This article was published in the "Sanlian Life Weekly" No. 36, 2020, the original title of the article is ""Sorrow is Love": Psychological Reconstruction Survey of Families Who Have Lost Independence", it is strictly forbidden to reprint it privately, and infringement must be investigated
According to demographers, there are currently more than 1 million families in China who have lost their only child. In psychology, the loss of a child is the most painful type of bereavement experience, and the loss of the only child is "sad and sad, and painful and painful". Above the ruins of life, parents who have lost their independence are trudging on a journey that is the most difficult, lonely, and gathered with endless courage and love.
Lead Writer / Xu Jingjing
On May 9, 2015, in a family in Zhejiang Province, the grandson comforted his weeping grandmother
Ride through the fog
On June 22, Liu Xinxian and his wife prepared flowers and a balloon with the words "Mom and Dad Love You Forever" and drove to the cemetery, a 10-minute drive from home. This road, they have walked countless times, will walk countless times in the future. On this morning 12 years ago, they pushed open the door of their 16-year-old only son, Liu Dan, and were shocked to find that the child had stopped breathing.
Liu Dan's tombstone is surrounded by colorful flowers. As usual, the couple weeded, fertilized, and watered. After doing this, they will tell their children about their recent situation. In the past six months, Liu Xinxian has been quite busy. In cooperation with the relevant departments in Shanghai, he is conducting science popularization on mental health for parents who have lost their only child, compiling a booklet and producing 8 popular science videos. When doing these tasks, Liu Xinxian is not only a "lost" father, he also has a more important identity: a grief counselor.
At the time of the child's death, Liu Xinxian was at the peak of his career. He served as general manager of a fast-growing high-tech company in the United States, with ambitions to make the company world-class. After his child's funeral, he quickly returned to his career. What supported him in walking into the office was no longer a big future, he just wanted to distract himself from the high workload of more than a dozen hours a day. However, no matter how heavy the work is, the indescribable sharp pain in the heart is still often like a huge wave, overturning the sea and surging forward. In addition to the grief itself, what tormented him the most was the great loneliness: not because there was no one around him to speak, but because there was no one around him, except his wife, who could understand the pain that he could not describe in words. He had never heard of this kind of pain.
Soon, Liu Xinxian's heart and blood indicators lit up red lights, and his weight plummeted. The doctor demanded that he stop working immediately. Happiness, health, career... The departure of the child swept away everything like a storm. He seemed to be in a completely unfamiliar world, surrounded by fog. Is there an end to the long night? Where else can life go on top of ruins?
A father who has lost his independence seeks solace on the online mutual aid platform for the orphaned
Confused, Liu Xinxian tried to seek psychological support. He lives in a small town in the United States with a population of less than 40,000, and there are families in the town that have opened a small bookstore, although there are only a few dozen psychological books, but there is a book prominently displayed on the shelves, dedicated to how to heal grief after bereavement. He went to the town's library and found nearly a hundred books of grief and healing. Liu Xinxian was surprised to find that just like depression, bereavement is a specialized field of psychological research. Even, because grief is extremely complex and special, there are dedicated grief counselors in the United States who provide psychotherapy.
Liu Xinxian began to read a lot of psychology books about grief. Books written by psychologists and grief counselors who lost their children gave him exceptional help, providing him with real emotional experiences that resonated deeply, as well as psychological knowledge of grief healing, which was like a beam of light through the fog, allowing Liu Xinxian to re-understand where he was: he and his wife were not the only family who had experienced grief and pain; his bad emotions were normal reactions in the process of grief, which could be relieved and adjusted through certain methods; more importantly, No matter how painful the present moment is, "the night is not boundless."
Once, Liu Xinxian returned to Shanghai and wanted to look for relevant books written by domestic authors, but found nothing. Friends in the field of psychology told him that no one in China had ever written a sad healing book about special groups such as the loss of children, which surprised Liu Xinxian. He had a lingering thought: In the face of the most painful times in life, Chinese families who have lost their independence have no experience and knowledge to refer to, what is their situation, and how to survive? Liu Xinxian made up his mind to write it himself.
Back in the United States, Liu Xinxian quit his job as a business management consultant and prepared to apply for the American grief consultant examination. On the day he passed all the qualifying exams, Liu Xinxian was told that he was the oldest of the candidates in history.
One day in 2017, Liu Xinxian sent an email to Wang Jianping, a professor of psychology at Beijing Normal University, according to the corresponding author's email address indicated in the professional journal, hoping to seek cooperation, and the two made an appointment to talk on the phone for an hour. Unexpectedly, this unsatisfactory communication "met and hated late", and Liu Xinxian hung up the phone until after midnight.
Two weeks later, in New York, Wang Jianping met with Liu Xinxian. The mental health problems of China's independents have been in Wang Jianping's mind for many years. Wang Jianping's brother died suddenly during a business trip, and she had witnessed her parents' pain, guilt, self-blame, angry quarrels, and washed her face with tears. At one point, the mother even went away to find a way to revive her son. Three years later, the mother died with endless mourning for her son. This made Wang Jianping understand that the "heartbreak" of grief is not just a literary rhetoric. Around 2011, she met her client for the first time in a counseling room. Wang Jianping is one of the first registered supervisors of clinical psychology, trauma therapists, and psychiatrists in China. "The loss of a child is the most painful of all types of bereavement, and the loss of a single child is 'more tragic than sad, more painful than painful.'" In the face of these parents, the veteran psychologist only felt that he "didn't know what to say."
Grief can develop into an independent disease: "prolonged grief disorder". Wang Jianping noted that in some developed countries, early intervention and healing of grief have become more common. "There are nurses and pastors in the hospital who can do individual grief counseling, and there will also be some peer (people with the same experience) support groups stationed in the hospital, carrying out weekly activities, led by professional counselors or social workers, to provide timely support to bereaved families." In addition, the crematorium will also have some social workers or peer supporters who do grief counseling. It's easy to find peer support organizations and resources on the internet. But at home, everything is still in the "gray area.".
"This is first of all related to the late start of domestic psychological research." Wang Jianping explained, "Secondly, this also stems from the fact that the public does not pay enough attention to mental health problems and lacks the necessary psychological science. Specifically, people generally fail to realize that experiencing the pain of losing a loved one can develop into a pathological response to grief that seriously affects normal life. Even if something goes wrong, it can be misinterpreted as depression or trauma. This can further prevent bereaveds who are experiencing grief from seeking appropriate and effective help. The deeper context is: "Our cultural traditions have also more or less influenced our knowledge and understanding of grief." For example, what we often call 'mourning and changing' reflects the cultural restrictions on the expression of grief, and Chinese people are also taboo to talk about death-related topics in their daily lives. ”
The absence of grief knowledge and intervention has left Chinese parents psychologically isolated. In China, relatives and friends were originally an important support force in the early stages of bereavement, but as Xu Shuwen, a professor at the School of Social and Public Administration of East China University of Science and Technology, said: "Many times, relatives and friends look in the eyes, are anxious in their hearts, want to help but do not know where to start, want to comfort but do not know how to open their mouths, afraid of self-defeating, but make people more troubled." ”
Some social organizations want to help parents who have lost their independence, and the results are often counterproductive. The person in charge of a public welfare organization told Liu Xinxian and Wang Jianping that through the help of the funeral home and the civil affairs department, they got the news of the death of the teenager and the contact method of the child's parents in time, but whenever they called and expressed their willingness to help, no family would accept them, and even some parents scolded on the phone.
People don't need help. According to a survey by scholars Such as Shen Changyue, 1/3 of parents who have lost their independence list psychological assistance and psychological healing as one of the main demands for social support, but only 17% of them have sought help from a psychologist. A very small number of orphaned parents bravely take the first step in seeking psychological assistance, often with great disappointment.
Last year, Liu Xinxian gave a lecture to more than 170 community workers, psychiatrists and psychological counselors at the invitation of Shanghai authorities, and almost no one understood about prolonged grief disorder. A psychiatrist told Liu Xinxian that he had been distressed by some bereaved patients, diagnosed according to depression, taking medicine, no effect, this time finally found the reason. The parents told Wang Jianping that they had asked a psychological counselor to do group therapy, but the counselor could not understand their mood at all, saying something too hurtful, and they were driven off the stage.
After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, Liu Xinxian participated in the psychological intervention and assistance to bereaved people in some parts of the country, and he saw a pamphlet written for psychological assistance volunteers, which impressively reminded that in the process of psychological assistance, it is necessary to say "I can understand you" to bereaved people to achieve empathy. "I can understand you" may be a sentence that counselors often say in the process of ordinary psychological counseling, and often achieve good results, but as an American grief counselor and a father who has lost his independence, Liu Xinxian knows that "I can understand you" is exactly the taboo in grief counseling, which will instantly arouse great distrust and anger of visitors, and in different textbooks abroad, this sentence is also listed as the most inappropriate communication language for grief counselors.
The premise of help is understanding. In 2016, Wang Jianping and his team applied for and were approved by the National Social Science Foundation's major project "Research on the Mental Health Assistance System of China's Orphaned Population Based on National Survey Data". One of the important components of the study was a thorough survey of the mental health of people who had lost their independence in China. From April 2017 to December 2018, according to the seven major geographical divisions of the country, the project team investigated a total of more than 1,000 parents who lost their independence.
The results confirmed her and Liu Xinxian's concerns. The detection rate of prolonged grief disorder among the parents who participated in the survey was 35.5%, which was much higher than that of other general bereavements compared with previous studies. More than 1/3 of the parents who have severe depressive symptoms and post-traumatic stress disorder have lost their independence, and 10% of the parents who have three psychological problems of prolonged grief disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder have reached the level of 10%. At least one father or mother in every orphaned family is trapped in severe psychological suffering. There is a mother who has lost her independence, and it has been 20 years since her daughter's death, including 11 consecutive years of visiting her daughter's grave almost every day. A questionnaire took more than 130 minutes, and she almost completed it in choking and sobbing. There's a question in the questionnaire: "Have you ever thought about ending your life in the last week?" A mother in her 40s blurted out: "Yes! I have already bought the medicine, and I will leave after explaining several things in these two days. When she said this, she did not cry and acted confident.
To make matters worse, these numbers are not the whole picture. There is no census data on the number of families without independence in China, and the existing data are mainly indirectly calculated through demographic methods. According to the sixth census, demographer Wang Guangzhou has calculated that the number of families who have lost their independence in China currently exceeds 1 million, and it is expected to reach 8 million by 2050. "With more than 1 million families across the country, we have surveyed more than a thousand people. The difficulty of research is far beyond our imagination, and the biggest difficulty comes from the fact that as researchers, it is difficult for us to knock on the door of the parents who have lost their independence and enter their hearts. Wang Jianping and the team had to ask their familiar parents to help and let them "knock on the door".
Nevertheless, the data obtained must be "biased" - these families and orphans are willing to open their hearts, indicating that their psychological condition is not too bad, and there are many doors that no one can knock on, and the wounds sealed inside cannot be touched. Even some of the losers have completely cut off all social ties and disappeared, and no one knows where they went.
(Illustration of old cow)
Tough start
At one point, the hero thought he was crazy. In 2015, his son Yuchen graduated from university and entered an internship at an international company, and his young life is about to start a new journey. The old age of the grandson seems to be in sight, but an accident takes the child away. For the first time, the couple could not eat and sleep during the day, and the wife was at home all day holding the photo of the child and crying. The most willing thing the hero wants to do is to go to the cemetery alone to be quietly with his son. World-weariness lingered, and the two even made all kinds of visions of going to heaven to reunite with their son.
A year and a half later, the hero decided to return to work. But he found himself changing. In the past, he had never quarreled with his colleagues with red faces, but now he was angry again and again because of ordinary small things and slapped the table, which made him feel inexplicable. Whenever this happens, colleagues stop talking. The hero calmed down, he explained, apologized, and tried to adjust his mentality, but no matter what he did, he couldn't control himself. "I think I must have had a mental problem." He applied to his leader for a position where he didn't have to deal with people and locked himself up in the office.
Nor did he dare to deal with people outside of work. Originally, he thought he was very strong, but once, he happened to meet an old neighbor, and the other party casually asked: "I haven't seen you for such a long time, your son should graduate from college, right?" If there is a blow in the head, the big man has a "buzz" in his head, and he copes with the "yes mile, yes mile", while rushing to avoid the other party and walking outside, the tears can't help but flow down. He did not want or dare to cry. "Crying a lot, even if you don't feel it, others think you have a mental illness."
A few years after losing his child, Daxia was introduced to Wang Jianping's article on grief. After reading it, he suddenly realized that all kinds of complex emotions, including uncontrollable anger and crying, were normal phenomena in the early stages of grief. Daxia thought that if he saw these things in the early years, he would be more helpful, "and he would be able to understand what situation he is in now, what he is experiencing, and what he will be like in the future."
However, he will also think, "We Chinese a lot of things are avoided, when the family is happy, who wants to see these things?" When the tragedy happens, what are the channels to find these things? We've been desperately looking for something to see over the years, and then we've stumbled upon these by chance. Even if this information is sufficient, who will hand it to me at the beginning of the tragedy? And who can make me feel trusted in that moment and willing to accept his guidance? ”
In the first month of the tragedy, the hero and his wife fell into a huge confusion in grief. They found a psychological counselor, and the other party listened to the hero's briefing on the situation, first shocked, and then told the truth: she did not know where to start, she could only "try". The counselor said a lot, and none of them could get into the hearts of the couple. The wife was in great pain and had been crying. In the end, the counselor proposed that the conversation could not continue and took the initiative to end the conversation.
This was almost the only time the couple took the initiative to ask for help, and since then, they have embarked on a lonely road to self-help.
The hero and his wife had many thoughts that parents who have lost their independence have: Is it possible to have another child? This seems to be the only remedy for a broken heart. The long and uncertain process of IVF is an ordeal, especially for the hero and his wife. The hospital was crowded, and looking around, they were the only couple with gray hair, and naturally had many looking eyes. Once, Daxia saw that the government had introduced a policy to provide a green channel for "special families with family planning". He told the nurse on duty with the mood of trying it out: "I am a special family planning family..." Before the words were finished, the nurse said impatiently: "What is a special family, I can't understand what you say." The patient next to him also cast a curious look, and the hero was angry and hateful, turned around and left, and never mentioned policy care again.
After three months of suffering, the doctor told the wife of the hero that her physical condition is really not suitable for doing it again, and to have a child can only use other people's eggs, but the legal egg bank of public hospitals is very tight, and in recent years, it is estimated that they will not be queued, and the only way is to take the underground channel, find a black intermediary to buy eggs at a high price, and even surrogacy. Just when the hero was eager to find an underground channel, he saw a report that exposed the underground intermediary to deceive the college students to sell their eggs, almost causing him to be infertile for life. The hero only felt shuddering, and the desire to get a child was based on the fact that others would not have children for life, which was not only illegal, but also morally unacceptable. Soon, the wife's body also lit up with red lights, and after a painful operation, the natural effort to find a child came to an abrupt end.
If you can't have another child, adopting one can also heal the wounds in your heart. Daxia and his wife go to the local welfare home and find it impossible to adopt healthy children. Once, he saw on the news that there was an abandoned baby in Dalian, and he could not care about his privacy and scars, and asked a friend to help him go to counseling. The answer was that adoption was not possible, and there were already many families queuing up in the area. Another time, by chance, he learned that a rural family was in very difficult financial difficulty and wanted to raise a newborn child. The couple had great hopes and soon went to the child's house. The child's father suffered from liver cancer, and the family was surrounded by walls and agreed that they would take the child away. The hero watched his wife pick up the baby, and a long-lost smile appeared on his face, and the life of the clouds seemed to be in front of him. But he noticed that once they picked up the child, the child's seven- or eight-year-old sister was inseparable behind the couple.
The hero can't help but ask the parents of the children: Are you willing to give the children to us to raise? Father said: Speak from the heart, I don't want to, but I can't help it. The child's mother wiped her tears and did not speak. The hero asked the little girl again: We have taken your sister far away, and I think she can go to her later, are you willing? The child said "no" with a cry, and the tears fell. The hero called his wife outside the house, and the two looked at each other and reached a consensus. Before leaving, the wife left behind the clothes she bought for the child, milk powder and all the items she had planned to use on the way to pick up the child. The hero took out 2,000 yuan and handed it to the child's grandfather. He tearfully said that he had experienced the pain of flesh and blood separation, did not dare to let himself become a role that caused the separation of others, and after experiencing the separation of life and death, he knew that the problems that could be solved with money were not problems.
Attempting to reproduce and adopt is a painful process that cannot be told to outsiders, and it is already difficult enough, but there are still people who make it worse. In order to understand the information, the hero entered a regeneration group. There are everyone in it, there are people who are known as children, there are appointments to send children, and there are those who specialize in intermediary services. In order to "sell" him, some people do not hesitate to say the most vicious words: What do you live in this world without children? You're not a competent man!
After experiencing all kinds of hopes and disappointments, the hero and his wife had a calm conversation, reached a consensus, no longer mentioned the matter of regeneration, and accepted the arrangement of fate. However, the so-called "confession of destiny" is not easy to talk about.
His son Yuchen was unexpectedly involved in an internship in N City. The sister of the hero lives in N city, in order to hide the child's grandmother, but also to reduce the burden of the hero, after the child's accident, she took the old mother to live in the N city. After Yu Chen's death, daxia never dared to set foot on the land of N City. That time, his mother was seriously ill and he had to go. One night before leaving alone, the wife, who did not talk about this trip, took out the snacks that the children liked to eat, put them in the hero's luggage, and explained a word: go to the neighborhood where the son encountered an accident.
To this day, the hero still can't look back to me about his situation when he was in the child's accident community. He could talk calmly about what had happened over the years, but only in this matter was choked up. On that day, he almost escaped from that neighborhood. Lost, he went to a nearby temple. The hero thought that this might be the arrangement of his son's secrets. In the temple, he met a junior girl who was traveling alone, and the two talked about each other and played together. The hero couldn't help but tell her that he didn't come here to see any scenery, but to see where his son used to come. Unexpectedly, the girl was not frightened by the tragedy he told, but just listened quietly, without panic or disgust. The girl told the hero that after she was born, she was adopted by four families in turn, and the experience was quite bumpy. "I believe that everything that everyone we meet in our lives makes sense, is meant to teach us something, to make us better, not to crush us," she said. After leaving N City, the hero found himself almost in a state of near madness and began to have the strength to re-examine the meaning of life, because he finally and truly accepted the fact of losing his child, which was three years after his death.
In some developed countries, grief healing has become more popular, nurses and pastors will do individual grief counseling at the first time, and there are also peer groups to carry out activities
A lonely journey
Struggling in grief, many times lonely. Grief is not always revealed to family. Daxia is the eldest son of the family, and when he was a child, his two younger brothers died one after another, and he witnessed how his mother was tortured. Shortly after the child's death, the old man wondered why his grandson did not come to see her. Daxia pretended to calmly call her mother and told her that Yuchen had been sent abroad by the company because of his good internship performance, and he had gone in a hurry and had no time to say goodbye. He also said that because the child was thrifty, he would not call his grandmother for international calls, and everything would be relayed by his father.
In the first year of the New Year after Yu Chen left, the mother asked her grandson if he would come back. The hero said that he had just gone and did not want to come back so soon, and wanted to give the boss a good impression. The sister searched for foreign milk powder on the Internet and told her mother that this was sent back to grandma by Yuchen, so the mother happily said that the grandson sent her milk powder, which was really filial piety. The next year's Spring Festival, the mother said again, I miss my children too much, I have never been out alone for so long, will I take care of myself? The hero's heart was like a knife, and he replied: The child is very adapted to the working environment there, very much valued by the boss, and must focus on training, so he will not come back this year. On the third Spring Festival, the mother wanted to hear her grandson's voice and wanted to call. The hero explained: The time difference, can not be contacted, and he has entered the new department, still can not come back. He wondered in his heart: at first he lied to his mother, he felt very embarrassed, but later, the more he said it, the smoother he went, and sometimes he almost had to believe those lies himself.
Last year, my mother fell ill with Alzheimer's disease, and her memory was already very confused. Daxia went to N City to visit her mother, unexpectedly, when they met, she did not forget the old question: "Is Yu Chen calling again?" Daxia said that children are getting better and better abroad. The mother's eyes flashed a light that had not been seen for a long time, and she began to count the interesting things about her grandson's childhood, asking him not to suffer himself outside, and said that he did not know whether he was in love or not, and asked the hero to save her salary and buy a house for her grandson later. The hero took the opportunity to go to the bathroom, stepped out of the door of the ward, and the tears couldn't help but fall down: "How nice it would be if all this was true with my mother!" ”
After the death of the child, the hero and his wife depended on each other for their lives. I had an interview with the hero, and he had only one thought: he had to find a time that wouldn't be known to his wife. Children are still a taboo topic for wives and cannot be touched by anyone. The hero understood her. In his early years, he was busy with work, and his wife poured much more effort into her children than he did. But this avoidance of talking is not the loneliness cast by grief in this intimate relationship of common suffering. Every year on the child's birthday, the hero will buy a cake and silently put it on the table at home. The wife would not say anything. But the hero knew that if he forgot about it, she would be furious.
Liu Xinxian told me that support for marriage is an extremely important part of grief healing abroad. In the United States, about 14% of couples who have lost children will go to the dissolution of marriage, and domestic surveys show that this proportion is more than 30%. Part of the dissolution of marriages is due to cultural factors. Liu Xinxian, the father who lost his independence, asked him: His parents felt that he had good economic conditions, and hoped that he could divorce his wife, find a young woman to have children again, and pass on the generations. "What kind of answer can I give him?" Liu Xinxian said, "I can only tell him that he is still in the early stages of mourning for his son, please do not make any major decisions at this stage." This is also the standard recommendation for grief healing in the United States. ”
There are also many times when marriages without foreign aid are consumed in the long process of grief. Not everyone can properly handle the pain of losing a child in a marriage relationship with their own strength and wisdom. Liu Xinxian said: "Men and women have great differences in grief response and response to grief, and without basic grief knowledge, it is difficult for couples who have lost their children to work together to tide over the difficulties." "They are likely to misunderstand each other, blame each other, vent their anger, and entangle each other in the pain of grief." Wang Jianping's team found in the survey that the partner always thinks about the other party and wants to protect the partner from harm, but the more the husband thinks about the other party and ignores the communication on the fundamental issue, it is not conducive to the wife recovering from grief; and when the wife thinks more about the husband, the more pressure the husband feels, which aggravates the husband's grief symptoms.
After losing her 4-year-old daughter for 20 years, Yuqing and her husband divorced. "No affair, nothing special happens, just one sentence: we are not happy together. We haven't been happy since our daughter left. The person in front of you is always reminding you of the most painful things in your life. "When she lost her daughter, Yuqing was just 30 years old. For the first 4 years, the couple could not talk about anything related to the child. 4 years later, Yuqing had the idea of having another child, but her husband disagreed: he could not get out of the fear of losing his child. My daughter had congenital heart disease and was not able to get off the operating table. What if I have another child and I have problems? And the couple can't forget that on the day of the operation, they "coaxed" the child into the operating room. The husband only felt that they had been beaten to the ground by fate, and it was not easy to shake and get up a little, and they really did not have the courage to risk a second blow.
In the first 10 years after her daughter left, Yuqing never dared to stay at home alone; the hospital where her daughter did the operation was near the unit, and she preferred to go to a hospital farther away. Who can bear her pain? As a daughter, she did not cry once in front of her parents; as a wife, "crying too much also affects each other". When she was really sad, she stayed at the unit, waited for her colleagues to leave, cried behind closed doors, wiped away her tears and went home. In the past 10 years, Yuqing has regarded work as an antidote. She worked while attending two graduate schools. She didn't take a single leave. For three or four years, she had no weekends, two evenings a week to attend classes, and the rest of the time she had to study on her own. This way of avoiding grief has allowed her to achieve good results in her work, gained a lot of sense of achievement, and made her parents feel deeply proud. Her husband, like her, put all his energy into his work. Day after day, year after year, the pain in my heart seems to have faded a little, but the cohesion of my feelings has become weaker and weaker.
In the extended family, for 20 years, the child's problem has also been a sharp thorn, everyone can see it, be stung by it, but no one has the courage to face it, and they are avoiding each other and cannot mention it. Yu Qing's mother-in-law did not understand why they did not regenerate, but she did not dare to ask her son, and could only lament again and again: "I am a person who does not recognize life, but now I can only admit my fate." "My husband and I are not happy, I am not happy when I get along with his family, in fact, the old man is not happy either." It was devastating for everyone. ”
Stepping out of the family, the loner faces a more difficult world. In Chinese culture, it is emphasized that "filial piety has three, and no queen is greater." Death, especially the death of a child, is an "obscure" that cannot be avoided. Many parents who have lost their independence have passively lost some of their original social ties after the death of their children. After the death of his son Liu Dan, Liu Xinxian experienced two things: an old friend who used to gather together to celebrate every New Year's Festival had no contact with him after his son's funeral. Later, during the handling of the child's aftermath, some Chinese friends helped a lot. So he and his wife prepared gifts and went to the door one by one to thank them. When visiting a friend's house, he vaguely felt that something was wrong, and only later reacted, although the other party did not express it directly, but obviously did not want the couple to step into the house. "My Chinese friends in the United States have received a good education and have lived in Western culture for many years, so you can imagine what kind of situation the parents who have lost their independence in China are facing."
In the process of doing research, Wang Jianping has a feeling that the social requirements faced by parents who have lost their children are very harsh: "Too sad is not enough, not enough sadness." "Many parents wonder: After the child dies, can I still wear flower clothes, can I wear skirts, and can I cut a hairstyle?" If you dress up, someone will say: You see this person, the child is gone, and there is still the heart to dress up. But if it is too sad, some people will say: It is really obscure! This man has been like this for so long! Confuse them. ”
The old concept not only allows others to "label" parents who have lost their independence, but also inevitably allows those who have lost their independence to "label" themselves. Liu Xinxian contacted the parents who lost their independence, some did not dare to go out during the day, and wanted to go out for a walk at night, "to first look out from the small hole in the door to confirm that no one in the corridor went out again." "Without future generations, I feel that I have been psychologically inferior, and I can no longer communicate on an equal footing with my daily relatives, friends, classmates, and colleagues, because if I am not careful, I will be hurt and stabbed." The hero said. Every Spring Festival, he and his wife travel. This is called "hiding years" among those who have lost their independence. "Hiding for the New Year" is not only because of the fear of being sad about being reunited by the family, but also because of the unhappiness it brings to relatives and friends.
Amy, the mother who lost her independence, organizes "same life" mutual aid on the Internet, and often posts some content that inspires her in various groups. She admires the independent scholar Liu Hong. At the funeral of her son Ziyou, Liu Hong cut her hair short, wore flower clothes, and put on exquisite makeup. Because this is in line with Ziyou's expectations of her: "Mom, you have to be dignified, elegant, orderly, busy and not chaotic, and every time you run in from the outside with your neck hunched over, you will humiliate me." Amy wrote an article about Liu Hong and wanted to post it in the mutual aid group, and soon a friend reminded her that she would be scolded for sending it out, and not everyone could accept these practices.
More often, the difficulty of social life on the ones who have lost their independence is not due to discrimination and malice, but because ordinary people do not understand their world and needs. Looking back on these years, daxia feels that compared with other families who have lost their independence, he is already lucky. At the beginning of the loss of the child, when he and his wife were not thinking about tea, several good friends took the initiative to take care of them at home and cook for them. See which dish couple has more chopsticks, they will do more next time. If the two do not eat, they do not force it. When they were fine, they sat down to listen to the two crying and talking, not talking much. Without these silent support and listening, the hero doubted that he and his wife would not be able to survive.
But as the days go by, things are different. Society is always eagerly hoping that the orphans will quickly regain their spirits, live as in the past, and return to "normal". "To others, it's a story that's over. But for us, the journey has only just begun. The hero said that the longer the time went on, the more he could not find a listener. As soon as he mentioned the child, his friends would feel that he was sad again and quickly stopped: "Don't mention it, don't mention it." ”
But many times, the hero really wants someone to talk to him about the child. But this person cannot be a lover, cannot be a relative, nor can he be a colleague or friend, only Yu Chen's classmates and friends are the most suitable. And they have all stepped into work, so it is not easy to disturb. This year's Spring Festival, daxia could not suppress his strong desire, and went to Suzhou to see his son Yuchen's former colleague, the girl Xiao Ni. Daxia told Xiao Ni that the purpose of his coming to Suzhou was to see her current life and work situation, second, to know more about her son's situation, and third, to tell Xiao Ni that Yu Chen liked her very much. The most important point was that the hero did not say it, he was afraid from the bottom of his heart that people would forget Yu Chen.
There is a saying that ordinary people love to say, and parents who have lost their independence are the most reluctant to listen. The previous year's New Year's unit held a party, and several young colleagues invited the hero to sing a song "Friend" on the stage together. Originally, the hero avoided such an occasion, but he could not resist the kindness of the young man. Walking to the stage, he suddenly felt a sense of emotion, very much wanted to say a few words, and sincerely thanked his friends and colleagues for their tolerance and care over the years. Unexpectedly, seeing that the hero was somewhat emotional, some leaders shouted: "Get out!" Colleagues then shouted, "Get out!" The hero's heart was suddenly very uncomfortable: "I know that they have good intentions, but this makes me realize that they still can't understand me." The 'coming out' they imagined meant nothing to me. Since then, I have stopped telling them what I thought in my heart, and I don't want to be treated as Xianglin's sister-in-law. ”
Stills from the movie "The Earth Is Long"
Love and healing
If "coming out" is not a true proposition, on the ruins of life, what is the possibility besides grief? Liu Xinxian once read an article written by a psychologist on the public account: "When you talk to them, what you read out of their eyes is sadness. Liu Xinxian could not agree with such a conclusion.
Once upon a time, the Liu family had a tradition of inviting their children's friends to their homes to celebrate every New Year. After the child left, Liu Xinxian could not step into the child's room for a long time, and he put away all the things related to the child in the family, let alone hold such a party. In the fourth year, Liu Xinxian resumed the gathering. Seeing Liu Dan's friends, he was still sad in his heart, but this did not prevent him from feeling happy and happy for their growth at the same time. Liu Xinxian clearly remembers that one day in the sixth year of the child's departure, he saw Liu Dan again in a dream: "He looked very sunny, very happy, very healthy, I asked him where he went, he looked at me with a very gentle smile." "After waking up, Liu Xinxian found that he did not feel sad like never before, he only felt that his heart was full of gratitude, grateful that he had been given such an opportunity to see his child again." At that moment, I knew that I had the ability to live peacefully with grief. It will come again, but I will not be overwhelmed by it, and we still have hope and enthusiasm for life. ”
For more than a decade after the child's death, Liu Xinxian and his wife have maintained the habit of going to the cemetery once a week. After going for a long time, they found that they could always meet other people. Out of curiosity, the couple would read the tombstones and see who they were coming to see. "Sixteen or seventeen meters away from me, the dead man was a 32-year-old man whose father would come every week to exchange them for 16 roses. One family had children who died two and a half years early, and the family later had two more children, but the couple still came every week. There was also an old lady, whose daughter was a lawyer, who died at the age of 41. The old lady, who is nearly 80 years old, comes by car for an hour every week, puts a chair next to her daughter's tombstone, and reads. There are a lot of people in my community who have lost their spouses and parents, but you won't see them visiting their deceased loved ones every week for decades. This discovery deeply shocked Liu Xinxian, who finally understood the words of Western psychologists: "Sorrow is love." "The pain of losing a son is precisely because of the deepest love of mankind. If the child's life after leaving is a completely strange world, then this love is not only not strange, but deeper and stronger.
In those most difficult days, love for children was a pillar of Liu Xinxian's life, inspiring him to find the coordinates of new life. On his bedroom bedside table was a frame that had been on the bedside table for nearly 20 years, and it was studded with the essay "Love" written by his son in the second grade. The child wrote the following passage: "Love can give people courage and peace, and can make people happy and hopeful." If more people are willing to give what they have to those who are truly in need, love can purify the whole world. Last year, Liu Xinxian and Wang Jianping's first book, "Theory and Practice of Grief: Psychological Healing for Families Who Lost Their Children," was published. Recently, he and Wang Jianping translated an autobiographical healing guide for an American mother who lost her son, "Born again from the Fire: The Path to Grief and Healing for a Lost Mother", which was also listed in China. His website "Healing Homes of Grief", which is themed around grief healing, has been frequently accessed by more and more bereaved and mourning scholars.
Liu Xinxian is working with a large domestic funeral chain and the China Funeral Association to distribute the grief science brochure through these channels and provide training in different ways. Liu Xinxian believes that this is a practical and feasible way to quickly popularize the knowledge of grief. The longer he has been investigating and researching, the more he feels that "knowing and understanding grief is one of the necessary life topics in a civilized society." The blockade of grief cannot be broken without the establishment of an open social culture of death and loss, in which grief is universally recognized and understood.
Amy has a notebook documenting her day-to-day work in 51 "groups". At the end of 2017, when she set up the "Blue Sky House" WeChat group for the mutual assistance of the orphans, her daughter Mengyao died of depression less than a year and a half ago. Five months after her daughter's death, she suffered a serious car accident. When pulled out of the big trailer by police and passers-by, she had only one thought: My daughter was watching me from heaven, and I was still alive. After lying in a hospital bed for three months, Amy figured out one thing: she was going to live for her daughter. She is a military doctor, seeing that many parents who have lost their independence are not in good health, she did common diseases and frequent diseases in the "Blue Sky House" and gave thousands of lessons. She found that many parents who lost their independence were deeply depressed and even suicidal, so she sought a psychologist to popularize psychological knowledge for everyone. At her own expense, she traveled to 32 cities to investigate the current situation of her co-workers and organize meetings. She also organized her parents to hold evening parties online, singing and dancing. Over the years, when she heard what the "same fate people" had, she helped build a group and find capable people to manage. Some of the "Blue Sky House" groups specialize in English and some practice yoga.
Some people do not understand, criticizing Amy as "the years are quiet, singing and dancing to the level", beautifying the pain of her parents who have lost their independence, in fact, grief has never been absent from her life. We sat in the gazebo of amy's unit compound for an interview, and her eyes were full of memories. "Many years ago there was an English corner here, I was wearing a skirt and my daughter was sitting on my lap, her slippers fell there, and her dad went and fished them back. Sometimes, when I see others playing outside with their children, and the heartache of the children bumping and bumping, I can't help but think: Our children are gone! But she is not willing to be engulfed by sorrow, "For our parents who have lost their independence, there are only two paths ahead: either to die or to be strong." Since you choose to live, you must live your own style and live your dignity. ”
Yuqing, who had just retired not long ago and her daughter had been gone for 26 years, said she was hard to say happy, but found inner peace. Retirement is the beginning of a new stage of life, and the shortness of parents has replaced career as the theme of life. Yuqing is prepared for this challenge. She knew she needed to build new social links. She signed up for the senior model team early and went to the senior university. Yuqing lives in Wuhan, and during the COVID-19 epidemic, she signed up as a community volunteer. For three months, she formed a "fighting friendship" with several sisters. For so many years, Yuqing had never said her true situation to the newly acquainted person. People asked her how her children were, and she called herself "Dink." But to the old sisters, she said this: "I don't have children." There has been. ”
Over the years, the hero and his wife have traveled extensively to see the world for their children. Many things along the trip gave him a different perspective on life. At crescent springs, he thought the sand was grinding his feet and climbed up the sand mountain with his shoes. Unexpectedly, I took off my shoes curiously and found that it was very comfortable to step barefoot on the sand. "Only by letting go of our hands and feet and boldly trying can we experience a different realm, and now we are not the group of people who are imprisoned by shoe covers?" He thought, "Our group is trapped by longing, and it will last for the rest of our lives, but we have not dared to boldly admit our thoughts about our children, deliberately conceal our true feelings for the sake of those around us, and regard sadness as an unlucky emotion." We think that losing our children means losing everything, and we don't want to or dare to try to relax our minds for a moment. He and his wife felt like stubbornly growing grassy clumps in the desert and the Gobi Desert, and when drought came, they would collect the roots from the soil, curl them into a ball and roll with the wind, and one day they would find a suitable environment for their growth, and then re-rooted the roots into the ground, sprouting new shoots, sending out new branches, and blooming flowers.
In the years of contact with his parents who lost their independence, Wang Jianping often felt sincere admiration for them. "They often mention that losing one's independence is not losing one's ambition, which is a very great tenacity of human beings themselves." When the research project was in progress, a father who had lost his independence, Margo, took the initiative to ask to join and become a special researcher of the project. He single-handedly traveled to dozens of areas in three provinces and cities and completed a survey of 250 households. Wang Jianping understood that every time he investigated, he was facing the bloody pain, "It can be said that this is a tragic and magnificent journey!" After the project ended, Ma Ge wrote a summary report of dozens of pages and handed it to Wang Jianping. He said he did these things for three purposes: "One is for the dignity of my wife and me to survive; the other is for the common interests of all the people who share the same fate; and the third is to give back to the scholars and students of the project team with gratitude." ”
Wang Jianping watched Wang Xiaoshuai's film "Long Day on Earth" about the story of the parents who lost their independence, and was touched by a line that condensed the contradictory situation of the strong and vulnerable parents who lost their independence: "After all this, what else can we not face?" ”
Wang Jianping noticed that a very important prop in the movie is the round mirror, which symbolizes consummation. "This is the same as our culture emphasizes the fullness of life, and children are symbols of family fullness to their parents. But when the only child dies, can the broken mirror be reunited? As a psychologist, Wang Jianping always asked himself: "How and to what extent can psychological assistance help them?" But she understands that helping the orphaned group is not simply a psychological problem. Surveys show that independence losers with lower income levels show stronger symptoms of grief. "We often say 'raising children to prevent aging', after losing children, for elderly parents are still facing a very real problem: how to provide for the elderly." After illness, there is no one to take care of it, and the old have no one to rely on and no one to support, which is the most important practical dilemma faced by the orphans in our country. ”
In the group of lost independence, the hero is considered a "young man". He is not yet retired, has a stable job and is in good health. But while the grief precipitates, the years are bringing him new anxieties. Last year, when my mother was in the hospital for degenerative spinal fracture surgery, when she signed the risk notice, he couldn't help but think: What if I encounter such a situation in the future and my lover is not around? He coldly looked at his mother's "patient friend". The oldest, 91, has two sons and three daughters, one of whom is often with her in the ward, and her grandchildren are constantly visiting. Although the old man is old, he is sober-minded and smiles every day. Another "patient" is 4 years older than his mother, has only one son, and because he is busy at work, he can only hire a nurse to care for his mother, and visit once every two or three days. The old lady was originally the director of the obstetrics and gynecology department of a hospital, and she used to be a figure who had the final say in the unit and at home. This nurse saw that her son did not come often, not only did not take good care of it, but also barked five drinks and six. "We don't have any support for anyone in the future, so what will happen?"
(In the text, Daxia, Amy, and Yuqing are pseudonyms)
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【Sanlian Life Weekly】2020 No. 36 1103 Are you biased ¥15 Buy