Healing and Expectations

I attend a monthly bereavement group ran by our local hospice, I was dubious at first Ill be totally honest about whether it would help me. Hearing other peoples stories and experiences can be cathartic but it can also be painful. But to quote John Green, The Fault in Our Stars - "That's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt"

I guess what I'm trying to say is, i was feeling pain anyway, and so were the people I met and speak to in my day to day life now. Sharing that pain with each other doesn't amplify or diminish it, it processes it.

For me it a release, with people who have a similar understanding of what I might be going through that day or the occasions which I much prefer when I can offer comfort and advice to someone else.

We talk, we might cry, but we laugh a lot too and that is something I think people forget about grief. There is light and darkness. My sense of humour is pretty dark and sometimes the things I say can take people aback but it is a coping mechanism from a difficult few years. Knowing who you can use black humour around and in what context is very important, know your audience!

A conversation that stuck with me from our last session relates to expectations, obviously the people in this group and their stories are confidential but the subject matter was interesting. The expectation of dealing with grief and bereavement is varied but certain phrases for me kept cropping up :

"its been .... amount of time"

"its time to move on"

"they wouldn't want you to be sad/waste your life"

"your wallowing"

Now I know most of these are said with love, but i can also tell you that 9 times out of ten unless I am having the best day of my life if you utter any of this bullshit to me ill be telling you to fuck off.

But that's because I'm quite outspoken and have lived through enough crap to respectfully pull someone up and explain why. But these kind of comments really hurt a lot of people in my group, made them feel inadequate and as though they were being judged.

Some days I am fierce, I can take on everything I need to and smile while doing so, other days I cant believe that this is my life, orphan at 30, parents will never see me get married, Ill never see them get old. And on those days, Ill grieve however the hell I like.

I thought about the expectations of healing a lot after our last session and part of me wondered if it was just that people needed to have something to say and it was more out of thoughtlessness than maliciousness, I like to think so because what does it say about the people we surround ourselves with otherwise. People who haven't suffered loss or close loss in their lives will have a different view, gaged through media and expectation. The reality being very different for everyone. There is difference in empathy and understanding and in this group of people I have found both.

The timeline of grief that other people put on us is damaging, we feel we aren't progressing or that we are "wallowing" but in reality something huge and life altering has happened and what you are actually doing is processing that. And processing takes time, understanding and working through emotions, which we all do at different levels. To make someone feel that they are failing when grieving, what does that realistically achieve.

I think healing occurs slowly, that we don't always notice that's what we are doing. The day we can drive down a certain road again, listen to a familiar song and it raise a smile instead tears. The grief doesn't disappear but we grow as people around it, and learn to carry it, it'll always be there, Like an injury from years ago that flares up when triggered and we adjust how we live our lives because of it.

If you are supporting someone who is grieving you have my respect, it is not easy and sometimes you wont have all the right words, but there are so many resources, and the most important thing for me is on those days where the road ahead seems impossible just knowing somebody is there and can say "that must be really hard for you" makes all the difference.