Ask Aviva: Good mourning

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Dear Aviva,
I recently lost my husband after a long battle with a degenerative illness. I’m relieved that he is out of pain now, but I am having a very hard time coping now. I thought the hard part was supposed to be over, but now it seems even more difficult. I’m just so alone now. I don’t have motivation to do much of anything. My kids and grandkids are really trying to tend to me, but it’s not helping. They keep telling me that I need to see someone to speak to. I’m really not interested in going for therapy because I don’t see how talking about the past can help me right now.

-Woeful Widow

Dear Woeful Widow,
I am very sorry for your loss. It sounds like you’ve been through a lot—any degenerative illness results in a strange phenomenon of a perpetual grieving of sorts while the illness slowly takes over. Each day or week can result in another loss—a loss of motor function, a loss of memory, a loss of expressive function. For you to have been a bystander to this type of illness means that you have been processing grief while preparing yourself for ultimate grieving for quite some time.
I’ve noticed that people who have just come out of a life event which required them to shift into overdrive, end up needing a major lull of quiet immediately following in order to process it. This applies to spouses coming out of heavily abusive marriages, refugees, car accident survivors, a patient, or the family of a patient to name a few.
Imagine there’s a fire in a home. The firefighters arrive. Our hero dashes in, not even feeling the heft of his helmet, oxygen tank and safety gear. He breaks through glass. Races through the house. Gets his hand punctured by a nail. Searches. Beads up in sweat. Keeps going. Finds the homeowner. Carries her out. Jumps back into the fire. Keeps going.
His adrenaline makes him impervious to any personal needs. He forgets that he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. Barely feels the new laceration on his left hand. He just keeps going. The fire is out. He takes a deep breath and collapses on the sidewalk. Suddenly, he doesn’t have any strength. And he is keenly aware of the piercing pain, pulsing from his palm. He is out of the fire, safe and limp on the sidewalk. He is no longer “hero”. He is simply, “human”.
This is you right now. You are catching your breath. Your brain is processing. Sleep helps you process, overstimulation doesn’t. It is very good to take things slow now. Going grocery shopping or cooking a light meal can seem like overly ambitious acts.
I do think that therapy would be good for you. (Well, what else could you expect when asking a therapist?) I don’t think that it’s necessary for you to talk about the past unless you feel like you are thinking a lot about the past. A benefit of therapy would be to monitor the process of your processing. Meaning, you are grieving. You are supposed to be down. Really, really down. But there may be a point that is dangerously down. Being in therapy can help you make sense of it. It can help you make sense of everything, and help make sure that you are not too downtrodden to function. What it will not do is force you to talk about things that you think are irrelevant. It will not force you to get-up-and-go either.
Ask your kids to do a little research for you to find a proper grief counselor if you are too apathetic to dive in. Another option would be to find a support group for the bereaved. While everyone’s story is different, you may be able to see yourself in someone else’s grief. It is extremely comforting, and frankly, empowering to be able to have someone else in your boat. In fact, a recent study has shown that people judged an actual mountain to be smaller when standing next to someone than when standing at its foot alone.
You don’t have to climb your mountain now. But you shouldn’t be paralyzed by it either.

-Aviva

 Aviva Rizel is a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice who can be reached at AvivaRizel.MFT@gmail.com.