Grief | Grieving | Death of a Child

Writing is a form of self-expression that can be a major factor in how you cope with the death of your loved one. This can be especially important as a supplement to having a small support system or if you live alone. It may also be a special skill you possess that can give you additional satisfaction when expressing yourself.

On the other hand, anyone can write. You don’t have to be a good writer or speller to use writing as a potent tool to cope with the death of a loved one. Nor do you have to write a lot each time you sit down with pen in hand. Simply write what you feel at the time is the basic rule. Read the rest of this entry »

Most traumas, including the death of a spouse are potentially shattering experiences. These events can disrupt the survivor?s social, emotional, and cognitive worlds. Although there has been frequent mention in the literature that traumatic situations cause people to talk about their experiences most evidence has been anecdotal. When someone within a social network dies, members of the network are naturally drawn together. During the grieving period especially within the first few days or weeks the survivors socially share their emotions and memories with each other. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Dr. Prigerson,

I just wanted to share with you the response to Ronald Kotulak’s article that we will be putting on our blog.  We have been receiving angry e-mails regarding his generalizing your study to bereaved parents.  If you or the other authors have any comments please send them off to us and we will add them to the blog.  We will also be talking about the article on our internet radio show next Thursday.  Thanks, Gloria Horsley
 
This is a response to the article From the Chicago Tribune Scientists measure 5 stages of Grief by Ronald Kotulak, February 20, 2007
 
As a bereaved parent, psychotherapist and Clinical Nurse Specialist, I am distressed with Mr. Kotulak’s article taken from, “An Empirical Examination of the Stage Theory of Grief”, Jama, Vol. 297, February 21, 2007.  This was an important study done by Maciejewski, Zhang, Block, and Prigerson on the Stage Theory of Grief.  It is unfortunate that Mr. Kotulak has led the reader to believe that this study could be generalized to bereaved parents.  While there has been a great deal of research regarding widow’s responses to death there has been little regarding bereaved parents.  Since the majority of the sample (83%) of 233 bereaved individuals with a mean age of (62) were spouses of the deceased and the other (16%) who were called “remaining participants” and said to be adult children, parents, or siblings of the deceased.  We have a missing piece of information here.  Just exactly how many parents were there in the study, couldn’t have been many? 
 
Nothing in the JAMA article is given on the, “remaining participants”. Yet, Mr. Kotulak uses as his prime example Christine Reilly, 39, of Whitman, Mass whose son Michael died in 1999.  As a bereaved parent I would like to say that by generalizing this study to bereaved parents Mr.  Kotulak has done huge disservice to all those who have lost children.  As a clinician it concerns me that Mr.  Kotulak would use a bereaved mother as his example and then quote Paul Maciejewski, as saying, “Acceptance is the norm in the case of natural deaths, even soon after the loss”, and then Ms Prigerson as saying “This would suggest that people who have extreme levels of depression, anger or yearning beyond six months would be those who might benefit from a better mental health evaluation and possible referral for treatment”.  Would anyone in their right mind really say these things to a bereaved parent?
 
 
Gloria C. Horsley Ph.D
National Board Member of The Compassionate Friends
www.thegriefblog.com
Host of Healing The Grieving Heart
188 Minna Street, 38D
San Francisco, Ca 94105
415-994-8263

Online memorials offer you a space to pen down your poignant memories and thoughts. In a way, it helps bring together grieving people scattered all over the world. In the age of the Internet, online memorials have become an essential part of the grieving process. One of the most popular online memorials available today brings together parents who have lost their children through disease or accidents. Another one Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes life has the habit of kicking us in the teeth, perhaps through no fault of our own. Things gets tough and we have periods of sorrow and hurt, this could be the death of a loved one, a breakup of relationships or sickness. We have two options to dealing with what life throws at us and these are to give up and go into depression or to accept whatever happens in life and then move on with our lives, if we make the right choice then we grieve of course, then pick ourselves up and move on with our life. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are reading this then something terrible has happened. First let me offer my condolences. As Joan Didion says, “Life changes fast.” Next let me extend a heartfelt welcome. You are now a member of an exclusive club — the club nobody wants to be a member of. And though your world’s turned upside down, already you’re asking questions: “How will I cope? Will things be alright? And oh yeah, Can I please have my husband back?” Read the rest of this entry »

The mental fog that had sheltered me emotionally during those first four months after my husband?s death is slowly, and painfully, beginning to clear. Coincidently, this occurs just as the world around me appears to need me to get out and on with my life. And so, I?m finding that this is an important time in my mourning because with my newfound awareness comes the need to take a stand, to ?own? my grieving Read the rest of this entry »

The truth of celebration is there often is a bittersweet element to it. Someone may be missing this year in the celebration. The last Christmas my family had with my husband was spent at the hospital and at home.

We had a Christmas tree at both locations. The children were nine and seven. Christmas morning the children woke up to presents under the tree and stockings filled as the three of us experienced our first Christmas without Dad with us. Later that morning, we went to the hospital with gifts and he had the gifts I’d purchased he would give to them. There was joy mixed with the sadness that we all were aware this was Read the rest of this entry »

Grief is one of the hardest things to face in life, and unfortunately it is something which most of us will experience in our time. Writing or reading grief poems and funeral poems is something which many find beneficial in helping them to complete their journey through the bereavement process. Read the rest of this entry »

Things looking bleak?

When milestone days approach, a holiday, a birthday or deathday, do your emotions tumble downhill as you struggle with lonely, depressing efforts to hold back your feelings? Is the one you really want with someone else, or did he or she pass away, yet you hunger and yearn for whom is missing? Do you have to push away painful memories just to get through the day and that takes all your concentration and Read the rest of this entry »