September 19, 2023 • 58 mins
Grief as a result of the loss of a child, sibling, parent or partner is one of the underestimated sources of Childhood trauma. In reflection on everyday news of violence, natural disasters, car accidents and terminal illnesses, we are discussing how bereavement turns into complicated grief and what helpful strategies to use to adapt to the new reality of a world without loved ones. Join trauma therapists Barb Smith Varclova and Danijela Mrdak in this conversation about what bereavement means to different members of the family and how to recognise and prevent the development of trauma responses.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Thank you for inviting me to this new episode.
(00:01):
I'm very excited to share new
tips and advice with our listeners.
And today's topic is actually very serious and very sad
because it's about the loss and grief because of the
(00:23):
importance of a person that we loved and we lost.
And grief is a very private and individual
thing and everybody grieves differently in different pace.
And in our previous episode we discussed about
shooting at school and mass murders of kids.
(00:47):
So I would love to say that one of the
greatest, the most painful experiences and losses that anyone could
experience is the loss, the death of a child.
And anytime you grieve a loved one, it is going
to have an impact because it is not just about
(01:10):
that person who was lost on that day.
Actually there is something called the trickle
down effect throughout the whole family tree.
So every member of the family is affected by the
death of a loved one, death in the family.
And after losing a child, parents get
(01:33):
stuck in that moment of death because
they don't allow themselves any memories.
They feel this tremendous irrational blank because
they feel that they should have protected
their child and they feel the guilt
(01:53):
that cripples them, makes them feel trapped.
And parents often are very focused on the day the
child died and they're not able to focus on the
good days, on the positive aspects of that child's life
(02:17):
because they don't allow themselves to remember the birthdays, the
celebration of holidays and when their child learned to speak
or walk or ride a bike.
They don't allow themselves to be happy,
to smile because they feel that it
was their duty to protect their child.
(02:40):
When I spoke to one grieving mother that lost a daughter,
she has told me that she feels so stuck in this
grieving process that she's not able to take care of her
other children and the whole family is impacted.
And this woman told me when my child died,
(03:04):
the part of me has gone and she said
I didn't know I can miss someone that much.
She also said my daughter was my world because she was meaning
me and I don't know how to move on, she said.
And the saddest thing that she said was that she didn't get
(03:26):
to say goodbye and she didn't get to say how much love her.
So I tried to help her by telling her
that she should spend the rest of her life
celebrating her daughter's life and that she shouldn't allow
(03:47):
forgotten by her death because you could never foresee
something so horrible like the death of your child.
Like that your child is going to be stabbed at
school or shot at school or maybe killed in a
car accident or kidnapped because parents mind can never go
(04:09):
there, can never imagine that kind of painful scenario.
And the parents need to realize that
they cannot prevent what they cannot predict.
When I spoke to this mother, I've also told her
that she should focus on what would her daughter want
(04:31):
and what would she say if she was here.
I've told her to imagine that in
front of her is an empty chair.
There is her precious little girl sitting there.
And I've told her to close her eyes and to focus
on the feelings and everything she wants to tell her and
(04:53):
that she can say goodbye, that she can say how much
she loves her, how much this daughter meant to her.
And this was very helpful for her because I said, what
would your daughter say if she could speak to you now?
Would she say, mother, I want you to suffer for the rest
(05:13):
of your life because you didn't get to tell me how much
you love me or you didn't get to say goodbye to me.
And I've told her that it would be a
double tragedy in the family if she as a
mother would neglect the other children and if she
would be totally dysfunctional adults and use and abuse
(05:34):
drugs or alcohol or overdose with medications.
One day I've told her that to
accept and recover from this loss.
Now, Barb, I would love to
hear your thoughts about this topic.
(05:55):
Yeah, I think that loss of child, as you
said, is the most painful thing which can happen
to the parents and especially if they cannot prepare
themselves for it and even then it is.
But I think that what we see in that is that
lack of community, which used to be when people live more
(06:17):
connected as the families or community because their parents need the
pain for them to process that loss, but also the children,
the siblings needs to work through that.
They also lost a child sibling is it,
they lost also a member of the family.
And I think that that's very often overlooked how the
(06:39):
children are reacting on the loss of their siblings.
And it's very often say you didn't love them
so much as I do love them or it
wasn't your child, so you don't suffer so much.
But that's actually not true.
They suffer also and also because for them,
that's devil thing that they see that parents
(07:00):
suffer, they don't want them to suffer.
And very often there is no pay any attention
to their needs and their emotional needs to process.
That was the more community like, there would be
somebody else, it would be grandparents or it would
be some auntie or uncle or somebody in community
(07:22):
who would take care more about children to elevate
that pressure on the parents.
So children will get that comfort they needed but also
care they needed to give the parents the time to
recover and let them to learn live with that loss.
(07:44):
And now when everything often depending just on the
parents that is lacking of that community support then
we often see two extremes as you mentioned.
One is that parents withdraw themselves quite almost completely
from the care of the other children or partner
(08:07):
and close themselves and very often can end up
in some unhealthy behaviors and coping mechanisms.
Or that other extreme is like suppressing that grief
completely and focusing only on that daily life.
(08:29):
Keep going, keep going.
And forgoting to process that loss.
And that's usually coming later in life.
And it's bounced back.
And issue is that very often
they come to that numbness.
They come to that like suppressing that emotions.
And so they keep going, keep working, keep caring.
(08:52):
Like physically giving the food on
the table and wash the clothes.
And take children to the school but they
often change their relationship become very colder or
third possibility that they become very obsessive with
the care about their children, about their safety
and that's to some level natural reaction.
(09:15):
Of course they don't want to lose it other ones
but again it can have very negative effect on the
children, the surviving children that they feel like they are
imprisoned and feel that they not supported and be independent
and build up their strength stuff like that.
So it's kind of overbearing of the parents.
(09:36):
So it's loss of the child especially and
traumatic and violent loss of the child.
It's a huge effect on whole family and there is
also very understatement about loss of the
grandparents often they're expected that they would be the one
(10:04):
who step up to the care and is not really
much giving the time and space and actually that what
they also need that they lost a grandchild because that
child has many relations.
They have siblings have parents, grandparents,
uncles and aunties that everybody grieving,
(10:26):
everybody grieving in different way.
Of course we expecting that the parents have the
most significant reaction to it but very often when
would have the close relationship for example auntie with
the niece or something will be affected with same
way because if that organ grandparents when they feeling
(10:52):
that loss of that future of the family.
So I think that it's really important to realize
that grieving is the process and we can speak
about five, four or seven stages of the grief
it's depending on which psychologist we will take in.
But they all kind of agree on that that the
(11:15):
first thing is kind of numbness denial and that's natural
because it is the way of protecting us from overwhelming
feeling of that too much pain coming on.
So that first kind of numbness or deny of
helping us to process it's not just about deny
(11:39):
that it happened, but it's about that ability to
actually start to accepting it without that enormous overwhelming
feelings which we can see sometimes in the reaction
of the parents when they really losing the mind.
We would say really losing that, coping with
that overwhelming, painful emotions of the loss.
(12:04):
I think that what you suggested to
that grieving mother was really good.
Because it's about that realization
that the child is gone.
But we have to focus on passing away what
was good, what time, be grateful for time we
(12:25):
have with that child and what is the future.
Because the loss really is about grieving the future.
And because we are not having
that opportunities with that child anymore.
We will not see them grow.
We will not see them graduate,
have wedding, have first child.
(12:49):
But it's opposite way.
Same way it's for the children.
If they lost a parent then that grieving process
of children who lost a parent it's very long
term because it's kind of resurfacing every time and
it's some significant event in their life and they
realizing that the parent will not be there, they
(13:11):
will not be part of that future.
So it's definitely very serious matter but it's important
to realize that that is the part of the
life and we need to learn to move forward
(13:33):
and realize that we are always connected that just
because somebody died we didn't absolutely lost that connection.
That connection existing still that love
we have for them didn't disappear.
That wasn't just taken away because we know that
(13:56):
the bond has even mother with the unborn children.
Of course it's a part of the family already
and it's really important to give people space to
grieve and time and try to help them to
move forward, not get stuck in that grieving process.
(14:23):
And as you nicely explained the role of the community,
of family members of neighbors of the closest family is
very important and even people or parents in these moments
(14:45):
that they don't believe in God and but we should
as a community encourage them to go back to church
to reinforce this power of prayer, spiritual life.
(15:06):
It is very important to have therapists to explain to
people that to our clients that we will never be
able to take the pain away of losing a child.
We can only help them go through this process of
adjustment because they have to adjust and go to advanced
(15:28):
level from denial to anger, sadness and they need to
go through all the stages of grief and loss.
And it's very important that they don't isolate themselves
and especially because their heart is ripped out.
And if they see someone at the grocery on the street,
(15:51):
a neighbor, a friend who is offering to come and help
them and sit with them and cry, they should let them
if they offer to come and fix your dinner, they should
let them let people come to you and help you.
If people offer to come over and watch your
kids let them because they know that this pain
(16:12):
isn't gone, it's always going to be there.
But when we accept the loss, we finally
are able to move on with grief.
We are never going to move on without the
grief and the pain of losing a loved one.
Also, it is very important to give this pain a voice and
(16:34):
get it out and encourage the children to do as well.
Because it is really important that children don't
go back to their room because they're scared,
they don't want to say something to hurt
their mommy or daddy and upset them.
And if everyone is isolated and grieving alone, it
(16:59):
is more harder for everyone to overcome this.
They should share this pain and this grief, divide
it and isolate themselves and separately go through this.
Because parents are the biggest teachers that we have and
when they experience the loss of a family member, they
(17:23):
should give their children a lesson how to grieve and
how to accept the loss of a loved one.
So if we need to teach the children in these situations that
when we lose the people we love, we do cry, we do
feel hurt and we do get past it, we do move on.
(17:48):
But we move on eventually with pain.
And we accept that now we have new reality,
reality without this loved one, we have new circumstances
and we have to move on also.
It is very important to say that sometimes when
(18:13):
people experience a loss of spouse or a partner,
some people are married in six months, some people
are completely different, they have completely different attitude, they
don't get married for ten years or if ever.
So everybody grieves differently.
That doesn't mean that they don't grieve the
(18:34):
loss, that just means that they're accepting it
differently depending on their age, their past trauma,
their mental health, their life experience.
And people should have more toleration inside the family
because sometimes when parents lose a child, there will
(18:58):
be days when one parent is feeling better in
a way that he copes better, he copes better
with the loss and the other one is still
extremely bad, extremely depressed, extremely hopeless isolated.
And this parent could feel like oh my God, my
(19:20):
partner is not grieving that much as I am.
But that's not true.
They're just coping with the pain differently.
And there will be also days when this
partner will feel better, but the other one
will be down emotionally, totally bankrupted.
(19:41):
And these parents can give to
their kids what they don't have.
They don't have the energy, the ability
to be committed to their needs and
to dedicate their time to their children.
That's why the role of the grandparents, as you
(20:01):
said, barb of the family, uncles and aunts is
very important, crucial for the kids because they also
need to learn how to process.
And this feeling of denial is just a defense
mechanism because they need to gradually accept what's happened
(20:23):
they need to process it and they can feel
a lot of numbness and they can be confused
just like the adults are feeling confused.
Parents feel a lot of guilt when it comes to
playing games with their other children because they feel this
(20:43):
is not right, my child died and I'm here smiling
and playing with my other children or celebrating birthdays.
Of course they want to do that for their kids
but the inside feeling is self blame and guilt.
They need to really get
(21:04):
the professional help and counseling.
There are professionals who specialize
in grief, loss and bereavement.
And they can help them go through this
process of self forgiveness and releasing this guilt,
this irrational blame, because they feel that their
duty is to protect their kids.
But they also have other duties to nurture their
(21:28):
kids, to care for them, to love them.
And they did all that, but
they couldn't prevent something like that.
It's out of their control and they can also find
a way of taking back the control in their lives
(21:48):
if they try to change some circumstances of their lives
and to for example sometimes people move to another town
or sell the house because there's too many memories, too
much sadness and the grieving process is harder.
Sometimes they relocate to another country because they
(22:08):
want to start over with their family.
They change jobs, they go to a different place
and it gives them they take the control back.
Yeah, but it's really important to realize how
it's affecting that family, because very often when
(22:29):
we don't speak with the children or young
adults whose siblings die and this happened, they
feel very unfair treatment for them.
And it's causing secondary trauma for them because they
start feeling that nobody taking their feelings in accounts,
nobody cares about what they want so that they
(22:50):
have to be uprooted, change the school, lost the
friends so on top of already hard situation for
them or losing the sibling then they're losing everything.
So their loss is actually multiplied and
they feel ostracized very often and their
feelings are not actually accounted for.
(23:13):
So it's really important to realize how much the loss
affecting things and that none of the extremes actually working
really well for taking everything off, moving somewhere else and
kind of start over and almost pretend it didn't existed,
(23:33):
it didn't happen and try to kind of just go
with life almost on any cost.
It's causing suppression, it's causing this secondary
trauma from family members also staying in
that not changing anything like rooms changing
to the shrines and not touching anything.
(23:55):
It's also unhealthy because there is no really that
movement forward, that realization that that child would be
adult and the child would move out and need
to be maybe make the space for needs of
that other children or that it's really unhealthy like
that protection of that memory in that level.
So, as with everything in life,
(24:17):
the moderation is the key.
The finest time when the family will lay that
memory, when they would speak about that person who
died in the positive way and reinforce these positive
memories and how we used to play this.
And, yeah, it will bring sadness, but that's
(24:37):
okay, because sadness as emotion, it's the motion
which teaches us what we love.
So we reminding ourselves when we go into that sadness
about that love we have and that actually positive.
So that love not going anywhere.
(24:58):
We didn't lost to be loved, we didn't lost
to be able to laugh and because of sadness
and trying to teach us what was the real
value of that relationship till that last together or
what we were getting from that relationship.
(25:25):
Yes, everybody has some different speed or different
pace of grieving and for everybody it's different.
But when we kind of speaking, when to see
the counseling, when to see the therapist to help
is when we'll be taking more than a year.
(25:47):
That year is kind of like that time when our mind
we have the time to process all these all phases or
they are not always going in the same order.
Some people saying it's true.
For some people the orders of it's
slightly different or they're going kind of
more together like up and down slightly.
So it's not exactly somebody saying no, I'm not grieving
(26:12):
in this order, that's okay, we are all different.
But if that person not managed to kind of move
forward and get to that acceptance and to that hope
or to that adapt to that new life because exactly
as you said, it's adaptation to the new reality in
(26:33):
one year that is really important to do something with
that and see the professional help.
Because then we call it really
grieve and we call it that.
The person stuck.
And I had one client saying therapy is
(26:55):
never helping, like going through all stages therapy
is always trying to end it.
And I said yes, that's absolutely true because it
is natural process it's our own pace and if
it's moving forward, it will clear out and we
will adapt to that new reality of the world
(27:15):
and with everything else maybe learning to the new
reality when child is born, it's also we learning
the new reality of completely change our life.
We changing reality when we start living with somebody.
We changing reality when we move to tents
and going to a completely different job.
So our mind is ready to be able to adapt to the
(27:39):
new reality we're living in if we allow it, if we kind
of gave ourselves that time and that space that going forward.
But when we get stuck in any of these spaces, if
it's in denial or if it's in numbness or anger then
(28:04):
is the role of the therapist to help, to end it,
help to move beyond that and get to that final stages.
I think that it's important to realize
that we don't need or shouldn't need
a therapist immediately when lost occur.
(28:27):
But of course, if somebody is getting stuck in one
of phases for example very extremely in anger or
very extremely in denial for a long time, then
it's very helpful to speak with some professionals.
But that is the one thing that often people
trying to I don't know how to cheer up
(28:52):
or tell people some kind of quote which will
be kind of positive about what's happening.
And most of people who going through loss
are very annoyed by that because they would
say they don't know what I'm feeling.
Why keep people telling me that?
And for many it's much more refreshing when they actually
(29:13):
start speaking about this new reality of the world or
just kind of admit like that's really awful.
And it's because of that we need that realization
of that new reality get to that acceptance get to
that nobody knows how that other person processing things.
(29:36):
It's a reason why very often or why loss
of the child, for example often affecting the partnership.
Because of course the both partners adapting different way very
often we will find the men are of course the
most closed in the woman more open or opposite way.
The woman will close themselves off and cut off
(29:56):
them after a total exhaustion and men will kind
of keep going and trying to take care or
keep providing and stuff like that.
But the both needs that grieving and what is
most important for parents that they need it together.
(30:18):
They needed that together.
Unfortunately too often we kind of see that blame or
one side to another like you didn't love him enough
because you're not crying all the time or you cannot
ask me to let it go because you don't understand
(30:38):
how I'm feeling and that's not true.
Father and mother feel a different
way but it's not true.
And sometimes it's underestimated that grief
of the fathers over lost child.
But because it was their child together, they
(30:59):
also need to go through it together.
And that isolation one or other way, it
was breaking the relationships because that bond is,
of course in that very fragile.
But going through that together,
it's threatening that bond.
And it's important to realize that need of speaking
(31:25):
about that child need of remembering and say goodbye,
as you said in the beginning, that because that
woman has struggled that she cannot say goodbye.
We still have opportunity to say goodbye.
We can say it in any time in our life to
(31:45):
goodbye to somebody who died because that connection is still there.
We can communicate with the people for some people
working, going on the graveyard and speak with them
or have photo to which they speak or something,
(32:07):
but it's important to process it or for example,
even for siblings that often like funeral itself is
not what they understand.
It's too quick after what is happening.
So it's very useful, for example, memorial services maybe
a few months or even a year after when
(32:28):
it's actually allowing that really that closure, that adapting
to that new reality and space and time to
really remember these positive things and remember everybody who
were affected by that loss and give the chance
to everybody express their emotions.
(32:52):
Yes, there may be a range of emotions that are
going to come at people from anger, denial, shock, depression.
And these emotions can come to you
at any order, at any time.
They can surprise you.
They can be very intense sometimes or less intense.
And for some people, grief can be more hard to process.
(33:17):
They have severe symptoms compared to other people.
And this is called a complicated grief when they
grieve over a year and they don't progress or
advance to another stage or level of grief.
And they can have symptoms like extreme sadness
and feeling extremely depressed, hopeless, and having the
(33:42):
need to isolate themselves, sleep disturbances, increased use
of alcohol or drugs or tobacco.
And they have difficulties in social situations,
at work, in family life, with relationships
and the tasks of daily living.
(34:03):
So the grief can have this
persistent pressure on people's life.
And sometimes they have the thoughts of
suicide because the pain is unbearable.
(34:24):
It's not about that they don't want to
leave, especially if they have more kids and
family, but it's about escaping the pain.
And if this goes through someone's mind who's grieving
right now, they should ask for immediate help.
This is the right moment to really and you need
(34:45):
to know that you're going to work through some pain
and some of these emotions will surprise you and will
come to you in unexpected moments, unexpected ways.
But there is no one who can
tell you how exactly to grieve.
(35:07):
There is no exactly the formula of grieving
or the period, the month that should pass.
But you're right, Barb, if it's more than one year,
it's really a time to seek for professional help because
it is really hard to accept a future without your
(35:29):
loved one because it's your new reality.
And sometimes people who lose their entire family in
car accidents or natural disasters, they say, I've lost
my past and I've lost my future.
I don't see.
And they do consider suicide, but finally they
(35:51):
give up from this idea because they think
that in a spiritual world in heaven, they
will not reunite with their loved ones.
And they come back to religion and they go
back to this spiritual level of finding the purpose
and finding the new meaning in this new reality.
(36:14):
And you said correctly that couples grieve more
effectively together when they give support to each
other, when they don't isolate themselves, don't do
it separately, especially when people experience losses like
(36:35):
miscarriage, pregnancy loss or stillbirth the pain goes
for moms and dads.
Sometimes you can hear people say or, yeah, family,
or family members saying, okay, she lost the child.
She's grieving.
It's hard for her.
(36:55):
But it's also hard for the father as well,
because they conceived this new life, this child, together,
and they had expectation to have a healthy baby.
But instead of that, they're facing so much pain
and so many complications because, for example, if they
(37:20):
were expecting siblings, twins or triplets or more than
three kids and one of them had died, they
have to face the loss of one child and
the birth of another child with a twin.
So their situation is even more complicated.
(37:42):
And women also have this physical
aspect of recovery from this.
And it is better to cope with loss together and
to help each other and to embrace each other.
(38:03):
They may feel alone, depressed, disappointed, they
can feel guilt, they can feel like
they're punished or they can feel they're
afraid to tell their family what happened.
Sometimes the mothers who lose their children feel like oh,
maybe I didn't get the right vitamins or maybe I
should have rest more and they blame themselves.
(38:24):
So parents always find ways to take some
irrational blame for the things they couldn't prevent
and they couldn't of course escape that situation.
In some situations couples drift apart and they
(38:45):
mourn the loss of child separately and they
don't give support to each other.
And women, when they don't have the support of their
partner they find other people, friends or family who will
support her and men usually use alcohol and drugs or
(39:10):
medications and it is creating more pain in the family.
That's why people should be very should be
united and shouldn't help each other go through
this together because this is very hard for
both of them and grieving is the vital
(39:33):
step in accepting and recovering from your loss.
People should get the support they
need and find a specialized therapist
who specializes in bereavement and loss.
And this is very complicated situation when parents experience
(39:57):
miscarriage or they don't have anything physical, they don't
have a body to bury and say goodbye.
But sometimes it's stillbirth they can't collect
mementos of the baby like hand print
(40:17):
print or footprint or lock of hair.
And it is recommended to see their baby, to give
it a name and to say goodbye and honor the
child's memory in a way that is meaningful for you.
(40:37):
Sometimes when parents don't have the body to bury
it is recommended that they should plant a tree
or flower bed or somewhere in the backyard or
local park or donate to an organizational clinic.
(40:57):
Women at risk the expectant months they can donate
for playgrounds or orphanages and they can find a
new purpose and a new way of coping with
this loss by taking these steps.
(41:22):
And they should also focus on taking care of each
other because grief is a very self absorbing feeling.
And they should maybe also consider go to grief counseling
together and they are the ones who are going to.
(41:47):
Decide when they feel ready for another child, for another
baby nobody can tell them when is the right time,
turn to religion and don't face the road alone.
Yeah I think that personally I am spiritual person
(42:09):
but people can find it help in many charities
who support bereavement if they are not spiritual so
it's okay to go and seek the help in
charities or communities which supporting the bereavement process.
As we in our podcast Way Out of Childhood Trauma,
(42:32):
speaking very mainly and focusing on recovery from childhood trauma,
I want to say to the people who maybe start
recognizing that they are maybe slightly triggered or they are
reacting to these words about maybe loss of the sibling
(42:54):
or loss of the parents and how it's affecting their
life and maybe they developed anxiety or depression or panic
attacks and that there can be root in it, that
if their life was so severely impacted by events in
(43:15):
their family that also can cause the childhood trauma because
it can be the level of taking up responsibility which
to more level than the child should be because the
one of both parents can start lacking the ability in
that moment to take care of the younger siblings, or
(43:36):
sometimes even the younger siblings take up the responsibility to
start doing things or getting that lack of support.
The lack of the loving, comforting care leads
to that feelings of loneliness, feeling of depression
and feeling that I'm not worthy.
(43:56):
I'm not good enough because they grieve the other one.
But they overlooking me or my life is uprooted.
Nobody cares.
It doesn't matter what I'm saying,
doesn't matter what I want.
My feelings are not important and can
develop issues as issue with this public
speaking or having the outbursts of the
(44:18):
anger because there's somewhere suppressed there.
So childhood trauma is not just that something
happened in the way of physical abuse.
It can be emotional neglect, which can be as a result
(44:39):
of loss of the sibling or loss of the parent.
So I just want to address those who listen us
and maybe realizing that their issues could be related to
their loss as the children loss of the parents, loss
(45:01):
of the sibling or witnessing the violent event.
And then it's a loss of innocence, it's
a loss of reality, as was before.
And you maybe develop these symptoms of insomnia or
panic attacks or depression or feeling not be confident
(45:24):
and feeling not finding what you want in life
because you're feeling that you don't deserve that.
It's also important to seek the help,
for example, working with the hypnotherapy.
And that's really very effective, the therapy for this.
(45:45):
Because as we say, the process of the grieving
is a process of taking in account all these
emotions which came with that loss, all that level,
wide range of emotions of loss and sadness and
anger and feeling of disconnection and feeling of loneliness.
(46:09):
And if that process didn't went
through, the emotions got stuck.
And with hypnotherapy, we can help to release
them, we can help to let it go.
And realizing that it wasn't your fault, that
nothing was your reasons, and that there should
(46:30):
be somebody that should be that community, that
should be somebody who take care of the
children affected by what's happened and provided comfort,
explanation, listening, ear to their emotions.
If you will feel that this is your story,
(46:53):
that you the one of the lost children.
And then I know that for example, especially in us, it's
quite a lot of children affected by the children of the
soldiers which didn't come back home from the war.
Also everywhere else in the war, when the parents are
for example, soldiers, or if your family was affected by
(47:19):
the illness of other, it doesn't have to be just
violent attack, it can be illness when the sibling die
or of some genetic disease or cancer or leukemia.
So it's important to realize and walk through it.
And if you feel that you have some mental health
(47:40):
issues, can seek the help because that can be very
much linked to what's happened to you as child.
And even if people would say like yeah,
that's happened, but it was so hard for
parents and it's often forgotten what is actually
happening for the other children in the family.
And most of children put a very brave face and just
(48:04):
hold it all in because they see that the parents are
not in that moment emotionally capable to help them.
I would just want to give people hope also after
this very hard topic, that it's possible to help, it's
possible to help people with stuck grief and help them
(48:26):
to move forward, help them to that.
But I work with people who for example, I work
with one lady, which she struggled with, the confidence she
struggled with, that she has the right to be successful,
that always kind of end up in the same situation,
(48:47):
starting something and not finishing it.
And we find that underlying issue was there the death
of her father when she was little and that underlying
belief that she doesn't deserve to be happy if he's
not there and he doesn't see that, and if he
(49:10):
left lost and the child confused about what's actually happened
and what was her role in that, what's happened.
So after we worked through that and we able to
release that emotions from the past and get to it
understanding what was her real role in that episode of
(49:34):
her life, she was able to change that attitudes and
beliefs and become confident and become happy and actually start
remember these positive memories of her father, what he liked
and what she's after him in positive way and kind
(49:56):
of reconstructed a relationship with that father.
How he would be proud of what she achieved and not
just be stuck in that feeling that he left her.
And she's alone.
And she's living in that belief that
she does deserve to be happy.
Because he died.
(50:22):
I remember of one case of a woman who, when
she was eleven years old, she lost both her parents
in a car accident, which also was her leg.
And for her entire life she was having pain and a
lot of pain in her entire body in different illnesses.
(50:44):
And it turns out that she never
grieved the loss of both parents.
But she also lost her childhood,
she also lost a body part.
So there were a lot of losses in her life.
And sometimes we can experience the same symptoms.
(51:05):
For example, when we have a divorce or
breakup or terminal illness diagnosed or job loss,
the symptoms can be very strong.
But all those who have experienced the loss of loved
one, they should be aware of the fact that in
(51:27):
the first month after experiencing a tragedy like this, there
is a higher risk for heart attack and stroke.
It's actually 20 times higher risk.
So if you know someone who is experiencing a loss
of a loved one, take care of that person.
(51:50):
Call them, offer to help them, offer to cook
them a dinner or take care of their kids
and make their life easier a little bit.
Try to make them feel that they're not alone,
that they're not going to face this alone.
And try to recommend them a therapist.
(52:14):
As Barb said, hypnotherapy can be very effective because access
the trauma from decades ago, go back in childhood and
find the cause, the root of any problem.
And we can help people go through this process
of grief and they are going to feel that
(52:38):
they're not alone, that they have new perspective because
they need to accept the new reality.
And their kids are also experiencing that there is a
new reality and they need to model for those kids.
(53:00):
They need to teach them how you breathe
and how you go through the pain.
Move on with the pain.
It is very important for every person.
For example, when people experience they have a bad
(53:22):
relationship or bad marriage and a person dies, they
even feel worse because there are so many things
that they feel sorry for and regret for saying
some things and doing some things to that person.
So it complicates the situation even more.
If we had a very bad relationship with
(53:42):
someone, but we still love that person.
And the guilt can also be overbearing.
And the best way to release the guilt is therapy.
Through the therapy and take the time you need.
Nobody's forcing you to go
through this process quickly.
(54:05):
You go through denial, isolation,
anger, depression, acceptance, sadness.
Go through all the stages in your own pace.
Because as I said earlier, there is no
exact formula how to do this and cry.
If you have to cry, show your
(54:26):
kids, cry in front of them.
Show them that they should give this pain a voice.
They should cry and let all the emotions out.
Because I remember Marisa Peer saying that every emotion
that is not expressed will cause the other organs
to weep and it will affect your physical health
(54:53):
as well and maybe contribute developing some autoimmune illnesses
or some illnesses that have very sneaky symptoms.
The symptoms don't show for many years.
So I would recommend everyone to work with a
good therapist or that people should go to a
(55:15):
group therapy sometimes or family therapy because it's really
going to lessen the sadness, it is never going
to relieve any pain but it's going to help
them cope with life and everyday activities.
Yeah, I think that the group therapies are really
(55:37):
good because it's that connection, in that connection which
is needed for releasing it and speak with other
people who goes through maybe similar process.
It's really useful to be able to express
it and hear other to express their feelings.
It's encouraging the process of expressing
(55:58):
them and letting them go.
So that is really useful.
So we will conclude today's episode about grief.
We know that one way how a lot of
people coping with unprocessed grief is overeating and trying
to numb that feelings and trying to suppress that
(56:20):
emotions which are in and for many reasons.
Not just for grieving, but also any emotional
pain caused by traumatic events which happen to
them or they witness or they part in
family which is toxic or abusive behaviors there.
So in our next episode we will speak about what
(56:44):
are the reasons beyond the overeating and how we can
change that, how we can change the mindset and behavior
to be able to recover from that and get to
that healthy eating and healthy life.
(57:07):
Well, thank you very much Lela for being here with me.
Always pleasure to speak with you about these topics
and thank you to everybody who listened to us.
We had the great response for previous episodes, so we thank
you very much for all messages we got and we hope
that you will enjoy also this episode about the grief.
(57:29):
And if you want to contact us and leave us
message or ask a question or seeking the help, you
can find us on the Facebook Ask Your Step Counseling
it's me, Barb Smith Varclova, or Mind Freedom therapy, Danijela Mrdak,
and we will be happy to listen to any questions.
(57:49):
We are happy to answer any specific questions in our
podcast or see if we would be the right person
to help you or navigate you or reference you to
a therapist if that will be best fit for you.
Thank you and bye for now.
(58:12):
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you for inviting me to this new episode.
(00:01):
I'm very excited to share new
tips and advice with our listeners.
And today's topic is actually very serious and very sad
because it's about the loss and grief because of the
(00:23):
importance of a person that we loved and we lost.
And grief is a very private and individual
thing and everybody grieves differently in different pace.
And in our previous episode we discussed about
shooting at school and mass murders of kids.
(00:47):
So I would love to say that one of the
greatest, the most painful experiences and losses that anyone could
experience is the loss, the death of a child.
And anytime you grieve a loved one, it is going
to have an impact because it is not just about
(01:10):
that person who was lost on that day.
Actually there is something called the trickle
down effect throughout the whole family tree.
So every member of the family is affected by the
death of a loved one, death in the family.
And after losing a child, parents get
(01:33):
stuck in that moment of death because
they don't allow themselves any memories.
They feel this tremendous irrational blank because
they feel that they should have protected
their child and they feel the guilt
(01:53):
that cripples them, makes them feel trapped.
And parents often are very focused on the day the
child died and they're not able to focus on the
good days, on the positive aspects of that child's life
(02:17):
because they don't allow themselves to remember the birthdays, the
celebration of holidays and when their child learned to speak
or walk or ride a bike.
They don't allow themselves to be happy,
to smile because they feel that it
was their duty to protect their child.
(02:40):
When I spoke to one grieving mother that lost a daughter,
she has told me that she feels so stuck in this
grieving process that she's not able to take care of her
other children and the whole family is impacted.
And this woman told me when my child died,
(03:04):
the part of me has gone and she said
I didn't know I can miss someone that much.
She also said my daughter was my world because she was meaning
me and I don't know how to move on, she said.
And the saddest thing that she said was that she didn't get
(03:26):
to say goodbye and she didn't get to say how much love her.
So I tried to help her by telling her
that she should spend the rest of her life
celebrating her daughter's life and that she shouldn't allow
(03:47):
forgotten by her death because you could never foresee
something so horrible like the death of your child.
Like that your child is going to be stabbed at
school or shot at school or maybe killed in a
car accident or kidnapped because parents mind can never go
(04:09):
there, can never imagine that kind of painful scenario.
And the parents need to realize that
they cannot prevent what they cannot predict.
When I spoke to this mother, I've also told her
that she should focus on what would her daughter want
(04:31):
and what would she say if she was here.
I've told her to imagine that in
front of her is an empty chair.
There is her precious little girl sitting there.
And I've told her to close her eyes and to focus
on the feelings and everything she wants to tell her and
(04:53):
that she can say goodbye, that she can say how much
she loves her, how much this daughter meant to her.
And this was very helpful for her because I said, what
would your daughter say if she could speak to you now?
Would she say, mother, I want you to suffer for the rest
(05:13):
of your life because you didn't get to tell me how much
you love me or you didn't get to say goodbye to me.
And I've told her that it would be a
double tragedy in the family if she as a
mother would neglect the other children and if she
would be totally dysfunctional adults and use and abuse
(05:34):
drugs or alcohol or overdose with medications.
One day I've told her that to
accept and recover from this loss.
Now, Barb, I would love to
hear your thoughts about this topic.
(05:55):
Yeah, I think that loss of child, as you
said, is the most painful thing which can happen
to the parents and especially if they cannot prepare
themselves for it and even then it is.
But I think that what we see in that is that
lack of community, which used to be when people live more
(06:17):
connected as the families or community because their parents need the
pain for them to process that loss, but also the children,
the siblings needs to work through that.
They also lost a child sibling is it,
they lost also a member of the family.
And I think that that's very often overlooked how the
(06:39):
children are reacting on the loss of their siblings.
And it's very often say you didn't love them
so much as I do love them or it
wasn't your child, so you don't suffer so much.
But that's actually not true.
They suffer also and also because for them,
that's devil thing that they see that parents
(07:00):
suffer, they don't want them to suffer.
And very often there is no pay any attention
to their needs and their emotional needs to process.
That was the more community like, there would be
somebody else, it would be grandparents or it would
be some auntie or uncle or somebody in community
(07:22):
who would take care more about children to elevate
that pressure on the parents.
So children will get that comfort they needed but also
care they needed to give the parents the time to
recover and let them to learn live with that loss.
(07:44):
And now when everything often depending just on the
parents that is lacking of that community support then
we often see two extremes as you mentioned.
One is that parents withdraw themselves quite almost completely
from the care of the other children or partner
(08:07):
and close themselves and very often can end up
in some unhealthy behaviors and coping mechanisms.
Or that other extreme is like suppressing that grief
completely and focusing only on that daily life.
(08:29):
Keep going, keep going.
And forgoting to process that loss.
And that's usually coming later in life.
And it's bounced back.
And issue is that very often
they come to that numbness.
They come to that like suppressing that emotions.
And so they keep going, keep working, keep caring.
(08:52):
Like physically giving the food on
the table and wash the clothes.
And take children to the school but they
often change their relationship become very colder or
third possibility that they become very obsessive with
the care about their children, about their safety
and that's to some level natural reaction.
(09:15):
Of course they don't want to lose it other ones
but again it can have very negative effect on the
children, the surviving children that they feel like they are
imprisoned and feel that they not supported and be independent
and build up their strength stuff like that.
So it's kind of overbearing of the parents.
(09:36):
So it's loss of the child especially and
traumatic and violent loss of the child.
It's a huge effect on whole family and there is
also very understatement about loss of the
grandparents often they're expected that they would be the one
(10:04):
who step up to the care and is not really
much giving the time and space and actually that what
they also need that they lost a grandchild because that
child has many relations.
They have siblings have parents, grandparents,
uncles and aunties that everybody grieving,
(10:26):
everybody grieving in different way.
Of course we expecting that the parents have the
most significant reaction to it but very often when
would have the close relationship for example auntie with
the niece or something will be affected with same
way because if that organ grandparents when they feeling
(10:52):
that loss of that future of the family.
So I think that it's really important to realize
that grieving is the process and we can speak
about five, four or seven stages of the grief
it's depending on which psychologist we will take in.
But they all kind of agree on that that the
(11:15):
first thing is kind of numbness denial and that's natural
because it is the way of protecting us from overwhelming
feeling of that too much pain coming on.
So that first kind of numbness or deny of
helping us to process it's not just about deny
(11:39):
that it happened, but it's about that ability to
actually start to accepting it without that enormous overwhelming
feelings which we can see sometimes in the reaction
of the parents when they really losing the mind.
We would say really losing that, coping with
that overwhelming, painful emotions of the loss.
(12:04):
I think that what you suggested to
that grieving mother was really good.
Because it's about that realization
that the child is gone.
But we have to focus on passing away what
was good, what time, be grateful for time we
(12:25):
have with that child and what is the future.
Because the loss really is about grieving the future.
And because we are not having
that opportunities with that child anymore.
We will not see them grow.
We will not see them graduate,
have wedding, have first child.
(12:49):
But it's opposite way.
Same way it's for the children.
If they lost a parent then that grieving process
of children who lost a parent it's very long
term because it's kind of resurfacing every time and
it's some significant event in their life and they
realizing that the parent will not be there, they
(13:11):
will not be part of that future.
So it's definitely very serious matter but it's important
to realize that that is the part of the
life and we need to learn to move forward
(13:33):
and realize that we are always connected that just
because somebody died we didn't absolutely lost that connection.
That connection existing still that love
we have for them didn't disappear.
That wasn't just taken away because we know that
(13:56):
the bond has even mother with the unborn children.
Of course it's a part of the family already
and it's really important to give people space to
grieve and time and try to help them to
move forward, not get stuck in that grieving process.
(14:23):
And as you nicely explained the role of the community,
of family members of neighbors of the closest family is
very important and even people or parents in these moments
(14:45):
that they don't believe in God and but we should
as a community encourage them to go back to church
to reinforce this power of prayer, spiritual life.
(15:06):
It is very important to have therapists to explain to
people that to our clients that we will never be
able to take the pain away of losing a child.
We can only help them go through this process of
adjustment because they have to adjust and go to advanced
(15:28):
level from denial to anger, sadness and they need to
go through all the stages of grief and loss.
And it's very important that they don't isolate themselves
and especially because their heart is ripped out.
And if they see someone at the grocery on the street,
(15:51):
a neighbor, a friend who is offering to come and help
them and sit with them and cry, they should let them
if they offer to come and fix your dinner, they should
let them let people come to you and help you.
If people offer to come over and watch your
kids let them because they know that this pain
(16:12):
isn't gone, it's always going to be there.
But when we accept the loss, we finally
are able to move on with grief.
We are never going to move on without the
grief and the pain of losing a loved one.
Also, it is very important to give this pain a voice and
(16:34):
get it out and encourage the children to do as well.
Because it is really important that children don't
go back to their room because they're scared,
they don't want to say something to hurt
their mommy or daddy and upset them.
And if everyone is isolated and grieving alone, it
(16:59):
is more harder for everyone to overcome this.
They should share this pain and this grief, divide
it and isolate themselves and separately go through this.
Because parents are the biggest teachers that we have and
when they experience the loss of a family member, they
(17:23):
should give their children a lesson how to grieve and
how to accept the loss of a loved one.
So if we need to teach the children in these situations that
when we lose the people we love, we do cry, we do
feel hurt and we do get past it, we do move on.
(17:48):
But we move on eventually with pain.
And we accept that now we have new reality,
reality without this loved one, we have new circumstances
and we have to move on also.
It is very important to say that sometimes when
(18:13):
people experience a loss of spouse or a partner,
some people are married in six months, some people
are completely different, they have completely different attitude, they
don't get married for ten years or if ever.
So everybody grieves differently.
That doesn't mean that they don't grieve the
(18:34):
loss, that just means that they're accepting it
differently depending on their age, their past trauma,
their mental health, their life experience.
And people should have more toleration inside the family
because sometimes when parents lose a child, there will
(18:58):
be days when one parent is feeling better in
a way that he copes better, he copes better
with the loss and the other one is still
extremely bad, extremely depressed, extremely hopeless isolated.
And this parent could feel like oh my God, my
(19:20):
partner is not grieving that much as I am.
But that's not true.
They're just coping with the pain differently.
And there will be also days when this
partner will feel better, but the other one
will be down emotionally, totally bankrupted.
(19:41):
And these parents can give to
their kids what they don't have.
They don't have the energy, the ability
to be committed to their needs and
to dedicate their time to their children.
That's why the role of the grandparents, as you
(20:01):
said, barb of the family, uncles and aunts is
very important, crucial for the kids because they also
need to learn how to process.
And this feeling of denial is just a defense
mechanism because they need to gradually accept what's happened
(20:23):
they need to process it and they can feel
a lot of numbness and they can be confused
just like the adults are feeling confused.
Parents feel a lot of guilt when it comes to
playing games with their other children because they feel this
(20:43):
is not right, my child died and I'm here smiling
and playing with my other children or celebrating birthdays.
Of course they want to do that for their kids
but the inside feeling is self blame and guilt.
They need to really get
(21:04):
the professional help and counseling.
There are professionals who specialize
in grief, loss and bereavement.
And they can help them go through this
process of self forgiveness and releasing this guilt,
this irrational blame, because they feel that their
duty is to protect their kids.
But they also have other duties to nurture their
(21:28):
kids, to care for them, to love them.
And they did all that, but
they couldn't prevent something like that.
It's out of their control and they can also find
a way of taking back the control in their lives
(21:48):
if they try to change some circumstances of their lives
and to for example sometimes people move to another town
or sell the house because there's too many memories, too
much sadness and the grieving process is harder.
Sometimes they relocate to another country because they
(22:08):
want to start over with their family.
They change jobs, they go to a different place
and it gives them they take the control back.
Yeah, but it's really important to realize how
it's affecting that family, because very often when
(22:29):
we don't speak with the children or young
adults whose siblings die and this happened, they
feel very unfair treatment for them.
And it's causing secondary trauma for them because they
start feeling that nobody taking their feelings in accounts,
nobody cares about what they want so that they
(22:50):
have to be uprooted, change the school, lost the
friends so on top of already hard situation for
them or losing the sibling then they're losing everything.
So their loss is actually multiplied and
they feel ostracized very often and their
feelings are not actually accounted for.
(23:13):
So it's really important to realize how much the loss
affecting things and that none of the extremes actually working
really well for taking everything off, moving somewhere else and
kind of start over and almost pretend it didn't existed,
(23:33):
it didn't happen and try to kind of just go
with life almost on any cost.
It's causing suppression, it's causing this secondary
trauma from family members also staying in
that not changing anything like rooms changing
to the shrines and not touching anything.
(23:55):
It's also unhealthy because there is no really that
movement forward, that realization that that child would be
adult and the child would move out and need
to be maybe make the space for needs of
that other children or that it's really unhealthy like
that protection of that memory in that level.
So, as with everything in life,
(24:17):
the moderation is the key.
The finest time when the family will lay that
memory, when they would speak about that person who
died in the positive way and reinforce these positive
memories and how we used to play this.
And, yeah, it will bring sadness, but that's
(24:37):
okay, because sadness as emotion, it's the motion
which teaches us what we love.
So we reminding ourselves when we go into that sadness
about that love we have and that actually positive.
So that love not going anywhere.
(24:58):
We didn't lost to be loved, we didn't lost
to be able to laugh and because of sadness
and trying to teach us what was the real
value of that relationship till that last together or
what we were getting from that relationship.
(25:25):
Yes, everybody has some different speed or different
pace of grieving and for everybody it's different.
But when we kind of speaking, when to see
the counseling, when to see the therapist to help
is when we'll be taking more than a year.
(25:47):
That year is kind of like that time when our mind
we have the time to process all these all phases or
they are not always going in the same order.
Some people saying it's true.
For some people the orders of it's
slightly different or they're going kind of
more together like up and down slightly.
So it's not exactly somebody saying no, I'm not grieving
(26:12):
in this order, that's okay, we are all different.
But if that person not managed to kind of move
forward and get to that acceptance and to that hope
or to that adapt to that new life because exactly
as you said, it's adaptation to the new reality in
(26:33):
one year that is really important to do something with
that and see the professional help.
Because then we call it really
grieve and we call it that.
The person stuck.
And I had one client saying therapy is
(26:55):
never helping, like going through all stages therapy
is always trying to end it.
And I said yes, that's absolutely true because it
is natural process it's our own pace and if
it's moving forward, it will clear out and we
will adapt to that new reality of the world
(27:15):
and with everything else maybe learning to the new
reality when child is born, it's also we learning
the new reality of completely change our life.
We changing reality when we start living with somebody.
We changing reality when we move to tents
and going to a completely different job.
So our mind is ready to be able to adapt to the
(27:39):
new reality we're living in if we allow it, if we kind
of gave ourselves that time and that space that going forward.
But when we get stuck in any of these spaces, if
it's in denial or if it's in numbness or anger then
(28:04):
is the role of the therapist to help, to end it,
help to move beyond that and get to that final stages.
I think that it's important to realize
that we don't need or shouldn't need
a therapist immediately when lost occur.
(28:27):
But of course, if somebody is getting stuck in one
of phases for example very extremely in anger or
very extremely in denial for a long time, then
it's very helpful to speak with some professionals.
But that is the one thing that often people
trying to I don't know how to cheer up
(28:52):
or tell people some kind of quote which will
be kind of positive about what's happening.
And most of people who going through loss
are very annoyed by that because they would
say they don't know what I'm feeling.
Why keep people telling me that?
And for many it's much more refreshing when they actually
(29:13):
start speaking about this new reality of the world or
just kind of admit like that's really awful.
And it's because of that we need that realization
of that new reality get to that acceptance get to
that nobody knows how that other person processing things.
(29:36):
It's a reason why very often or why loss
of the child, for example often affecting the partnership.
Because of course the both partners adapting different way very
often we will find the men are of course the
most closed in the woman more open or opposite way.
The woman will close themselves off and cut off
(29:56):
them after a total exhaustion and men will kind
of keep going and trying to take care or
keep providing and stuff like that.
But the both needs that grieving and what is
most important for parents that they need it together.
(30:18):
They needed that together.
Unfortunately too often we kind of see that blame or
one side to another like you didn't love him enough
because you're not crying all the time or you cannot
ask me to let it go because you don't understand
(30:38):
how I'm feeling and that's not true.
Father and mother feel a different
way but it's not true.
And sometimes it's underestimated that grief
of the fathers over lost child.
But because it was their child together, they
(30:59):
also need to go through it together.
And that isolation one or other way, it
was breaking the relationships because that bond is,
of course in that very fragile.
But going through that together,
it's threatening that bond.
And it's important to realize that need of speaking
(31:25):
about that child need of remembering and say goodbye,
as you said in the beginning, that because that
woman has struggled that she cannot say goodbye.
We still have opportunity to say goodbye.
We can say it in any time in our life to
(31:45):
goodbye to somebody who died because that connection is still there.
We can communicate with the people for some people
working, going on the graveyard and speak with them
or have photo to which they speak or something,
(32:07):
but it's important to process it or for example,
even for siblings that often like funeral itself is
not what they understand.
It's too quick after what is happening.
So it's very useful, for example, memorial services maybe
a few months or even a year after when
(32:28):
it's actually allowing that really that closure, that adapting
to that new reality and space and time to
really remember these positive things and remember everybody who
were affected by that loss and give the chance
to everybody express their emotions.
(32:52):
Yes, there may be a range of emotions that are
going to come at people from anger, denial, shock, depression.
And these emotions can come to you
at any order, at any time.
They can surprise you.
They can be very intense sometimes or less intense.
And for some people, grief can be more hard to process.
(33:17):
They have severe symptoms compared to other people.
And this is called a complicated grief when they
grieve over a year and they don't progress or
advance to another stage or level of grief.
And they can have symptoms like extreme sadness
and feeling extremely depressed, hopeless, and having the
(33:42):
need to isolate themselves, sleep disturbances, increased use
of alcohol or drugs or tobacco.
And they have difficulties in social situations,
at work, in family life, with relationships
and the tasks of daily living.
(34:03):
So the grief can have this
persistent pressure on people's life.
And sometimes they have the thoughts of
suicide because the pain is unbearable.
(34:24):
It's not about that they don't want to
leave, especially if they have more kids and
family, but it's about escaping the pain.
And if this goes through someone's mind who's grieving
right now, they should ask for immediate help.
This is the right moment to really and you need
(34:45):
to know that you're going to work through some pain
and some of these emotions will surprise you and will
come to you in unexpected moments, unexpected ways.
But there is no one who can
tell you how exactly to grieve.
(35:07):
There is no exactly the formula of grieving
or the period, the month that should pass.
But you're right, Barb, if it's more than one year,
it's really a time to seek for professional help because
it is really hard to accept a future without your
(35:29):
loved one because it's your new reality.
And sometimes people who lose their entire family in
car accidents or natural disasters, they say, I've lost
my past and I've lost my future.
I don't see.
And they do consider suicide, but finally they
(35:51):
give up from this idea because they think
that in a spiritual world in heaven, they
will not reunite with their loved ones.
And they come back to religion and they go
back to this spiritual level of finding the purpose
and finding the new meaning in this new reality.
(36:14):
And you said correctly that couples grieve more
effectively together when they give support to each
other, when they don't isolate themselves, don't do
it separately, especially when people experience losses like
(36:35):
miscarriage, pregnancy loss or stillbirth the pain goes
for moms and dads.
Sometimes you can hear people say or, yeah, family,
or family members saying, okay, she lost the child.
She's grieving.
It's hard for her.
(36:55):
But it's also hard for the father as well,
because they conceived this new life, this child, together,
and they had expectation to have a healthy baby.
But instead of that, they're facing so much pain
and so many complications because, for example, if they
(37:20):
were expecting siblings, twins or triplets or more than
three kids and one of them had died, they
have to face the loss of one child and
the birth of another child with a twin.
So their situation is even more complicated.
(37:42):
And women also have this physical
aspect of recovery from this.
And it is better to cope with loss together and
to help each other and to embrace each other.
(38:03):
They may feel alone, depressed, disappointed, they
can feel guilt, they can feel like
they're punished or they can feel they're
afraid to tell their family what happened.
Sometimes the mothers who lose their children feel like oh,
maybe I didn't get the right vitamins or maybe I
should have rest more and they blame themselves.
(38:24):
So parents always find ways to take some
irrational blame for the things they couldn't prevent
and they couldn't of course escape that situation.
In some situations couples drift apart and they
(38:45):
mourn the loss of child separately and they
don't give support to each other.
And women, when they don't have the support of their
partner they find other people, friends or family who will
support her and men usually use alcohol and drugs or
(39:10):
medications and it is creating more pain in the family.
That's why people should be very should be
united and shouldn't help each other go through
this together because this is very hard for
both of them and grieving is the vital
(39:33):
step in accepting and recovering from your loss.
People should get the support they
need and find a specialized therapist
who specializes in bereavement and loss.
And this is very complicated situation when parents experience
(39:57):
miscarriage or they don't have anything physical, they don't
have a body to bury and say goodbye.
But sometimes it's stillbirth they can't collect
mementos of the baby like hand print
(40:17):
print or footprint or lock of hair.
And it is recommended to see their baby, to give
it a name and to say goodbye and honor the
child's memory in a way that is meaningful for you.
(40:37):
Sometimes when parents don't have the body to bury
it is recommended that they should plant a tree
or flower bed or somewhere in the backyard or
local park or donate to an organizational clinic.
(40:57):
Women at risk the expectant months they can donate
for playgrounds or orphanages and they can find a
new purpose and a new way of coping with
this loss by taking these steps.
(41:22):
And they should also focus on taking care of each
other because grief is a very self absorbing feeling.
And they should maybe also consider go to grief counseling
together and they are the ones who are going to.
(41:47):
Decide when they feel ready for another child, for another
baby nobody can tell them when is the right time,
turn to religion and don't face the road alone.
Yeah I think that personally I am spiritual person
(42:09):
but people can find it help in many charities
who support bereavement if they are not spiritual so
it's okay to go and seek the help in
charities or communities which supporting the bereavement process.
As we in our podcast Way Out of Childhood Trauma,
(42:32):
speaking very mainly and focusing on recovery from childhood trauma,
I want to say to the people who maybe start
recognizing that they are maybe slightly triggered or they are
reacting to these words about maybe loss of the sibling
(42:54):
or loss of the parents and how it's affecting their
life and maybe they developed anxiety or depression or panic
attacks and that there can be root in it, that
if their life was so severely impacted by events in
(43:15):
their family that also can cause the childhood trauma because
it can be the level of taking up responsibility which
to more level than the child should be because the
one of both parents can start lacking the ability in
that moment to take care of the younger siblings, or
(43:36):
sometimes even the younger siblings take up the responsibility to
start doing things or getting that lack of support.
The lack of the loving, comforting care leads
to that feelings of loneliness, feeling of depression
and feeling that I'm not worthy.
(43:56):
I'm not good enough because they grieve the other one.
But they overlooking me or my life is uprooted.
Nobody cares.
It doesn't matter what I'm saying,
doesn't matter what I want.
My feelings are not important and can
develop issues as issue with this public
speaking or having the outbursts of the
(44:18):
anger because there's somewhere suppressed there.
So childhood trauma is not just that something
happened in the way of physical abuse.
It can be emotional neglect, which can be as a result
(44:39):
of loss of the sibling or loss of the parent.
So I just want to address those who listen us
and maybe realizing that their issues could be related to
their loss as the children loss of the parents, loss
(45:01):
of the sibling or witnessing the violent event.
And then it's a loss of innocence, it's
a loss of reality, as was before.
And you maybe develop these symptoms of insomnia or
panic attacks or depression or feeling not be confident
(45:24):
and feeling not finding what you want in life
because you're feeling that you don't deserve that.
It's also important to seek the help,
for example, working with the hypnotherapy.
And that's really very effective, the therapy for this.
(45:45):
Because as we say, the process of the grieving
is a process of taking in account all these
emotions which came with that loss, all that level,
wide range of emotions of loss and sadness and
anger and feeling of disconnection and feeling of loneliness.
(46:09):
And if that process didn't went
through, the emotions got stuck.
And with hypnotherapy, we can help to release
them, we can help to let it go.
And realizing that it wasn't your fault, that
nothing was your reasons, and that there should
(46:30):
be somebody that should be that community, that
should be somebody who take care of the
children affected by what's happened and provided comfort,
explanation, listening, ear to their emotions.
If you will feel that this is your story,
(46:53):
that you the one of the lost children.
And then I know that for example, especially in us, it's
quite a lot of children affected by the children of the
soldiers which didn't come back home from the war.
Also everywhere else in the war, when the parents are
for example, soldiers, or if your family was affected by
(47:19):
the illness of other, it doesn't have to be just
violent attack, it can be illness when the sibling die
or of some genetic disease or cancer or leukemia.
So it's important to realize and walk through it.
And if you feel that you have some mental health
(47:40):
issues, can seek the help because that can be very
much linked to what's happened to you as child.
And even if people would say like yeah,
that's happened, but it was so hard for
parents and it's often forgotten what is actually
happening for the other children in the family.
And most of children put a very brave face and just
(48:04):
hold it all in because they see that the parents are
not in that moment emotionally capable to help them.
I would just want to give people hope also after
this very hard topic, that it's possible to help, it's
possible to help people with stuck grief and help them
(48:26):
to move forward, help them to that.
But I work with people who for example, I work
with one lady, which she struggled with, the confidence she
struggled with, that she has the right to be successful,
that always kind of end up in the same situation,
(48:47):
starting something and not finishing it.
And we find that underlying issue was there the death
of her father when she was little and that underlying
belief that she doesn't deserve to be happy if he's
not there and he doesn't see that, and if he
(49:10):
left lost and the child confused about what's actually happened
and what was her role in that, what's happened.
So after we worked through that and we able to
release that emotions from the past and get to it
understanding what was her real role in that episode of
(49:34):
her life, she was able to change that attitudes and
beliefs and become confident and become happy and actually start
remember these positive memories of her father, what he liked
and what she's after him in positive way and kind
(49:56):
of reconstructed a relationship with that father.
How he would be proud of what she achieved and not
just be stuck in that feeling that he left her.
And she's alone.
And she's living in that belief that
she does deserve to be happy.
Because he died.
(50:22):
I remember of one case of a woman who, when
she was eleven years old, she lost both her parents
in a car accident, which also was her leg.
And for her entire life she was having pain and a
lot of pain in her entire body in different illnesses.
(50:44):
And it turns out that she never
grieved the loss of both parents.
But she also lost her childhood,
she also lost a body part.
So there were a lot of losses in her life.
And sometimes we can experience the same symptoms.
(51:05):
For example, when we have a divorce or
breakup or terminal illness diagnosed or job loss,
the symptoms can be very strong.
But all those who have experienced the loss of loved
one, they should be aware of the fact that in
(51:27):
the first month after experiencing a tragedy like this, there
is a higher risk for heart attack and stroke.
It's actually 20 times higher risk.
So if you know someone who is experiencing a loss
of a loved one, take care of that person.
(51:50):
Call them, offer to help them, offer to cook
them a dinner or take care of their kids
and make their life easier a little bit.
Try to make them feel that they're not alone,
that they're not going to face this alone.
And try to recommend them a therapist.
(52:14):
As Barb said, hypnotherapy can be very effective because access
the trauma from decades ago, go back in childhood and
find the cause, the root of any problem.
And we can help people go through this process
of grief and they are going to feel that
(52:38):
they're not alone, that they have new perspective because
they need to accept the new reality.
And their kids are also experiencing that there is a
new reality and they need to model for those kids.
(53:00):
They need to teach them how you breathe
and how you go through the pain.
Move on with the pain.
It is very important for every person.
For example, when people experience they have a bad
(53:22):
relationship or bad marriage and a person dies, they
even feel worse because there are so many things
that they feel sorry for and regret for saying
some things and doing some things to that person.
So it complicates the situation even more.
If we had a very bad relationship with
(53:42):
someone, but we still love that person.
And the guilt can also be overbearing.
And the best way to release the guilt is therapy.
Through the therapy and take the time you need.
Nobody's forcing you to go
through this process quickly.
(54:05):
You go through denial, isolation,
anger, depression, acceptance, sadness.
Go through all the stages in your own pace.
Because as I said earlier, there is no
exact formula how to do this and cry.
If you have to cry, show your
(54:26):
kids, cry in front of them.
Show them that they should give this pain a voice.
They should cry and let all the emotions out.
Because I remember Marisa Peer saying that every emotion
that is not expressed will cause the other organs
to weep and it will affect your physical health
(54:53):
as well and maybe contribute developing some autoimmune illnesses
or some illnesses that have very sneaky symptoms.
The symptoms don't show for many years.
So I would recommend everyone to work with a
good therapist or that people should go to a
(55:15):
group therapy sometimes or family therapy because it's really
going to lessen the sadness, it is never going
to relieve any pain but it's going to help
them cope with life and everyday activities.
Yeah, I think that the group therapies are really
(55:37):
good because it's that connection, in that connection which
is needed for releasing it and speak with other
people who goes through maybe similar process.
It's really useful to be able to express
it and hear other to express their feelings.
It's encouraging the process of expressing
(55:58):
them and letting them go.
So that is really useful.
So we will conclude today's episode about grief.
We know that one way how a lot of
people coping with unprocessed grief is overeating and trying
to numb that feelings and trying to suppress that
(56:20):
emotions which are in and for many reasons.
Not just for grieving, but also any emotional
pain caused by traumatic events which happen to
them or they witness or they part in
family which is toxic or abusive behaviors there.
So in our next episode we will speak about what
(56:44):
are the reasons beyond the overeating and how we can
change that, how we can change the mindset and behavior
to be able to recover from that and get to
that healthy eating and healthy life.
(57:07):
Well, thank you very much Lela for being here with me.
Always pleasure to speak with you about these topics
and thank you to everybody who listened to us.
We had the great response for previous episodes, so we thank
you very much for all messages we got and we hope
that you will enjoy also this episode about the grief.
(57:29):
And if you want to contact us and leave us
message or ask a question or seeking the help, you
can find us on the Facebook Ask Your Step Counseling
it's me, Barb Smith Varclova, or Mind Freedom therapy, Danijela Mrdak,
and we will be happy to listen to any questions.
(57:49):
We are happy to answer any specific questions in our
podcast or see if we would be the right person
to help you or navigate you or reference you to
a therapist if that will be best fit for you.
Thank you and bye for now.
(58:12):
Thank you. Bye.
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