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

[awe]

Hi Mosaic. Regarding loss and grief, they say that the amount of love invested will equal the amount of grief. It's very personal. It seems that if we feel it's a big loss then we'll have more grief.

[Heartworks]

@awe Beautiful comment - to be given a blessing with a response of "me too" is just tremendous. My students express the same thing. It's almost as though a problem shared is a problem halved 🙂

[Former-Member]

@Fatima it sounds like you have a lot on your plate, managing your own grief of losing your mum less than a year ago, while also trying to help your brother adjust to this loss as well. Did you know you would become his sole carer, or did this role happen to fall into your lap after your mothers death? Did taking on this role lead to any other changes that you've had to work through? Eg - changes in work, or family dynamics?

That’s a good suggestion from @presence to send video links and imessages on the ipad. Sometimes we can show support and compassion to our loved ones without necessarily talking about the loss specifically.

Does anyone else have suggestions for @Fatima?

[And-016]

Mosaic, I think that very early on you can feel shell-shocked and feel numb and disbelieving. You can feel you're on an emotional rollercoaster. When more time passes, there can be difficulties concentrating, finding the "ordinary tasks of the day" pretty banal and unimportant. They seem unimportant in the face of the grief you are experiencing.

[Fatima]

For me grief made me not want to participate innactivities outside the home environment. It took me 6 months to move on to a general feeling of sadness from grief.  

[awe]

For @Fatima, when my son was becoming mentally worse with his alcoholism, it helped me a lot to have a few key people to talk to.That made th burden seem less and it helped me to think it through better.

[Former-Member]

@Heartworks thanks for sharing. The grief that comes with a diagnosis is tremendous for the carer, as it can often lead to the loss of dreams and aspirations for our life. While those dreams or aspirations may be future oriented, and may not yet have actually manifested, the loss is still incredibly real and raw. Can I ask, what has this shift in dreams look like for you and your family? 

[And-016]

Fatima, I so relate to the experience of not wanting to participate outside the home environment. And yet after six months that's often when people are expecting one to "move on". I believe one of the greatest myths of grief relates to “closure”, that one day the grief will pass. It’s a term that’s popularly used in the media. But what lived experience and research repeatedly tells us, is that grief stemming from a loss stays with us, but over time the grief will dissipate in intensity and frequency. Grieving is something that can’t be rushed, and it becomes integrated into the fabric of our lives. It becomes part of the new you.

[Fatima]

No i was always the one in the family who agreed to take respinsibility for my brother. My other brother who is 9'years younger will help out if he is oressured into it. Rather reluctantly though. Our family has had. An ongoing debate as to whether my brother should have been forcably hospitalised abd medicated, but it never happened and somehow the unwell one survives. It has been very stressful and a major issue is my brother smokes in his room at night and i am a chronic asthmatic. Very difficult to resolve.

[awe]

My grief has seemed to affect everything. 

All sorts of new feelings 

Physical effects such as loss of energy. I found working more difficult

Mentally it has been harder to concentrate

There have been so many differences to before