableware. I wasn’t ready to make the emotional parting: I needed time to say goodbye.

Gail’s Learning Since 2016: a Few Tips

Allow the tears to flow and the anger to do what it needs to do within yourself and avoid others who tell you that you’re on a schedule.

Don’t force something that will happen naturally. Forcing emotions that aren’t ready to surface can be distressing.

Making life decisions before the end of the first year of whatever it is you are coming out from might not be such a healthy place to go. Take the time to let your head clear.

With some types of life situations, there are things that have to be done legally, and they are on their own schedule. You might not begin to grieve until the resolution of an estate or other major happenings. You may need to sell the home, move to a new place, or do other things in a rapid manner that will affect your grief process. Cut yourself some slack. Do the essentials and work to calm things so that you can connect with your grief.

Isolation within a relationship is not healthy. Being so content that you spend time only with a partner can lead to social struggles when the relationship ends. Stay engaged with others! Healthy relationships thrive on variety and a sprinkling of others that we can engage with.

Your address book will rearrange itself. I can tell you from personal experience that some family couldn’t deal with a suicide, or a faith change, and they distanced themselves. It was the same with people who I thought were friends. Grief shows us who is able to stick around when the life waters get choppy. There are also others who show up in amazing ways. These are people who are living life in a way that allows them to join us where others can’t go.

I believe the greatest thing I’ve seen and learned as I’ve traveled this path is that rushing into anything that can be slowed down will pay off in a huge way. Rushed relationships can end sadly; rushed life changes can land us in a pickle. Saying we “won’t ever_____” may cause us to need to recant the words. Judgment can come back to bite you, and wanting it to all go away will cause you to miss out on discoveries that will make all the difference. What we think we want at the beginning isn’t what we’ll need at the end of the process. We don’t need a quick fix: it’s a thoughtful journey, this walk in the woods.

Mar 28

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I Will Walk Out of Here

I never thought I’d be spending six weeks in a wheelchair. I also never thought I’d get so good at wheeling myself around. This ability has surprised me, and I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been able to get better at it the past six weeks. I’ve learned a few things as well.

I’ve become more patient with myself. Walking is something most people do without thinking about it. Once we’ve learned to put one foot in front of the other foot, we do it automatically. If we suffer a stroke or other brain injury, then the task of learning how to walk is something that must happen again.

Learning how to not walk is another challenge; we must wheel ourselves around just to shower, to dress, and to do all things that go along with preparing for the day. I can’t walk to what I need; right now I roll to what I need, and I must think it out. So I roll to underwear, socks, and then what I want to wear. Then, once I have that secured, I can roll to shower myself, and this will take assistance.

I’ve had to learn to safely transfer from a bed to a wheelchair. Soon it will be devices such as a walker or a rolling walker that will give me more mobility, and then independent walking, putting one foot in front of the other.

Before I leave the chair, there are lessons that I’ll take with me.

I can do more than I thought I could do in this chair. I’m fairly self sufficient, and for a person with only 12% of her sight, that is pretty darn good. I can roll this thing anywhere I need to go. I’m still building arm strength. The arm that was damaged in the minor stroke that I had is coming into new strength. I’m asking why this wasn’t done at the time of the original rehab. It is happening now, and I’ll look for ways to keep the arm building up strength. Rolling is good physical therapy.

If I need something from nursing staff, I buzz, and then go into a queue. I’m becoming patient, and realizing that others here may not be as able as I am, and so I’m learning to wait. Waiting has also been motivation for me. Can I do the transfer alone? Can I do what I thought I needed someone to help me with on my own? Each success has built on a foundation of a new understanding and wiped out the fear that happened with the fall I took. I can do this! I’m doing this! With low vision I’m pulling this off. WOW-lesson learned: when you are put into situations that limit you, the human spirit chooses to crash, to rise, or to slowly trust that there is a way to rise to new highs. Fear only has a hold on us when we believe there is no way out of where we are. Hope offers ways to get to new places.

This week they’ll x-ray my leg, and I’ll be told if it’s safe to walk on the leg again. I’ll enter a new cycle of fear, learning to trust that I can put pressure on the leg in real time, and trusting the physiotherapists to not allow me to go faster then is prudent.

Physiotherapy by its nature is going to cause me pain. My mind by nature is questioning what happened, and if it will happen again. Now I know it can happen, and I’m doing the prep work to “Gail-proof” that house with some security measures. When stuff happens, we get cautious as we have thoughts about it happening again. It is why a grandparent warns children to not get too close to the edge: it isn’t that they want to deny fun to the children, but rather because they’ve lived long enough to know that unexpected things happen to all of us. We trust our bodies to be predictable when in reality they can be faulty, and when the faulty stuff happens we wind up in the ER asking why and hoping for good news. Listen to older people because they’ve seen more than you have by nature of living longer.

It is true that what I’m talking about is not wisdom. I’m talking about life experiences and general knowing.

Ultimately, we’re led to do the journeying our souls and hearts need to do. The unexpected has a way of bringing us surprises that can benefit us. My fall was a seven-week life detour, and while I haven’t enjoyed it, I’ve learned from doing it.

Last week they moved me. The room I’d been in since my arrival had a view of the tree and the window in the house across the street. The image that I saw daily looked like the perfect cover for an old Nancy Drew mystery. They’ve move me to a place further away from the tree, and now I’m looking at the employee parking lot. The movement came with other changes as well. The biggest change is that I can see how far I’ve come in six weeks. I think the huge change is the fact that I’m expressing far more gratitude for what I can do and for those who have engaged with me to bring about the change. The charge nurse on my first day here looked me in the eyes and said “YOU CAN DO THIS,” and I was annoyed by that statement. Now I’ve done much, and in the next ten days I must launch myself to new heights. I will walk again. I will walk out of here.

Mar 5

Change, One Fall at a Time

“Raise your leg.”

It is spoken easily, and yet how often do we think about the effort it takes to lift a leg? Many of us don’t give it a second thought. We do it; we move our legs, our arms, without thought. Three weeks ago, that changed for me. I fell and broke my hip. I got lucky, as my hip didn’t shatter, and the surgeon put two screws in. I still need to stay off the hip for six weeks. I’m in a rehab center.

The “How’d you do it?” phase has come and gone. Let’s face it, citing the fall is only good for so long. What is before me is six weeks of learning to sit in a wheelchair, and being confident that I will leave here walking. It is about intention, and about understanding my reality. Right now, my reality is about getting my leg to do as I need it to do six times per day. Right now, getting my leg to raise a wee bit more with each cycle is the goal and the world I live in. Listening to my body with intention is altering the way I go about things.

This place has a two-month turnaround. Friendships aren’t made here because Europeans don’t do US-style friendships. This I know, and so I don’t expect any such thing here. I expect to work hard, to build strength, and to rehab a hip. And so I will focus on that. I watch as I tell myself to raise a leg, and I watch as the leg struggles to obey. Each day a little higher, a little easier, and somewhat stronger. I marvel at what I do as I sit in a wheelchair that is locked in the center of my room, and I am becoming more secure in many things. I need to do this, and so I dive into it.

The courage to heal from pain and trauma in one’s life is a challenge that some choose to hold on to with all they have, because they understand that the only way forward is to go through it. Every time someone writes or phones a therapist, an act of courage is taking place. Saying that you need help is an intentional act.

The evening shift just came on. The transition to less-intense activities has begun: dinner, and then the evening. My work hours are coming up; many here will retire to bed and television. I’m on the younger side for this place.

I think about intentions. What will I learn tomorrow that I didn’t know today? What new low level will I need to grasp on to and raise to a new height? It’s about simple range of motion that I don’t have yet. Just like all change: raise it higher and fight the pain. I am learning, once again, to tell myself to raise the leg higher with each try! This is how change happens. One fall at a time.

Jul 3

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The Hard Things