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

[awe]

For looking after yourselves, I'm impressed with the concept of "Flow". It is said that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow.

Your activity is in flow when:

• You can complete it
• You can concentrate on it
• It has a clear goal
• It gives immediate feedback
• It is enjoyable with a sense of control
• It separates you from the world
• “Self” disappears but re-emerges stronger
• Where sense of time alters (where 2 hours feels like 10 minutes)

Flow is a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. It is a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is where the person is fully immersed in what he is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill - and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored. It involves being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi

[And-016]

We just wanted to include the following piece from the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement. Very insightful of those grief-related complexities.

Thanks everyone for tonight! Take care.

YOU CAN'T WIN WITH ME

If you say to me, “How are you going?” with such sympathy and meaning in your voice, I reply, “I’m fine”, and brush you off because to talk about my loss with you today is just too painful.

If you see me and don’t mention the loss that is consuming my thoughts, I think you don’t care enough, or are too scared, to mention it to me for fear that you might upset me.

You can’t win with me.

If you say, “I’m sorry that your baby died”, it’s hard for me to reply to that. What do you expect me to say? I want to say “I’m sorry too!” or “It’s awful”. I want to scream, “It’s not fair!” But I won’t because I don’t want to upset myself today, not in front of you.

So I reply, “Thank you.” That “thanks” means so much more than that. It means thanks for caring, thanks for remembering, thanks for trying to help, thanks for realising that I’m still in pain.

If you don’t know what to say to me, that’s OK because I don’t know what to say to you either.

If you see me smile or laugh, don’t assume that I must have forgotten my baby for the moment, I haven’t, I can’t, I never will. Tell me that I look good today. I will know what you mean. I’m getting good at picking up unspoken cues from you.

If you see me and think that I look sad or upset, you are probably right. Today might be an anniversary for me or some event might have triggered a wave of grief in me. If you don’t say anything, I’ll think you don’t care about me, but if you do say something, it might make me feel worse. You could try asking if I want to talk, but don’t be surprised if I say no.

You can’t win with me.

Don’t give up on me, please don’t give up. I need your caring, I need your attempts, however feeble, however trite you might feel they are. I need your thoughts. I need your prayers. I need your love. I need your persistence.

I need all that but most of all I need to be treated normally, like it used to be before all this happened. But I know that that is impossible. That carefree, naïve person is gone forever, and I’m mourning that loss too.
So you can’t win with me.

[Shaz51]

Thank you so much @And-016, @awefor tonight

Thank you @Former-Member, @Heartworks,

[Former-Member]

Thank you so much @Shaz51 @Heartworks @Fatima @presence @Heidi1 for being so open this evening and sharing your experiences with us as a community.

Thank you also to @awe and @And-016 from The Compassionate Friends Victoria for sharing so personally from your own experiences and lending us your wisdom and support. 

It's been an absolute pleasure 🙂

[awe]

Thanks everyone

Mosaic, I think most helpful for me has been working out what has most meaning for me. That includes family and also contributing to an understanding of grief. So this forum has meant a lot to me.

[And-016]

Just quickly ... things that have helped personally. Along with "flow", these are the things I found helpful...

• Have activities that are comforting and diverting, and that offer some engagement and refreshment (walking, music, art, reading, films) even if you’re feeling pretty jaded.
• Have activities that assist understanding (reading about others experiences of grief, seeing a counsellor, seeking out a peer support group). Learn to understand your own problems, understand others’ differences and to know your own boundaries
• Try and get some sleep in wherever (practically) you can because there can often be nights where sleep eludes you, where our nights are full of questions, disappointment, anger, a sense of isolation
• Look after your health. Especially get regular exercise because that helps us to be less depressive.

[presence]

Thanks for all this - I only just got the kids to bed so missed the chat. There's some great things here. My husband has left our family - gone off his meds and shunned all medical help for his bipolar. he is now living a nomadic life, soothing with alcohol and whatever elese helps and has left me with the four kids. I am grieving the loss of the love of my life - my dream of how things would be   - a partner I would love till death's end. A family together and loving. I don't quite know how to move on but I know I must. 

[Fatima]

Try to put in place as much support as you possibly can as soon as you can. (if you haven't already) Carers Vic. MIF carer counsellor was a great support to me as the counsellor had a lived experiece with a son with menal health issues.  Free counselling sessions with a psychologist from local community health organisation. Carer support was what has helped me a lot in my carer role for a daughter with a 4 year old and an unmedicated brother both suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. I hope you will find help, and  try to stay positive. Good luck. Who knows perhaps your partner will get tired of feeling unwell.  And if he is drinking etc might it be better if he's not around? 

[Fatima]

Yes that's the challenge!

[Angela]

I lost my wonderful Mother in January and I feel like I won't ever come to terms with it. 

I go go to the phone to tell her something and then remember she's not there.