Topic Tuesday // Tues, 26 April, 7pm AEST // Grief

[Former-Member]

So for you @Fatima in the beginning it sounds like the fog of grief made you feel quite unmotivated to engage with your other family or friends outside the home? Did you have anyone come to visit you, or was this quite an isolating time for you?

[Shaz51]

same here @awe

[Shaz51]

 an isolating time for Me @Former-Member

[awe]

Hi @Fatima. The smoking issue sounds difficult with your asthma. And it's hard when the situation won't go away, day after day. My wife and I were run in to the ground with our son's alcoholism. Take care

[Fatima]

Anothef major issue has been dealing with my mother's estate with the family solicitor/executor for my brother when the solucitor e has absolutely no insight into mental illness. He seems more concerned with covering his actions in case it might be challenged in a court of law one day than my brother's welfare.  It has been very frustrating over the past year and has impacted on my health both physical and mental.

[Former-Member]

@And-016 that is definitely a perpetuated myth in our culture, that grief has an 'end point' and we all must eventually find 'closure' and 'move on'. I imagine after some time of grieving with the extended family, many people's initial support starts to fade, and we are left to manage the grief more privately or in solitute, so as to not disturb those around us. Has anyone else had experiences like this?

[Fatima]

I had ine friend who is also a carer of elderly parents who was very supportive. The family was so divided that we even had two separate funerals. 

[Heartworks]

@Former-Member That is a great question! I will have to set the scene for you. There are four lots of major diagnosis for me in the past ten years. They are : my Cancer diagnosis, my husband's bipolar diagnosis, our son's Autism diagnosis and my bipolar diagnosis. They don't include the loss of our two babies nor the death of both my parents to Cancer, in the timeframe of eight years.

We started our marriage bi-polar less and ended up, well, bipolarful! 😄 I think any preconceived plans, ideas, visions and dreams all went to pieces.  No one really plans all of the above and I wonder, with grief whether the lack of control and planning forms a part of that loss. The feeling of say, being blindsided, or 'not seeing it coming' for me, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and I became best friends. I read all her books on grief and loss.  There are so many variables for me and how it looks like. Such as:

• the change in the person I married
• the change in myself
• having a child with a disability - will he find love? Will he travel? Will he be independent?
• having the choice to have more children taken away
• losing my career, setting on the journey of recovery and finding my 'new normal'
• not having my parents around
• feeling like in many respects my body let me down

so there are many different losses that we experience. Within that, it allowed me to reflect and be vulnerable, to go there and heal what I can and acknowledge that something's may remain irreparable and that's okay too. Because for me, it always ended up better that I expected. "It will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end" 🙂

[awe]

Getting help and talking to people about these things can be difficult. Being permitted to talk openly and repeatedly about our grief or difficult circumstances assists us in developing an understanding of these difficult and perplexing experiences. The permission and opportunity to do so can help temper the intensity of our grief over time.

[Fatima]

And also its not good to imterrupt the grieving process i believe as it makes the whole experience more difficult.