Wellness

[Rottie_mama]

I am writing before I read this entire thread so as to keep this alive for a kind soul who aided me this afternoon. Thank you for your kindness.

[adoreqvc]

Dear Rottie_mama,

You are so kind to reply here.

Thank you and please post here to help keep this thread active.

I wish to let you know some of my background and how I came to feel so humble to be able to help others who also grieve.

I was recently remarried, after losing my beloved Husband of 45 years, and my beloved Mother in August of 2011.

They both died quite unexpectedly 2 weeks apart.

I never had the chance to say goodbye to either of them and that truly shattered my heart, and inner soul.

It was a dual devastating loss of which I still have not totally recovered, and probably never will completely recover, but I know my religious beliefs are strong and I have always known if we are blessed in this life by doing what I am doing now, as I type this to you......then hopefully when my time comes to journey through that invisible doorway, I will eventually be reunited with all my lost loved ones.

I am what is known as an orphaned survivor of my immediate clan and all family relations.

Now that I have been blessed with this second chance of marital happiness and a wonderful man who also shares everything with me, we do travel abroad pretty often.

I usually do post when I am departing so this thread and participants will know.....and when I return I also post that as well. Other members have promised me that they would also check the grief threads and help anyone in need, during my absence. That is so comforting to be and I am most grateful, so please Rottie-mama please do post when you feel the need, and do peruse the entire thread.

You will lean a great deal about the 5 steps of grief, and about all our grief journeys. You will laugh, and cry, and be amazed when you read of some of the miracles documented and medically clinically proven, as well as miracles some of us personally witnessed in our lives.

I know during the darkest times when I was so loaded with the heavy weight of abandonment, loneliness, and unbelievable grief.... I so wanted to join my beloved Husband and Mother again, same for my siblings and father, and all my relatives who also went ahead.

I really longed for all of them and felt life just was not worth living anymore.

They say when you look into someones eyes you are actually looking into the gateway to their soul.

The eyes mirror what the soul feels, and mine mirrored such intense unbelievable sadness. The tears flowed like an angry raging tsunami, my soul wailed loudly and often, and my heart felt as though it had shattered.

It was during those long dark days and nights of constant grief, that in desperation I turned on the pc again after an absence and began to post.

I received such wonderful support, comfort, and understanding from so many who were also traveling their own grief journeys.

I was the first person to reply to ravgirl's thread, and that was the beginning of our continued support and interactions.

We finally had a thread devoted to grief where we could all come anytime day or night and find someone posting there....It gave me the comfort and strength I needed to seek medical help, Church intervention, grief counseling, and slowly I continued my dual grief journey walk. (Wherever ravgirl is I hope she is well now and prospering).

For that I am so very humbled. I am also very thankful for all the great QVC pals I made on this thread, and still when I check I seem to make even more.....like you Rottie-mama, and the others from the other thread.

Well now you know something about me and how this Grief Journey thread originated.

So my dear new friend, post away and know God hears you and will comfort you, and your replies will flow as answers become clearer to you.

Stay strong and please update me after you have taken the time to absorb the grief journey thread, and its very valuable contents.

I will check back and continue to check, so don’t feel any pressure to post until you feel the need and desire.

Please just know if you do and I am still home and not traveling I shall reply.

If I am gone for a while I will let you know before I depart, and I hope my other QVC pals from this thread, will offer you the same comfort and support, they too were offered during their time of grief.

[Big Sister]

I checked in today and was happy to see your recent post, adore. You are a blessing to so many of us. Thank you for being there.

[adoreqvc]

My dear sweet kind pal bigsister,

I am so glad you came aboard again.

I recall you promised to check on the Continued Grief Support thread which I initiated when this Delayed Grief thread was closed, and we could no longer comment.

Now that it has reopened, (thank you QVC), please sweetie in my absence if Phillip and I are abroad, could you and perhaps others also pop in from time to time, to see if anyone has posted and needs a prayer, some support, and comfort?

bigsister I know we all helped each other so much on this thread and the wealth of information continues to grow.....and if it can continue and not be shut down from interactions again, I will be so relieved....It is truly a blessing and was for myself and many of us at the time we needed comfort, help, guidance and had unanswered questions. I know it gave me the will to continue living when I lost them both 2 weeks apart.

I believe when one door closes another opens and that is what I would like to see here on this thread .....an open commentary period of interaction which will make everyone cry, laugh, chuckle, be amazed, and read about our very own and other public documented true miracles which have occurred.

God most certainly does work in mysterious ways, and his guiding light although perhaps not always visible to us earthlings, does guide our paths to cross here for a reason....

I hope to interact with all my QVC pals again, and look forward to also making new ones.....(which today I have been blessed, as I already have).

[adoreqvc]

Mistri if you return please we are active here again.

I have kept you all in my daily healing prayers, and also hope you are coming along in view of your difficult loss.

I hope your family is well too Mistri....and you all take good care.

[Gogos]

Grief comes in 7 stages. HOWEVER, you can float from one stage back to another until you are through them all. It's not like walking into the livingroom, then the kitchen, then the bedroom, then the den, then the backyard etc. You can walking into the livingroom to the kitchen, back to the livingroom, back to the kitchen etc.

Here is a link that simply explains it. We are all different. No two people are the same.

http://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html

[Big Sister]

Gogos, thank you so much for the link to "recover...." I have bookmarked the pages and will read it when I have more time to concentrate on it. Thanks again.

[dooBdoo]

I'm glad this thread was reopened. I still have my bad days and then not-quite-so-bad days, moving along the path as everyone else is. I want to add my last post to mistri, on her Depression thread. She didn't return there, but I see she's posted here briefly.

Hi, ((((mistri)))). I'm so glad to see you checking in, but wish I could be there to give you real hugs and try to help.

What you're experiencing is normal. It's normal because grief doesn't fit into a neat and tidy package, and even though we have similarities each of us will find it to be unique to us. I've been reading a lot about the fallacies of the "5 stages of grief," and I've come to think that particular theory does more harm than good even though well-intended.

One thing that happens to me when I'm depressed or grieving is the inability to read, comprehend and retain, so you might be the same way. But if you feel up to it try some searches on the fallacies of the 5 stages of grief, or debunking the stages.

Here's an example of what I'm referring to:

". . . Perhaps the stage theory of grief caught on so quickly because it made loss sound controllable.

The trouble is that it turns out largely to be a fiction, based more on anecdotal observation than empirical evidence. Though Kübler-Ross captured the range of emotions that mourners experience, new research suggests that grief and mourning don’t follow a checklist; they’re complicated and untidy processes, less like a progression of stages and more like an ongoing process -- sometimes one that never fully ends.

Perhaps the most enduring psychiatric idea about grief, for instance, is the idea that people need to “let go” in order to move on; yet studies have shown that some mourners hold on to a relationship with the deceased with no notable ill effects. (In China, mourners regularly speak to dead ancestors, and one study has shown that the bereaved there suffer less long-term distress than bereaved Americans do.)

At the end of her life, Kübler-Ross herself recognized how far astray our understanding of grief had gone. In “On Grief and Grieving,” she insisted that the stages were “never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages.” If her injunction went unheeded, perhaps it is because the messiness of grief is what makes us uncomfortable.

Anyone who has experienced grief can testify that it is more complex than mere despondency. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” C. S. Lewis wrote in “A Grief Observed,” his slim account of the months after the death of his wife, from cancer.

Scientists have found that grief, like fear, is a stress reaction, attended by deep physiological changes. Levels of stress hormones like cortisol increase. Sleep patterns are disrupted. The immune system is weakened. Mourners may experience loss of appetite, palpitations, even hallucinations. They sometimes imagine that the deceased has appeared to them, in the form of a bird, say, or a cat. It is not unusual for a mourner to talk out loud -- to cry out -- to a lost one, in an elevator, or while walking the dog . . ."

Link to article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/good-grief?currentPage=all

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We all will find similarities, and we'll find differences too. Just as with all of life, right?

I hope you'll keep checking in with us. So many of us love you and want to help if only to be a listening ear and a willing heart. Try to take good care of yourself.

[Big Sister]

On 9/11/2014 dooBdoo said:

I'm glad this thread was reopened. I still have my bad days and then not-quite-so-bad days, moving along the path as everyone else is. I want to add my last post to mistri, on her Depression thread. She didn't return there, but I see she's posted here briefly.

Hi, ((((mistri)))). I'm so glad to see you checking in, but wish I could be there to give you real hugs and try to help.

What you're experiencing is normal. It's normal because grief doesn't fit into a neat and tidy package, and even though we have similarities each of us will find it to be unique to us. I've been reading a lot about the fallacies of the "5 stages of grief," and I've come to think that particular theory does more harm than good even though well-intended.

One thing that happens to me when I'm depressed or grieving is the inability to read, comprehend and retain, so you might be the same way. But if you feel up to it try some searches on the fallacies of the 5 stages of grief, or debunking the stages.

Here's an example of what I'm referring to:

". . . Perhaps the stage theory of grief caught on so quickly because it made loss sound controllable.

The trouble is that it turns out largely to be a fiction, based more on anecdotal observation than empirical evidence. Though Kübler-Ross captured the range of emotions that mourners experience, new research suggests that grief and mourning don’t follow a checklist; they’re complicated and untidy processes, less like a progression of stages and more like an ongoing process -- sometimes one that never fully ends.

Perhaps the most enduring psychiatric idea about grief, for instance, is the idea that people need to “let go” in order to move on; yet studies have shown that some mourners hold on to a relationship with the deceased with no notable ill effects. (In China, mourners regularly speak to dead ancestors, and one study has shown that the bereaved there suffer less long-term distress than bereaved Americans do.)

At the end of her life, Kübler-Ross herself recognized how far astray our understanding of grief had gone. In “On Grief and Grieving,” she insisted that the stages were “never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages.” If her injunction went unheeded, perhaps it is because the messiness of grief is what makes us uncomfortable.

Anyone who has experienced grief can testify that it is more complex than mere despondency. “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear,” C. S. Lewis wrote in “A Grief Observed,” his slim account of the months after the death of his wife, from cancer.

Scientists have found that grief, like fear, is a stress reaction, attended by deep physiological changes. Levels of stress hormones like cortisol increase. Sleep patterns are disrupted. The immune system is weakened. Mourners may experience loss of appetite, palpitations, even hallucinations. They sometimes imagine that the deceased has appeared to them, in the form of a bird, say, or a cat. It is not unusual for a mourner to talk out loud -- to cry out -- to a lost one, in an elevator, or while walking the dog . . ."

Link to article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/good-grief?currentPage=all

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We all will find similarities, and we'll find differences too. Just as with all of life, right?

I hope you'll keep checking in with us. So many of us love you and want to help if only to be a listening ear and a willing heart. Try to take good care of yourself.

dooBdoo, you said it so well. Hugs to you mistri. I'm thinking of all of you who are grieving.

[adoreqvc]

Hi Gogos,

Many thanks for posting that link.

Between the Kübler-Ross 5 steps of grief link, and the link to recover there will be plenty information for everyone which will help them what the grief journey entails.

Just to recap the Kubler-Ross 5 steps of grief link is on the 1st page.... and is my first posted contribution, and now this second Recover link is on page 6.....so they are both easy enough to locate for many.

I hope everyone who needs to, will read both links, as the original pioneers to research and amass all the information about death, and the grief journey were Kubler-Ross.

Of course it is always beneficial to read even more information on the grief journey, particularly when it has also been well researched and accepted in all fields associated with Medicine, Science, Religion, Grief and Death.