Owen Aaron once said, "The price of having life is to endure the limitations of life." "One of the limitations of life is death.
We not only need to face the decline of our own lives, but also the departure of the loved ones around us. Studies have shown that bereavement can have a multifaceted effect on a person, including the immune system, sleep, blood pressure, psychology, etc. [1].
This suffering is deep and long-term, and it is also a problem that many of us will encounter in our lifetimes. I hope that this Q&A can give support and warmth to people who have had bereavement.
issue:
A month ago, grandpa died, 91 years old, the elders said that it was a very high life expectancy, it was a happy funeral, said that the life expectancy was very normal, not what kind of disease. But I felt so sad. I remembered my grandmother who died of cancer a few years ago, and I was very sad to think about it, and I cried and felt that life was not interesting.
My grandparents who were with me when I was a kid are now gone. I can't talk to them either, and I don't think it's interesting to write letters. Then I can't seem to remember some things in the past few years, and I don't know if it's sleep deprivation or if I don't have the heart to remember it. I don't know how long it will take to get out.
I'd always think that if only they all lived to be a hundred years old, or if the time machine went back to the past, it would be okay to exchange anything. I'm thirty years old. I feel that I think like this is very childish, and I can't help but think like this, and I always feel unhappy.
Then I went online to search, and many people said that deceased relatives did not want to see their relatives suffering for him, but I always thought that they were all gone and could not tell me, how could they know the thoughts of their relatives. That's a very tangled idea. I don't know if I'm gambling.
Consultant Tang:
91 years old is already an advanced age, but in the relationship, no matter how long it is still not enough, there are many words that have not been said, there are many loves that have not been expressed, and the person in the world who will respond like grandpa and grandmother is no longer there.
The grief treatment of psychological counseling will generally recommend that at least half a year after the loss of time occurs, in the event of bereavement, we need a certain amount of time to digest and go through the internal tidal repeated grief process.
Elisabeth Kubler-ROSS observes that people often have the following five mental processes after getting an incurable disease. In fact, these emotional and behavioral reactions may also be in people who have major losses in the physiological, physical, and ethical aspects.
Unacceptable
Cognitive dissonance, denial of facts, feeling like it wasn't real: "How can this happen?" "Impossible!" "They must not have died."
Full of anger
"Why me?" "Blame God for not having long eyes, blame the perpetrators are hateful, blame the family for not observing enough, not caring enough, blame the rescue personnel for coming too slowly, not responding in time, and even blame the deceased for leaving himself behind."
Lucky
If you have not seen the deceased, you will hold on to a glimmer of hope, fantasize that the other party is still alive, and ask the rescuers to work harder. For relatives in crisis of illness, they will pray for miracles, search for folk remedies, and even be willing to live, expect that everything will never happen, bargain, and want to use supernatural power to save it.
Sad and depressed
Self-blame, remorse, remorse, and when they find that the tide is gone and irretrievable, they fall into helplessness, frustration, mourning, and difficult to give up.
Accept the facts
After digesting this emotional and cognitive impact, if you can recognize your life or adjust your outlook on life, you can gradually restore your balance and accept the fact that your loved ones have passed away.
At the time of mourning and sadness, this time is not enough to simply lead the visitor directly to the last step and accept the facts.
There are so many bonds between relatives, regrets, regrets, these emotions seem to be interrupted by the death of relatives, but wave after wave of emotions in the heart, successive memories remind us that there are still unfinished entanglements. At the same time, so many unfinished memories also tell us that there are many different memories, and behind this is a strong love.
If you can bargain with the sky, I think this love is not enough. Maybe we don't usually notice it, but one day, the fear of a loved one dying and love being taken away will make us panic that life is deprived.
But love will not lose its form because of the death of a loved one, and one step in grief treatment is to introduce warmth, so that the person concerned can clearly see the love with the loved one after expressing the unfinished love, which is warm, and the relative gives us a part of the love that others cannot replace; because of my existence, the relatives experience a sense of value that others cannot give.
The deceased is gone, and the living can choose how to continue this love.
Consultant:
你好，I am sorry to hear your story.
The loss of someone who is important to us, someone who has brought meaning to our lives, I believe anyone will feel sad, sad and unwilling.
As you're experiencing right now, you can trade anything for it and keep them alive. I totally understand that even in the past month, you still feel sad because your grandparents are so important to you.
At the same time, I also feel your contradiction, on the level of consciousness, you know that your grandfather has passed away, but subconsciously you still want to keep your grandfather, or go back to the past. I also feel your anger/gamble, maybe you're really worried about if you follow the advice of others and slowly forget and don't miss it, and that means Grandpa is also dead in your memory.
Maybe your brain will also flash a quick thought, you hate Grandpa left you, you want to forget him for a while. These contradictory feelings and thoughts are very normal in the process of mourning, and they are also the reason why we feel entangled and painful, we love someone and sometimes hate someone.
Psychologists divide mourning into 5 stages: denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. If you can get to the stage of acceptance, this is the ideal state.
But everyone is different, mourning itself is a complex and incomprehensible emotion, and everyone may be at different stages of mourning, and different stages take different times, and sometimes we even take two steps back. We need to be gentle with ourselves, be patient with ourselves, and we need time to mourn.
But today I want to explore a fundamental question here, why are we so sad? What have we lost? Why are you crying? What are these cries expressing?
Forgive me, I want to expand my thinking a bit and not just limit myself to what is mentioned in the question. I think of a word called "distant cries": my understanding is that we want to be heard, that we want our cries to be understood, accepted, and allowed; but many times it is difficult for us to express these emotions freely.
"After Grandpa died, why did he always feel that life was very boring?" I think the outer justice is the person who has given you acceptance/understanding, and the person who has made your life complete and meaningful. Losing your grandfather may also make you a little afraid: whether your feelings can still be expressed and cherished; whether there are still people who support you when you need support.
Here, I would like to make some additions from the family aspect. Why do we always feel bound and not free when expressing some emotions so often?
When we feel sad, when we feel angry, when we have some "childish/funny" fantasies, sometimes we struggle with whether to express it, or where is the "degree" of expression? And this "degree" has to do with our interactions with our parents in the early years, with the rules we learn about the family: what emotions are allowed and what emotions are rejected.
When we were young, we were completely dependent on our parents, we were worried about making our parents angry, and we also wanted our parents to be happy, so we learned these rules, and even this tight hoop has been brought with us until now. Sometimes, I can't help but wonder if I can cry rebelliously once, overwhelm others, and make others anxious? Or, is there any other way? What am I going to do? I'd like to share a few small pieces of advice:
1. Record sharing. I appreciate your courage to write down your true predicament in a simple psychology. Recording and sharing our feelings is both a brave attempt, an adventure, to hope that our cries are heard and allowed; it is also the beginning of self-mourning, where we begin to face "tangled" emotions that include love and hate. I would feel that this was also a letter to Grandpa, telling him that you were sad and that you were a little scared.
2. Self-compassion. Do we allow ourselves to grieve, or how long do we allow ourselves to grieve? Are we willing to get close to the helpless child of our hearts, and are we willing to accept the helpless and fragile parts of our hearts? Maybe we can give ourselves some time, some patience, allow ourselves to be sad, and allow ourselves to be harsh on ourselves sometimes.
3, if you feel very sad, no appetite, low mood, insomnia and dreams. Maybe this reminds you that you need some help, whether it's from a doctor or a counselor. In counseling, there may be an opportunity to listen to your grief with the counselor, to explore the "rules" we have learned, to unlock more ways to cope with which we can be "allowed", etc.
Maybe my answer is also a reply, I hope that this letter of mine can make you feel a little bit of support and understanding, good luck.
Loved ones may be gone, but love will always be there!