It's OK that You're Not OK

My therapist recommended this book by Megan Devine.  It's about "Meeting grief and loss in a culture that doesn't understand."  Ms. Devine lost her young husband to drowning completely unexpectedly. She writes from her own awful experience and that of others who have attended her grief and writing classes. The focus of her book is on accepting grief as a part of existence and not trying to make it "go away."  It has good information about living with grief and being with the grief of others.  For my next collection of posts, I'll be responding to some of the "tasks" Ms. Devine gives to her readers next to the heading, "try this."  The first one of these is about the "positive" comments that friends of the grief-stricken may offer.

"The Second Half of the Sentence
For each of these familiar comforting statements add the phrase 'so stop feeling so bad.'
At least you had her for as long as you did [so stop feeling so bad].
He died doing something he loved [so stop feeling so bad].
You can always have another child [so stop feeling so bad]."

If you cringe or feel angry when friends and family try to comfort you, it's because you hear the second half of that sentence, even when they don't say it out loud. . . . To feel truly comforted by someone, you need to feel heard in your pain.  You need the reality of your loss reflected back to you -- not diminished, not diluted."  (p. 21)

Dementia carers carry a mix of anticipatory grief (because dementias are usually a terminal diagnosis) and complicated grief (the demented one is both here and not here).  Sometimes well-meaning friends respond to our statements about the losses of our loved one by saying something like, "I'm forgetful myself" or "I'd like to forget my bills, too [so don't feel so bad]."

What this sounds like to us is, "I'm forgetful myself [so stop feeling so bad]."  "I'd like to forget my bills, too [so don't feel so bad].

Ms. Devine also offers workshops from her grief website.