January 6, 2023 • 24 mins
Losing a spouse or other loved one can result in a range of emotions including despair, sorrow and anger. And those feelings can last longer than you might expect. Dr. Saltz advises a listener who recently lost her father—and is worried about the profound grief of her mother.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Bees are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. Grief and its effects
can last anywhere from a few months to forever, and
typically somewhere in between. Many contributing factors can determine how
you'll do when it comes to grieving the loss of
(00:48):
your spouse. Some of those things can include the type
of relationship that you had with them, how close you were, whether,
for example, they were the center of universe, or if
you led a relatively independent life with different interests and
different friendships. So today I'm answering a question from a
(01:12):
listener who has lost her father, but who was especially
worried about her mother's grief. Many widowed spouses want to
know how long does grief last after the death of
a person, and unfortunately, there isn't any formula to pinpoint
when your grief ends. What you can expect is that
(01:34):
your emotional well being will take a toll in the
immediate weeks and months following their death, and as you
learn to cope with their absence and all of the
other changes taking place as a result of their death.
When you learn of your spouse's death, you may have
already been expecting them to die due to a long
(01:56):
illness or a disease, but some times the news can
come unexpectedly and it's shocking to learn that they've died.
Either one of these scenarios can contribute to a period
of deep sorrow and mourning that can last for several months.
(02:17):
Most people will begin to experience a lifting of their
pain and sorrow somewhere around the one year mark, but
others may not see a change in their level of
mourning for a few years after their spouse has died.
Grief can last a few months, and you can expect
(02:38):
it to create an up and down, a roller coaster
of emotions where you might go back and forth in
sorrow and despair and then feeling somewhat better. The stages
of grief for a surviving spouse are similar for all
stages of grief that were originally described by Dr. Kubler Ross.
(03:02):
They can fluctuate from person to person depending on the
person's personality and ability to cope with loss, among other things.
But the five stages of grief as described by Kubler
Ross are known as first denial. So after first hearing
the news of your spouse's death, one of the first
(03:22):
stages is shocked and disbelief. This can happen even when
you are expecting your spouse to die because of an
illness or disease, and it can take weeks for you
to really grasp the fact that your husband or wife
has died. In about a month or two months, you
(03:46):
may begin to shift from shock and disbelief to the
next phase, which is often anger. Although the stages of
grieving tend to be nonlinear and can happen in any
order and at any time, and even go back and forth.
Mostly denial gives way to anger. You find yourself angry
(04:10):
at the world, the doctors, the medical staff, maybe even yourself,
or maybe even the spouse you've lost, for not doing
more to prevent their death. You might start blaming yourself
for not keeping your spouse from dying, and you may
find yourself angry at your spouse for having died. At
(04:35):
some point, anger dissipates and gives way to the stage
of bargaining. Making imaginary deals and bargains on things that
you know aren't possible is often part of grieving. Sometimes
it can be hard to accept that your loved one
has died, and except that their death is real or final,
(04:59):
you might find yourself asking a higher power to bring
your spouse back to you, and you make promises in
exchange for that you'll be a better person, you'll be
a better spouse, you'll be more devoted. But of course,
no amount of bargaining can bring your spouse back to life.
When you're grieving, rational thinking often temporarily leaves you, and
(05:25):
you can come to believe that if you push and
believe hard enough for things to be different, that somehow
you can bring them back. This is actually a type
of delusional thinking, and so it doesn't stay with you.
It's a part of the grief that does tend to
make way for the reality of the finality of their death.
(05:48):
It can take you weeks to realize that your spouse
in fact is not coming back, but eventually, when you
do accept it, you might move on to depression, falling
into depression after a spouse's death can be one of
the longest stages of grief. It can take you weeks
(06:10):
or months to realize that your sorrow has turned into
a profound and chronic sadness that's not lifting. Grief related
sadness can come and go. One moment, you feel like
you don't have the will to live without your spouse,
but in another moment, you might feel that something actually
(06:32):
is coming along and cheering you up. For a period
of time and feeling this way is a normal part
of the grieving process, and it is not a reason
to be concerned. When you find that your sorrow is
constant and doesn't ease up, then it is important to
talk to people about what's happening, about what you're feeling,
(06:55):
so that others can also help keep an eye on you.
Some times, there is a fine line between sadness and
depression that can last for years after a spouse dies,
but most people do move on to acceptance, the final stage.
(07:16):
It doesn't mean that once you accept that your spouse
has died that your grief ends. You can still feel sad,
maybe even depressed sometimes and even angry. After you've accepted
that things are the way they are, but this stage
of acceptance is often the stage for the rest of
your life. There is no timeline for grieving, though each
(07:39):
of the stages that I mentioned can come for weeks,
they can come for years. They can, as I said,
go back and forth. You can experience some of them altogether,
or you might experience or not have one of them
at all. Prepare yourself for whatever your experience ends might
(08:00):
be by understanding that it is temporary whatever you are feeling,
because eventually most everyone does start to feel better, even
though some of the sadness can linger for years. There
are other forms of grief, prolonged grief, which can last longer.
(08:23):
Standard grief last usually, as I said, up to about
a year. It is typical grief with no unusual complications happening.
Things such as your relationship to the deceased person, your
past experiences, and unresolved traumas, however, can cause your grief
(08:45):
to extend far beyond this initial period of a year,
and we call that prolonged grief. If that happens, it
can be important to talk to someone about what is
going on and why. In fact, you have unresolved issues
that might be prolonging your grief, and then there is
(09:07):
complicated grief. When grief is both prolonged and left untreated,
it can turn into complicated grief. It means that things
aren't so cut and dry or simple to work through.
It can include, for example, past physical, emotional, or psychological
(09:28):
abuse that has not healed for you before the person
that was responsible for it died. Not being able to
confront or otherwise get closure to this type of trauma
can complicate how you grieve and how long your grief lasts.
There is hope for healing despite the profound sense of
(09:50):
sorrow and despair that you might feel, and talking again
to a therapist or other mental health professional can help
you recognize what this complicated grief is about and help
you heal. In talking about the stages and the different
types of grief, one thing to keep in mind is
(10:11):
that people oscillate up and down with different frequencies and
different intensities until we ultimately reach a level of emotional adjustment,
and that can vary from person to person. So with that,
right after the break, we'll get to my listeners question.
(10:42):
Welcome back. Let's get to my listeners question and see
how can I help. Dear doctor Saults, I am writing
you about my mom and her profound grief that she
is continuing to experience from the loss of my dad,
her house been of sixty eight years. About three months ago,
(11:04):
we lost my dad. His death was extremely sudden and
without warning. My mom is struggling each and every day
trying to deal with him no longer being with her.
She is heartbroken as their love was so deep and connected.
They did just about everything together. She is grieving deeply
(11:27):
and needs help on how to move on with her life.
As she tries to heal with each day, there seems
to be no improvement. She cries all the time as
she misses him every minute of every day. She just
wants him back. She knows that this is not possible,
(11:48):
but does not know how to deal with the loss.
He was the love of her life and life makes
no sense to her without him by her side. We
understand you have a private practice on the East Coast
and so wish you were here in Hawaii, but since
you cannot be here, we would so appreciate your advice
as to what type of personal therapist or help she
(12:11):
should look for. Also, any advice whatsoever that you personally
can offer to her that would be of help. Finally,
any advice for me to not only help my mom
as her daughter, but also help me as my dad's daughter.
We are both just so overwhelmed. I am so very
(12:35):
sorry for both you and your mother's loss. I think
it is important to understand that three months is actually
not that much time in the grieving process, and so
in many ways it is really understandable that your mother
is still at such a loss, so deeply aggrieved, and
(12:57):
that you would be too. But both of you are really,
in many ways still early in the stages of grief.
A sudden and unexpected loss is in some ways more
difficult than an expected one in that neither of you,
your mom nor you had gotten to do any pre
(13:18):
grieving for the loss, any knowledge that this was coming,
and already thinking about letting him go that was about
to come, which means often there is a period of shock,
one where one has difficulty even acknowledging that the loss
has happened, and that can in a way delay the
(13:41):
beginning of grieving. Even more so, couples like your parents,
where their marriage was really good and the love was
deep and sustained do suffer often more the loss of
the other. In fact, they think of themselves as only
only half of a team, and without their teammate for life,
(14:05):
they can feel lost, for wrath, anguishingly lonely. In this sense,
your mother's reaction is not abnormal nor unusual for the
kind of relationship she enjoyed for many decades. Her task
ahead is to both mourn the loss of her partner
(14:27):
and also, and difficultly, to find a way to think
of herself as a whole on her own. In other words,
she is grieving the loss of her husband as well
as her role as his wife. Unfortunately, this does take time,
(14:51):
and in the time that it requires processing and in
a way, a lot of psychological work. It's hard to
do that work while you are depressed and distraught. There
are ways to get help, and in this instance I
would recommend them. One is, as you suggest, seeing a therapist.
(15:16):
While grief is not really a psychiatric illness, it can
look a lot like one, with all the signs and
symptoms of clinical depression. I would recommend finding a psychologist
who specifically says that they treat grief and loss, because frankly,
(15:37):
not everybody does. Someone skilled in psychotherapy, either the psychodynamic
type or also, okay in appropriate, the cognitive behavioral model,
but who is specifically experienced in treating loss. Another suggestion
is your mom going to a support group for bereaved widows.
(16:02):
These are often led by a professional but have other
women in them who are also having a hard time
dealing with the loss of their partner. Because being with
talking to and listening to other women in the same
situation can be of special benefit to your mom, because
(16:23):
feeling really understood can help her to feel less isolated
and lonely. It's hard to keep telling people around you
that you are unbearably sad, especially your daughter who is
also sad, but even more so telling friends. Saying so
(16:45):
to others who feel the same way, however, is much
more doable, and one can feel supported by them as well. Last,
but not least, if your mom is having trouble eating, sleeping,
having any times of day that she is not weepy, morose, hopeless,
(17:07):
helpless thinking about her own death, then even though this
is due to grief, taking an antidepressant can help lift
the darkest part of what has become depression. Even though
the trigger is grief, she will still be very sad,
but it can help lift the very bottom of her mood.
(17:30):
By lifting the bottom, you allow her to engage more
cognitively with the thought process of grief and do the
psychological work that she needs to to be able to
accept this laws and eventually feel less sad on her own.
She will always have some sadness in this huge loss,
(17:53):
but she can also find some other joys in life,
allowing her to continue on in a way that makes
her life more fulfilling again. Now to you, you have
also had a big loss. The loss of a parent
is huge and takes time to grieve as well and
(18:15):
to process. You cannot be the sole caregiver for your
mom as you try to manage your own laws, which
is why it is important to help her find professionals
and make initial appointments, but then also allow yourself to
step back and take part in the other parts of
(18:36):
your life. If you are struggling, it may also help
you to find a therapist to talk this through with.
Make sure you also get enough sleep, talk with your
friends and other family members. Engage in things that you
have enjoyed doing, and it often helps to exercise regularly,
(19:00):
remembering and celebrating the positive memories you have had with
your dad and being able to talk about those with
your mom will likely help both of you. I hope
that was helpful. Men and women share many of the
same feelings when a spouse dies. Both may deal with
(19:22):
the pain of loss, and both may worry about the future,
but there can be differences because many married couples do
divide up their household tasks. One person may pay bills
and handle car repairs. Yeah, there might do more of
the cooking of meals and other sorts of jobs in
the house. Splitting up jobs can work well until there
(19:46):
was only one person who has to do it all.
So part of the difficulty in grieving is actually managing
new tasks from chores to household repairs to finances. Give
yourself the time to do this, but you will have
to do it, and being alone can also raise other concerns,
(20:10):
like about safety. So setting up a safe environment at
home with your locks on doors and windows, and you
can ask family and friends to help you set this
up and make sure that you do feel safe in
many ways. For people who have long term been married,
(20:31):
a life without a husband or wife can feel scary,
and for people who have never lived alone, it can
feel even scarier. You can talk with your doctor about
how you're feeling, about how you can contain and manage
these scary feelings. It can be upsetting to be alone.
(20:53):
People find that it helps to do things every day
when they are dealing with this kind of fear. So
that might be talking with a friend, going out to volunteer,
trying a new exercise class, joining a bowling league, babysitting
(21:13):
your grandchildren, even adopting a pet to keep you company.
These sorts of things, talking with people even online, can
help you feel more connected and less afraid. Then do
the important things that everybody should do, even if they're
(21:33):
not older. Make sure that you have your advanced care
planning set, You have your will set, look into powers
of attorneys should you become incapacitated. Taking care of these
things before you're sick or you were even thinking about
death is the right time to take care of and
(21:55):
do these things so that you know you have taken
care of important obligations. When you're ready, that's when you
go through your husband's or wife's clothes or personal items.
It can be very hard to give these things away,
and I would suggest that you say to yourself you
(22:16):
don't have to do everything at once. You can say
I can handle this much and do this much, but
not the rest for now. Maybe you make different piles,
one to keep, one to give away, and one to
I'm not sure yet, and you can ask your children
to help you with this, and to think about setting
(22:37):
aside something special, a special watch or piece of jewelry,
or a favorite book or a picture that people might
in the family want to keep as reminders of this
beloved person who has past. Making a social life on
your own can be tough after losing your spouse. It's
(22:58):
hard to think about going to parties or social events
that you always went to together and now going on
your own and coming home alone. You might be nervous
about this because it's different, it's new, and so it
is important not to retreat, not to not do these things,
(23:20):
but to one at a time, pluck them off and
push yourself to go do it and see that you
can and that it actually is manageable. Go at a
comfortable pace, don't rush yourself, make the first move. Plan
something that you want to do and do. Accept invitations
(23:42):
from friends to a dinner, to an outing, to a
picnic and then find an activity you like and think
it's fun and ask a person to join you. This
is how you build more meaningful relationships with friends and
other family members that will help fill up life and
(24:03):
make it more comfortable for you after you've lost someone.
Do you have a problem I can help with? If so,
email me yet. How can I help? At Seneca women
dot com, all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too.
How can I help with me? Doctor Gail's Salts
Bees are challenging times, but you don't have to navigate
them alone. Welcome to how can I Help? I'm Dr
Gail Saltz. I'm a clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a psychoanalyst, and best selling author,
and I'm here every week to answer your most pressing questions,
(00:26):
hopefully with understanding, insight and advice. Grief and its effects
can last anywhere from a few months to forever, and
typically somewhere in between. Many contributing factors can determine how
you'll do when it comes to grieving the loss of
(00:48):
your spouse. Some of those things can include the type
of relationship that you had with them, how close you were, whether,
for example, they were the center of universe, or if
you led a relatively independent life with different interests and
different friendships. So today I'm answering a question from a
(01:12):
listener who has lost her father, but who was especially
worried about her mother's grief. Many widowed spouses want to
know how long does grief last after the death of
a person, and unfortunately, there isn't any formula to pinpoint
when your grief ends. What you can expect is that
(01:34):
your emotional well being will take a toll in the
immediate weeks and months following their death, and as you
learn to cope with their absence and all of the
other changes taking place as a result of their death.
When you learn of your spouse's death, you may have
already been expecting them to die due to a long
(01:56):
illness or a disease, but some times the news can
come unexpectedly and it's shocking to learn that they've died.
Either one of these scenarios can contribute to a period
of deep sorrow and mourning that can last for several months.
(02:17):
Most people will begin to experience a lifting of their
pain and sorrow somewhere around the one year mark, but
others may not see a change in their level of
mourning for a few years after their spouse has died.
Grief can last a few months, and you can expect
(02:38):
it to create an up and down, a roller coaster
of emotions where you might go back and forth in
sorrow and despair and then feeling somewhat better. The stages
of grief for a surviving spouse are similar for all
stages of grief that were originally described by Dr. Kubler Ross.
(03:02):
They can fluctuate from person to person depending on the
person's personality and ability to cope with loss, among other things.
But the five stages of grief as described by Kubler
Ross are known as first denial. So after first hearing
the news of your spouse's death, one of the first
(03:22):
stages is shocked and disbelief. This can happen even when
you are expecting your spouse to die because of an
illness or disease, and it can take weeks for you
to really grasp the fact that your husband or wife
has died. In about a month or two months, you
(03:46):
may begin to shift from shock and disbelief to the
next phase, which is often anger. Although the stages of
grieving tend to be nonlinear and can happen in any
order and at any time, and even go back and forth.
Mostly denial gives way to anger. You find yourself angry
(04:10):
at the world, the doctors, the medical staff, maybe even yourself,
or maybe even the spouse you've lost, for not doing
more to prevent their death. You might start blaming yourself
for not keeping your spouse from dying, and you may
find yourself angry at your spouse for having died. At
(04:35):
some point, anger dissipates and gives way to the stage
of bargaining. Making imaginary deals and bargains on things that
you know aren't possible is often part of grieving. Sometimes
it can be hard to accept that your loved one
has died, and except that their death is real or final,
(04:59):
you might find yourself asking a higher power to bring
your spouse back to you, and you make promises in
exchange for that you'll be a better person, you'll be
a better spouse, you'll be more devoted. But of course,
no amount of bargaining can bring your spouse back to life.
When you're grieving, rational thinking often temporarily leaves you, and
(05:25):
you can come to believe that if you push and
believe hard enough for things to be different, that somehow
you can bring them back. This is actually a type
of delusional thinking, and so it doesn't stay with you.
It's a part of the grief that does tend to
make way for the reality of the finality of their death.
(05:48):
It can take you weeks to realize that your spouse
in fact is not coming back, but eventually, when you
do accept it, you might move on to depression, falling
into depression after a spouse's death can be one of
the longest stages of grief. It can take you weeks
(06:10):
or months to realize that your sorrow has turned into
a profound and chronic sadness that's not lifting. Grief related
sadness can come and go. One moment, you feel like
you don't have the will to live without your spouse,
but in another moment, you might feel that something actually
(06:32):
is coming along and cheering you up. For a period
of time and feeling this way is a normal part
of the grieving process, and it is not a reason
to be concerned. When you find that your sorrow is
constant and doesn't ease up, then it is important to
talk to people about what's happening, about what you're feeling,
(06:55):
so that others can also help keep an eye on you.
Some times, there is a fine line between sadness and
depression that can last for years after a spouse dies,
but most people do move on to acceptance, the final stage.
(07:16):
It doesn't mean that once you accept that your spouse
has died that your grief ends. You can still feel sad,
maybe even depressed sometimes and even angry. After you've accepted
that things are the way they are, but this stage
of acceptance is often the stage for the rest of
your life. There is no timeline for grieving, though each
(07:39):
of the stages that I mentioned can come for weeks,
they can come for years. They can, as I said,
go back and forth. You can experience some of them altogether,
or you might experience or not have one of them
at all. Prepare yourself for whatever your experience ends might
(08:00):
be by understanding that it is temporary whatever you are feeling,
because eventually most everyone does start to feel better, even
though some of the sadness can linger for years. There
are other forms of grief, prolonged grief, which can last longer.
(08:23):
Standard grief last usually, as I said, up to about
a year. It is typical grief with no unusual complications happening.
Things such as your relationship to the deceased person, your
past experiences, and unresolved traumas, however, can cause your grief
(08:45):
to extend far beyond this initial period of a year,
and we call that prolonged grief. If that happens, it
can be important to talk to someone about what is
going on and why. In fact, you have unresolved issues
that might be prolonging your grief, and then there is
(09:07):
complicated grief. When grief is both prolonged and left untreated,
it can turn into complicated grief. It means that things
aren't so cut and dry or simple to work through.
It can include, for example, past physical, emotional, or psychological
(09:28):
abuse that has not healed for you before the person
that was responsible for it died. Not being able to
confront or otherwise get closure to this type of trauma
can complicate how you grieve and how long your grief lasts.
There is hope for healing despite the profound sense of
(09:50):
sorrow and despair that you might feel, and talking again
to a therapist or other mental health professional can help
you recognize what this complicated grief is about and help
you heal. In talking about the stages and the different
types of grief, one thing to keep in mind is
(10:11):
that people oscillate up and down with different frequencies and
different intensities until we ultimately reach a level of emotional adjustment,
and that can vary from person to person. So with that,
right after the break, we'll get to my listeners question.
(10:42):
Welcome back. Let's get to my listeners question and see
how can I help. Dear doctor Saults, I am writing
you about my mom and her profound grief that she
is continuing to experience from the loss of my dad,
her house been of sixty eight years. About three months ago,
(11:04):
we lost my dad. His death was extremely sudden and
without warning. My mom is struggling each and every day
trying to deal with him no longer being with her.
She is heartbroken as their love was so deep and connected.
They did just about everything together. She is grieving deeply
(11:27):
and needs help on how to move on with her life.
As she tries to heal with each day, there seems
to be no improvement. She cries all the time as
she misses him every minute of every day. She just
wants him back. She knows that this is not possible,
(11:48):
but does not know how to deal with the loss.
He was the love of her life and life makes
no sense to her without him by her side. We
understand you have a private practice on the East Coast
and so wish you were here in Hawaii, but since
you cannot be here, we would so appreciate your advice
as to what type of personal therapist or help she
(12:11):
should look for. Also, any advice whatsoever that you personally
can offer to her that would be of help. Finally,
any advice for me to not only help my mom
as her daughter, but also help me as my dad's daughter.
We are both just so overwhelmed. I am so very
(12:35):
sorry for both you and your mother's loss. I think
it is important to understand that three months is actually
not that much time in the grieving process, and so
in many ways it is really understandable that your mother
is still at such a loss, so deeply aggrieved, and
(12:57):
that you would be too. But both of you are really,
in many ways still early in the stages of grief.
A sudden and unexpected loss is in some ways more
difficult than an expected one in that neither of you,
your mom nor you had gotten to do any pre
(13:18):
grieving for the loss, any knowledge that this was coming,
and already thinking about letting him go that was about
to come, which means often there is a period of shock,
one where one has difficulty even acknowledging that the loss
has happened, and that can in a way delay the
(13:41):
beginning of grieving. Even more so, couples like your parents,
where their marriage was really good and the love was
deep and sustained do suffer often more the loss of
the other. In fact, they think of themselves as only
only half of a team, and without their teammate for life,
(14:05):
they can feel lost, for wrath, anguishingly lonely. In this sense,
your mother's reaction is not abnormal nor unusual for the
kind of relationship she enjoyed for many decades. Her task
ahead is to both mourn the loss of her partner
(14:27):
and also, and difficultly, to find a way to think
of herself as a whole on her own. In other words,
she is grieving the loss of her husband as well
as her role as his wife. Unfortunately, this does take time,
(14:51):
and in the time that it requires processing and in
a way, a lot of psychological work. It's hard to
do that work while you are depressed and distraught. There
are ways to get help, and in this instance I
would recommend them. One is, as you suggest, seeing a therapist.
(15:16):
While grief is not really a psychiatric illness, it can
look a lot like one, with all the signs and
symptoms of clinical depression. I would recommend finding a psychologist
who specifically says that they treat grief and loss, because frankly,
(15:37):
not everybody does. Someone skilled in psychotherapy, either the psychodynamic
type or also, okay in appropriate, the cognitive behavioral model,
but who is specifically experienced in treating loss. Another suggestion
is your mom going to a support group for bereaved widows.
(16:02):
These are often led by a professional but have other
women in them who are also having a hard time
dealing with the loss of their partner. Because being with
talking to and listening to other women in the same
situation can be of special benefit to your mom, because
(16:23):
feeling really understood can help her to feel less isolated
and lonely. It's hard to keep telling people around you
that you are unbearably sad, especially your daughter who is
also sad, but even more so telling friends. Saying so
(16:45):
to others who feel the same way, however, is much
more doable, and one can feel supported by them as well. Last,
but not least, if your mom is having trouble eating, sleeping,
having any times of day that she is not weepy, morose, hopeless,
(17:07):
helpless thinking about her own death, then even though this
is due to grief, taking an antidepressant can help lift
the darkest part of what has become depression. Even though
the trigger is grief, she will still be very sad,
but it can help lift the very bottom of her mood.
(17:30):
By lifting the bottom, you allow her to engage more
cognitively with the thought process of grief and do the
psychological work that she needs to to be able to
accept this laws and eventually feel less sad on her own.
She will always have some sadness in this huge loss,
(17:53):
but she can also find some other joys in life,
allowing her to continue on in a way that makes
her life more fulfilling again. Now to you, you have
also had a big loss. The loss of a parent
is huge and takes time to grieve as well and
(18:15):
to process. You cannot be the sole caregiver for your
mom as you try to manage your own laws, which
is why it is important to help her find professionals
and make initial appointments, but then also allow yourself to
step back and take part in the other parts of
(18:36):
your life. If you are struggling, it may also help
you to find a therapist to talk this through with.
Make sure you also get enough sleep, talk with your
friends and other family members. Engage in things that you
have enjoyed doing, and it often helps to exercise regularly,
(19:00):
remembering and celebrating the positive memories you have had with
your dad and being able to talk about those with
your mom will likely help both of you. I hope
that was helpful. Men and women share many of the
same feelings when a spouse dies. Both may deal with
(19:22):
the pain of loss, and both may worry about the future,
but there can be differences because many married couples do
divide up their household tasks. One person may pay bills
and handle car repairs. Yeah, there might do more of
the cooking of meals and other sorts of jobs in
the house. Splitting up jobs can work well until there
(19:46):
was only one person who has to do it all.
So part of the difficulty in grieving is actually managing
new tasks from chores to household repairs to finances. Give
yourself the time to do this, but you will have
to do it, and being alone can also raise other concerns,
(20:10):
like about safety. So setting up a safe environment at
home with your locks on doors and windows, and you
can ask family and friends to help you set this
up and make sure that you do feel safe in
many ways. For people who have long term been married,
(20:31):
a life without a husband or wife can feel scary,
and for people who have never lived alone, it can
feel even scarier. You can talk with your doctor about
how you're feeling, about how you can contain and manage
these scary feelings. It can be upsetting to be alone.
(20:53):
People find that it helps to do things every day
when they are dealing with this kind of fear. So
that might be talking with a friend, going out to volunteer,
trying a new exercise class, joining a bowling league, babysitting
(21:13):
your grandchildren, even adopting a pet to keep you company.
These sorts of things, talking with people even online, can
help you feel more connected and less afraid. Then do
the important things that everybody should do, even if they're
(21:33):
not older. Make sure that you have your advanced care
planning set, You have your will set, look into powers
of attorneys should you become incapacitated. Taking care of these
things before you're sick or you were even thinking about
death is the right time to take care of and
(21:55):
do these things so that you know you have taken
care of important obligations. When you're ready, that's when you
go through your husband's or wife's clothes or personal items.
It can be very hard to give these things away,
and I would suggest that you say to yourself you
(22:16):
don't have to do everything at once. You can say
I can handle this much and do this much, but
not the rest for now. Maybe you make different piles,
one to keep, one to give away, and one to
I'm not sure yet, and you can ask your children
to help you with this, and to think about setting
(22:37):
aside something special, a special watch or piece of jewelry,
or a favorite book or a picture that people might
in the family want to keep as reminders of this
beloved person who has past. Making a social life on
your own can be tough after losing your spouse. It's
(22:58):
hard to think about going to parties or social events
that you always went to together and now going on
your own and coming home alone. You might be nervous
about this because it's different, it's new, and so it
is important not to retreat, not to not do these things,
(23:20):
but to one at a time, pluck them off and
push yourself to go do it and see that you
can and that it actually is manageable. Go at a
comfortable pace, don't rush yourself, make the first move. Plan
something that you want to do and do. Accept invitations
(23:42):
from friends to a dinner, to an outing, to a
picnic and then find an activity you like and think
it's fun and ask a person to join you. This
is how you build more meaningful relationships with friends and
other family members that will help fill up life and
(24:03):
make it more comfortable for you after you've lost someone.
Do you have a problem I can help with? If so,
email me yet. How can I help? At Seneca women
dot com, all centers remain anonymous and listen every Friday too.
How can I help with me? Doctor Gail's Salts
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