Tag: Grief and Grieving

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‘Talking Out Loud’ About Sex After Loss

Author Joan Price’s new book focuses on intimacy after grief

Author Joan Price

By Tina Antolini

In the difficult months after her husband Robert’s death, Joan Price found herself confronted with a veritable mountain of self-help books about grieving. None of them touched on the subject that would preoccupy her for the coming decade: What about sex?

Price is a sex educator, with an emphasis on older people, so perhaps she was primed for this question. But others have noticed this glaring absence in the literature of grieving, too. “The unspoken message, as I received it: keep your mouths shut about sex,” writes Alice Radosh in Modern Loss: Candid Conversations about Grief. “I turned to self-help books for widows, and found that there, too, discussions about sex were pretty much nonexistent.”

Price is used to older people’s sex lives being ignored. “I call it the ‘ick factor’ our society has,” she tells me, when I meet her near her Northern California home. “Eww: old people having sex, wrinkly sex!” she giggles to herself. Price says this ageist notion prevents older people from enjoying their sexuality, a vital part of being human, however old one is.

“We have internalized this ‘ick factor,’” she says. “We see ourselves as undesirable, as over the hill. We see ourselves as needing to say goodbye to sex when things don’t work the way they used to.” And therein lies Joan Price’s mission: to “talk out loud about senior sex,” even in life’s hardest moments. Her new book, Sex After Grief: Navigating Your Sexuality After Losing Your Beloved, seeks to fill the void in grieving literature.

A Life-Changing Love Affair

Seeing Price now, you’d have little external indication that she spent years struggling with the weight of bereavement. The first word I think of when I meet her is “spritely.” Just shy of five feet tall, Price has a twinkle of a laugh that frequently punctuates our conversation, and a playful, vibrant sense of fashion. Her fingernails are painted the purple of grape candy, and she’s wearing dangly earrings of bright, geometric shapes.

At 76, her calendar is filled with giving talks on sexuality, reviewing sex toys for her blog and teaching a bi-weekly line dancing class at a local fitness center.

It was at that line dancing class that a couple of decades ago, Price met the man who would become her husband, an artist named Robert Rice. “He walked in, and I forgot how to breathe,” she tells me. “As soon as he started moving his hips, I lost my place in the dance I was teaching. I just couldn’t take my eyes off this man.”

Price was in her late fifties at the time, already in her second career, having left a job teaching high school for one writing about fitness. The last thing she expected was a life-changing love affair. The blossoming of her romance with Robert nurtured yet another new area of work for her: writing about sex.

“It was an amazing revelation because sex was fantastic with him, but it was not the same as younger-age sex,” she says. “There was much slower arousal… It just took a lot of earnest effort on his part… It was very different. But I was feeling that sex at our age was better, that that wasn’t a defect.”

She wrote a first book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty, celebrating that discovery. A second book, Naked at Our Age, sought to answer the questions and resolve problems that older people were experiencing in their sex lives, from what position to use when pained by arthritic joints to a definition of sex that didn’t center orgasm as the only worthwhile goal.

It was when she was just starting to write that book, that Rice was diagnosed with cancer. “I put a hold on everything,” she says. When he died in 2008, Price was completely undone.

“I thought because I knew Robert was dying, that I was getting prepared for it,” she says. “You can’t prepare for that. You cannot know how that bludgeons your brain and your heart. It was all I could do to remember to brush my teeth.”

She would cry all day, pull herself together to drive to the health club, and teach her line-dancing class. Then she’d resume crying in the locker room, and weep all the way home.

A Difficult Subject to Discuss

For months, Price writes, her sexuality was dormant. That period of deep grief was followed by the fits and starts of trying to find her way into a new version of her romantic and sex life. This became the fodder for Sex After Grief. Price wanted to give other grievers a manual for navigating the tangle of experiences they might have.

“Some people feel frenetic sexual energy and yearn for a sexual outlet right away,” she writes. “Some start dating immediately, some gradually, some not ever. Some withdraw from sexual possibility. Some share their bodies but not their hearts. Many give themselves sexual release to the fantasy of their lost loved one.” All of these different responses are normal, Price insists. There isn’t one right way to move through it.

In keeping with the absence of sex in the literature of grief, there’s been very little scientific research into it, either. One of the few studies of “sexual bereavement,” as its authors term it, came out in 2017 in the journal Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters.

The study revealed that 72% of respondents (who were women age 55 and older) anticipated missing sex with their partner, and that 67% would want to initiate a discussion with a friend about it. But there was also a disconnect: 67% reported that it’d be difficult to discuss sex with a friend whose partner had died, attributing that difficulty to embarrassment.

Price addresses that embarrassment head-on in her new book. She dives into the thicket of myths and taboos of sexuality after loss — from questions of loyalty to one’s deceased partner to how long grieving should last — offering readers scripts for how to respond to advice that doesn’t resonate with their experience.

“Because in the moment, you know, you think, ‘Oh my gosh, am I supposed to take that on?’” she tells me. “’Am I supposed to be embarrassed? Am I supposed to be shamed? Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I doing grief wrong?’ You’re not doing grief wrong.”

Price’s message is clear: our sex lives don’t have to end as we get older, or when our partner dies. Whether we’re having partnered sex or not, she advocates, our sexual selves continue.

The book delves into the practicalities of solo sex, as well as various approaches for dating and different relationship models for older people who may not want to follow a marriage with another long-term relationship, but still want to remain sexually active.

Price is an advocate for thinking about a trusted “friends-with-benefits” arrangement, and quotes a 2013 “Singles in America” study from Match.com that revealed 58% of single men and 50% of single women had had one, including one in three people in their 70s.

‘You’re Not Making Any Kind of Commitment You Can’t Reverse’

She writes about how she kept two journals: one to chronicle the difficulties of grieving and another to record treasured memories that kept her husband alive for her. She writes about feeling out her own personal timetable for when to start having sex again, and with whom.

Price had some false starts, which she found instructive. “If you don’t know if you’re ready to date, it’s okay to try it and then put dating on hold if it feels wrong,” she writes. “You’re not making any kind of commitment you can’t reverse. The same is true for sex. You can explore, then change your mind at any point.”

Price’s own story is one of persistence, of refusing to allow society’s derision of aging bodies to stop her from enjoying her own and of not allowing even the tremendous loss of her loving partner to stop her from engaging with her sexual self. The story, she says, is always continuing.

In the past couple of years, it’s had yet another twist. Price put up a profile on OKCupid, and, after more than a few disappointing dates, she met a retired anthropologist named Mac Marshall who lived nearby. Marshall had recently lost his long-term partner to illness. They shared their grief stories amidst a flurry of other information on their early dates, and in emails.

Price dedicates Sex After Grief  both to her husband Robert, “who lives in my memory and in my heart,” and to Mac, “who shows me that joy is possible after grief.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Are we just too busy to grieve?

Do we just not have time to grieve anymore? Not expressing how we feel and holding in our grief affects our wellbeing, jobs, relationships and life. In today’s world, everyone busy- work, social life, family, social media, events.. the to do list is endless! Ask anyone you haven’t seen in a while how they’ve been […]

By Juliette Mullen

Do we just not have time to grieve anymore?

Not expressing how we feel and holding in our grief affects our wellbeing, jobs, relationships and life.

In today’s world, everyone busy- work, social life, family, social media, events.. the to do list is endless!

Ask anyone you haven’t seen in a while how they’ve been and they’re likely to answer, “okay, busy!”. This isn’t surprising to hear, but something that I didn’t expect in the midst of our very busy lives is how many people who have recently suffered a loss are just too busy to grieve.

Let’s face it, we all have bills, responsibilities and commitments so, for some, taking the time to grieve and heal, to find support may feel like a luxury. Not only from a financial perspective, but also time- they have so much to keep up with.

With life moving so fast and so many things to do, and in a lot of cases, so many people to take care of, do we really give ourselves the chance and time we need to grieve?

There are many reasons we may not allow ourselves time to grieve- and they may not always be what you’d think. Work, responsibilities, being a parent, avoidance, lack of awareness and not realising we need support, sometimes even stubbornness.

We all need to ask ourselves, (and answer honestly!) is it actually about not having the time, space, money or is it a case of not making the time? Some find it easier to throw themselves into a project, to the kids, to work.. as it is “easier” than facing the grief and the emotions that come up. I’m sure “easy” is the last word most people who have experienced a loss would use, but let’s reflect on that. If we are always moving, always busy, and always worried about everyone and everything else, then there just isn’t time to think about our self, our own needs, our emotions or our pain.

I recognise this dilemma all too well. When I suffered my own loss in life, the loss of a baby, the loss of a parent, the loss of a marriage. The loss of dreams, hopes and a part of me. Grief is both real and measurable, Scientists now know that loss changes us forever. Whether its the death of a parent, or a child- it is one of the most emotional and universal human experiences. Yet, loss is something that we all inevitably face at some point in our lives.

However, ungrieved losses takes it toll on our hearts and can make us feel disconnected from life. We think we can avoid it by being busy but over time, we shut down our emotions, little by little until we are so out of alignment with ourselves, that in some cases we don’t even recognise ourselves anymore.

It’s important to recognise our own needs, asking our self what we really need and recognise how important self care is. Often people suggest grievers eat well, go for walks, get rest, have a cup of tea. Of course, the act of self care itself (whatever it is) can be pleasant in itself, but these quiet activities allow for just that: PEACE and QUIET -and a time to reflect and take that inner journey to allow us to sit with our emotions and heal. It’s something every griever needs, but the busy griever just doesn’t seem to get enough of.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Mourning From the Closet

When you lose a parent before you come out, you grieve twice.

By Madeline Ducharme

The day after I saw my dad for what would turn out to be the last time, I surprised myself and told someone I’m queer.

It was first-year move-in day at college. I had just left behind the breezes of Southern California for the 90-degree temperatures and relentless humidity of late August in New York City. Soaked in sweat but giddy, I took a break from sorting out storage bins and dorm décor to sit on the floor and get to know my three new roommates. Early into our conversation, I suddenly said, “I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual.”

I remember inelegantly shoving it into our early introductions, unprompted. To my roommates, I’m sure this brief declaration was as laid-back as the tie-dyed crop top I was wearing that day. (It said “stay rad” across it. I know.) But for me, it sparked a moment of exhilarated panic as my mother and aunt—both of whom did not know about my recent self-discovery—returned to my room. As the two of them struggled to help me organize my life in our itty-bitty shared space, I whispered from the floor: “Don’t mention what I said earlier. I’m not out to them.”

Actually, I wasn’t out to anyone, except a few close friends. My mom and sisters were largely progressive, but I had also been raised in a Catholic home and attended Catholic school through eighth grade. My father, meanwhile, was a kind of atheist, nonvoting libertarian, often hellbent on defending his own political apathy. In one of the very last conversations I ever had with him, he kept trying to press my buttons. As he drove my mother and me to the airport to begin my college journey, he shared tongue-in-cheek admiration for “our future female president”: Carly Fiorina. (This was 2015.) He laughed and I rolled my eyes, but it felt clear I couldn’t tell him what I was realizing about myself.

In the latter half of my high school years, I hadn’t quite come out to myself either. I consistently explored the now virtually nonexistent corners of queer Tumblr. (Remember #girlskissing? No?) After I used every silly, drunken senior-year Model U.N. party as an opportunity to kiss my girlfriends, my own sexual fluidity started to become a little clearer. I had come to see historically women’s colleges as queer havens (thanks, also, to Tumblr), so I chose one for myself. I decided that a journey of coming out could be safely relegated to college, and maybe—just maybe—if I got a girlfriend, I would have reasonable enough “proof” to open the conversation at home, with my mom and, somehow, my dad.

Less than two weeks after I arrived at my dorm room, my dad died of a sudden heart attack. I had just finished my first week of classes.

My immediate grief saw me fluctuating between long days in bed and spurts of typical freshman social energy. I felt most alive after campus activities related to the queer community. I joined a Facebook group called “HELLA GAY MOVIE NIGHTS.” I attended monthly LGBTQ dance parties. I performed in our musical theater society’s Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast.

I emerged more fully out of the closet, but I still hadn’t come out to family. In fact, I felt like I was living a double life: one part of me idle and in mourning and the other, out. The thrill of that felt so distinct from my grieving self that it was almost as if the openly queer part of me was unburdened by my loss—so separate and distinct that my old life, and its sudden tragedy, began to feel less real.

Returning home for breaks during the school year shattered that illusion. My grief ruled me. I came to a realization: While I wanted to share my new self, my new life, with my mom and sisters, I felt a devastating relief that I wouldn’t ever have to come out to my father. I had no way of knowing how he would react, but I took comfort in knowing I’d never have to face even the slightest disapproval, criticism, or judgment from him. It was a dark kind of consolation.

Then I met my first girlfriend. I fell in love with her. I envisioned a future with her. In a few clumsy, emotional conversations, I finally shared my secret—and my relationship—with my family. They were awkward, but ultimately happy to embrace this part of me.

When you lose a parent in your teens, you immediately imagine all the milestones you’ll hit without them: graduation, a first job, a wedding, and a family of your own. But I also started to realize that my father might not even recognize me anymore, not only because of how I had aged but also because of who I’d become.

I began to have recurring dreams where he came back to life and I was tasked with welcoming him back to our world, back to our family, and to the new me. I would update him on all he had missed. It took this chimerical notion to make me rethink my relief: If any of these dreams ever took place on my wedding day, it’s possible that my father would look right past me, because I might be next to a woman.

Nearly a year later, that realization launched a kind of second mourning. I lost him first, then, later, lost the opportunity for him to ever know who I am. To know me at my happiest. I felt intense guilt and shame about the comfort I had initially taken in avoiding the conversation.

Around that time, I realized something else. I wanted to tell my most elderly family members who I was before they were gone too. This presented obstacles. My living grandfather is an octogenarian from the Middle East. My living grandmother and her sister are 92 and 100 years old, respectively. These two women live in my family’s home. They are all deeply Catholic.

Last May, my grandfather was set to visit New York City for my commencement. A few weeks prior to the ceremony, my mother mentioned to me over the phone that if my then-girlfriend would be celebrating with us, I owed him a conversation before his trip “to avoid any surprises.” Before I could gather the will, my girlfriend and I broke up, and my grandfather’s lymphoma kept him in California.

Soon it’ll have been another year since then. I still haven’t come out to any of them. I’ve worried that I’ll experience the same parallel grief when their times come. After college, I stayed on the East Coast, so perhaps I really fear being absent in the last years of their lives. Perhaps I don’t want to trouble them with an exasperated conversation in their old age. Perhaps I want to spare myself the pain of rejection.

Another part of me believes they already know. They don’t comment on my short haircut or my unshaven body hair when I’m home, and they’ve stopped asking me about my romantic prospects. Maybe there’s a mutual, unspoken understanding between all of us.

When I think back on the dark nights scrolling through Tumblr or that steamy move-in day with my quiet coming out, I look fondly on a person who was finally allowing herself to live the life she wanted. I don’t judge her for hiding before. I don’t scoff at her past fears. Instead, I respect her for waiting for the moment to be right for her.

More than a half-decade later, I’ve discovered a different side of that person. The side that accepts the person her father knew when he died. And the side that, when it comes to revealing her full self to the rest of her family’s elders, gives herself permission to be OK with what they may never know.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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There’s No Right Way to Mourn

The ‘grief police’ wield lamentable shaming tactics.

By Sian Beilock

When Kobe Bryant died on Jan. 26, there was an outpouring of grief for the legendary N.B.A. champion. Sports fans placed bouquets of flowers at his high school and held a vigil outside the Staples Center. Shaquille O’Neal, his friend, rival and former Lakers teammate, cried on TV while giving an emotional tribute.

Much of this grieving also took place on social media. His widow, Vanessa Bryant, wrote a powerful tribute on Instagram that was “liked” by more than nine million people. So did Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul. Grief is no longer private these days, which lets us mourn together. But doing so also allows people to publicly shame how others deal with loss.

“Cancel the games. Cancel the Grammys.,” one person wrote on Twitter. Another criticized those who brought up the rape allegation against Bryant in their commemorations: “Some people have no respect for the dead.” This is part of a broader phenomenon. These “grief police” enforce murky standards of who should be sad, when they’re allowed to be and to what degree. They insist that our grief must be overwhelming and ubiquitous, and for all parts of our lives to be put on hold. This isn’t just problematic in the moment; introducing guilt into the grieving process can negatively impact others’ ability to heal.

Something similar happened at Barnard College where, in December, we were forced to grieve in the media spotlight after one of the newest members of our community, the first-year student Tess Majors, was murdered. I have spent my career researching anxiety and worry, and I was struck by a commonality among people on campus: Amid their feelings of heartbreak, members of our community were worried about how others would perceive their specific form of grieving.

I wasn’t aware of students policing others’ grief, but the perception that this was happening still had an effect, especially given the media attention around the tragedy. One student told me that, in the midst of her deep sorrow, she also felt guilty about feeling eager to write her final papers and was worried she would be judged for not mourning in the “right” way. Another student mentioned that she didn’t know Tess Majors personally and was feeling all right, even looking forward to a long-planned family trip over break, but was going to keep this thought to herself.

I bet some of the N.B.A. players who were eager to play in the wake of Bryant’s death also had mixed feelings — because they are being judged. LeBron James was skewered online for not immediately posting about his friend and mentor: “Why are you not posting Kobe? I never liked LeBron because he is always FULL of himself,” one person wrote on social media.

Public grieving doesn’t happen in a single community where there are shared social norms for how to react, like sitting shiva or walking in a second line. If bereaved players are slow to comment publicly, should we call them out? Must everyone who has ever met Bryant say something in public? When people with vastly different lived experiences come together around a public death, there is no real shared understanding of what is appropriate; this is why the grief police wield such power in calling people out.

Unfortunately, introducing blame into the grieving process causes people to question whether they are dealing with loss the right way and to feel guilty about what they do, say and feel. Recent research has linked guilt in bereavement to a wide range of mental and physical difficulties, including depression. So how, in the age of communal and public mourning, do we grieve and not let the grief police undercut how we feel? How do we continue to perform at our best with heavy hearts?

Everyone responds to death differently, and it’s psychologically healthy to focus on parts of our identity that are not touched by tragedy. It is O.K. for a grieving athlete to play an important game; the same goes for a student who wants to take her finals in the wake of a campus tragedy. Research on resiliency shows quite clearly that people who express (and value) different aspects of who they are tend to be psychologically stronger. For example, their role as an athlete, student or parent provides another outlet to express themselves if they experience a setback or loss in one aspect of their life, or if one of the ways they identify themselves is called into doubt.

Embracing the fullness of our identities in no way represents a lack of respect or a blindness to the gravity of a tragedy. Quite the opposite: It is only through this process that we can effectively take care of one another, including those who have been most affected.

Despite my expertise in this subject, I have had to force myself over the last month to realize that, even in mourning, I have to juggle life as a college president, a researcher, a mother, an athlete and a friend — not only for my own health and mind-set, but also for the well-being of those around me. When the grief police arrive, we need to give ourselves license to express positive emotions and affirm other aspects of ourselves that we value outside of the tragedy. Doing so means we will feel more in control and cope better down the line.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Anticipatory grief is real.

Here’s how to get help.

By Mary Chaput

I feel like I barely made it through the holidays in one piece. The family was all here; we celebrated with all of our usual traditions and yet I am so incredibly sad. Although my husband is still with us, he has dementia and I could often see confusion and anxiety on his face despite the love and support the family provided. I wish I could just be happy that I still have him next to me instead of feeling sad that things aren’t the way I always imagined they would be.

Grief is a universal response to loss; grief is a normal process. Caregivers often also experience ambiguous grief when, like your husband, the care recipient is physically present but psychologically or emotionally absent. The losses experienced in dementia are incremental and are not generally clearly defined making the mourning process rather complex. Handling these continuous losses over time can be emotionally exhausting.

Anticipatory grief when caring for someone with a terminal illness, such as dementia, is also not uncommon; we are may experience sorrow for the losses we anticipate in the future – plans to travel, plans to grow old together – as well as reconciling the fact that there will be a final physical loss. Caregivers may face fears of their own loss of independence and socialization as well as the fear of being alone. Anticipatory grief can be just as intense as the grief we feel when someone dies and, while not discussed as much as the grief felt after a death, it is a normal process for caregivers.

These types of grief are often difficult to acknowledge but they are a normal response to a caregiver’s situation. The grieving process is fluid, varying from person to person. There is no right way or wrong way to feel.

If anticipatory grief is affecting your day-to-day well-being, reach out to your support network or to a support group. Find a way to express your emotions such as through meditation, journaling or exercise. Make the most of the time you have with your husband and, most importantly, take care of your own emotional and physical health.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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When Your Best Friend Dies

How to grieve and minimize the feeling of loss

By Gary M. Stern

Josh Koplovitz, an attorney based in Woodstock, N.Y., communicated with his best friend Lester Fensterheim nearly every day. They first met in 1999 and connected over their love of tennis. The two played tennis together and occasionally poker, socialized with their spouses and developed a strong bond. On Aug. 1, 2017, 74-year-old Fensterheim felt a pain in his face, suffered a minor stroke and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died three months later on Nov. 4.

Koplovitz misses Fensterheim terribly and feels a void over his death and the loss of their friendship. “I was drawn to Lester, and he was drawn to me and the friendship developed,” Koplovitz said. Fensterheim was a “magnetic personality,” said Koplovitz., adding: “When you came into his presence, you felt an unmistakable connectivity, as if he was saying to you, ‘You are a special person.’ He taught me to be more accepting of people than I otherwise would have been. He had a basic love of humanity.”

When Fensterheim took ill, Koplovitz visited him frequently at home and provided considerable emotional support. He did everything he could to help his best friend as he started to suffer from his illness, which helped ease the pain of Fensterheim’s death. Now, Koplovitz focuses on the “the good times and the relationship we had, not that he’s gone. It makes me sad, but I’m grateful for what we had.”

The Challenges of Grieving When a Best Friend Dies

Recovering from the loss of a best friend can be thorny, complicated and difficult in ways that are different than the death of a spouse or parent. The death of a best friend strikes one’s mortality, making you realize that death is unavoidable and inevitable. Moreover, there’s no accepted way to recover from the loss of a best friend, and there are few support groups or grief circles offering assistance.

“When we lose a best friend, we are losing someone who gets us, someone who is witnessing our life, so it’s a huge loss,” explained Shasta Nelson, author of Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendship for Lifelong Health and Happiness. “Best friends offer rewards. We get positivity, empathy, joy, memories, a play partner and a conversation partner.”

The effect of losing a best friend is “devastating,” Nelson noted. In fact, it can be harder, in some ways, than losing a spouse. “When we lose a spouse, we sit at the front row of the funeral. We get cards and are listed in the obituary,” she said. But when a person suffers the loss of a best friend, there are no sympathy cards and no validation for the loss.

Minimizing the Loss of a Friend

Jackson Rainer, a Decatur, Ga.-based clinical psychologist and author of Life After Loss: Contemporary Grief Counseling and Therapy, said grappling with the loss of a dear friend is complicated because “there’s no place for the bereaved to put their grief. A best friend’s relationship is very personal, but different from family or a spouse.”

Moreover, there are expected ways to accept sympathy and solace for the loss of a parent or spouse, but a best friend’s death is “idiosyncratic, eccentric, contained between the two. It’s not something publicly acknowledged or understood,” Rainer said.

It takes time to deal with the grief that stems from the death of a best friend. “Grief has its own timetable. Grief isn’t quick; it’s a slow process,” Rainer added.

Nelson recommends these three tips to help minimize the loss of a best friend:

  • Contact other friends who attended the funeral and organize a get-together every year on the day of the best friend’s death to honor the loss.
  • Share with other close friends what the loss of your best friend means to you; don’t keep your feelings locked inside.
  • Jot down thoughts in a journal about memories of your friend, which can help you work through your feelings and grief.

If your grief doesn’t subside, the loss can trigger depression. “You know you’re depressed when you’re numb to experience and feelings,” Rainer said.

And there’s no magical elixir to end the depression. “Put one foot in front of the other, stay in motion, say what you feel and find someone who is willing to serve as witness for your loss,” Rainer urged.

Honoring the Friendship

Grief comes in waves, but if the sadness turns into depression, it could be time to meet with a therapist to talk these feelings out. Talk therapy, Rainer suggested, helps a person come to grips with the depression and loss.

One trap in grappling with the loss of a close friend is the expectation that other people will acknowledge or appreciate the loss. Often, that doesn’t happen. “The relationship of a best friend is so unique that it’s hard for others to understand it,” Rainer said.

“Give yourself permission to realize what a huge loss this was,” said Nelson. Take an entire year and turn it into a grieving period, where you gradually accept what this loss means to you.

Creating rituals honoring the loss of an intimate friend can soothe the pain. Anything that reminds you of the friendship — a photo or a ring, perhaps — vivifies the friendship and may help ease the pain.

“None of your other friends can replace the friend you lost. But this loss is an invitation for you to keep deepening other friends in your life,” advised Nelson.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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We Lost Our Son to Suicide.

Here’s How We Survived.

By Julie Halpert

I tried many of the supports available to help parents heal, like therapy, support groups, exercise and finding a way to honor our son’s memory.

On Sept. 7, 2017, my 31st wedding anniversary, a date marked by happy memories turned tragic. That was when I learned that my 23-year-old son, Garrett, had died by suicide. Two-and-a-half years later, the news that brought me to my knees rings in my memory as if it were delivered just yesterday.

Garrett was popular, talented and loved by his many friends and family members. Yet he felt alone in his struggles. Despite our fervent efforts to get him help, he slipped through our grasp. My husband and I had to come to terms with the most brutal outcome for a parent: We could not save him.

Our son is part of an epidemic of youth suicide. He was one of 6,252 Americans ages 15 to 24 who officially died by suicide in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Any loss of a child is devastating. But a suicide death takes a particularly severe toll on the survivors. Research shows that people who are grieving a suicide are 80 percent more likely to drop out of school or quit their jobs — and 64 percent more likely to attempt suicide themselves — than those who are grieving sudden losses by natural causes.

Parents often become immersed in self-blame, said Richard Tedeschi, a clinical psychologist in Charlotte, N.C., and author of “Helping Bereaved Parents.” They can be tormented by thinking about what they could have done differently to prevent the suicide. If your child seemed to be thriving and there were no warning signs, you think you should have noticed them. If you knew your child was struggling, you feel you should have been more vigilant to prevent the suicide. There also may be stigma attached to a suicide death that makes the loss even more painful.

Despite the agony, my husband and I made a deliberate choice not to crumble. We agreed that it would not be fair to our surviving daughters to disengage and surrender entirely to the grief. They were grieving the loss of their brother, and we needed to stay present for them.

As a journalist and resource seeker desperate to get through each bleak day, I tried out many of the supports available to help parents gain comfort and start to heal.

The first involved seeking professional help from a therapist. “Sudden death is traumatic,” said Jonathan Singer, president of the American Association of Suicidology. Therapists can be especially helpful to survivors in coping with post-traumatic symptoms that often accompany suicide deaths in the form of flashbacks, nightmares and anxiety, he said.

Peer support groups, where you are joined by others who have lost a child to suicide, can be particularly helpful. “That shared sense of the journey you’re on is so reassuring, and those are the people who will remember and stand by you,” said Dr. Tedeschi. “You’re with people who get it,” added Pamela Gabbay, interim executive director of the Compassionate Friends, which runs support groups for those who have lost a child or grandchild. “That peer model is truly invaluable,” she said.

My husband and I attended a support group, facilitated by social workers, for those who lost children to suicide. Though each of our circumstances were in some ways unique, we found solace in each other, while the social workers suggested strategies for self-care and resilience.

I also joined three online groups for parents who had lost children to suicide. When I was struggling with relentless painful thoughts, I could get immediate helpful advice from others, some of whom were several years into the journey. I benefited from their wisdom and ended up connecting off-line with two mothers. One lived across the country and had a son, also named Garrett, who took his life just two weeks before mine. Another, in a different state, turned out to be someone I recently had contacted to interview for a story. I bonded immediately in phone conversations with these women as we listened intently to each other’s struggles, providing a crucial sounding board.

Experts say that both online and in-person support groups can be useful, depending on your willingness to engage with strangers. Vanessa McGann, chair of the American Association of Suicidology’s Loss Division, said that in-person groups help you build friendships in a more personal, immediate way, but it’s not always possible to find a group of parents who have lost children to suicide in your area. Online support is more widely accessible and available any time of the day. “For bereaved people, often the nights are the worst. You wake up at 3 a.m. and there’s no one to turn to,” Dr. Gabbay said.

Much research has shown the benefits of exercise in keeping depression at bay. I have exercised nearly every day since I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, and for me it continued to be therapeutic. This includes a weekly ballet class, which I returned to a few months after my son’s death. In this creative outlet, I can momentarily lose myself in the movement and the classical music.

Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said that for some people, exercise can be as helpful and potent as other aspects of a treatment plan, such as medications or psychotherapy. But she emphasizes that it can be difficult to get motivated to try something new when you’re reeling from a suicide death. “Go to the self-care activities you know worked for you in the past but don’t be afraid to try new things when you’re ready,” she said. She also suggests meditation, yoga and deep breathing techniques. Practicing breathing techniques for as little as three to four times a day for one minute at a time is a simple yet powerful way to lower stress-related cortisol levels and prevent your brain “from going into overdrive,” she said.

Finding a way to create meaning out of your child’s suicide can be a significant source of healing. Within a year of our son’s passing, joined by leaders in the mental health field, my husband and I established a nonprofit called Garrett’s Space to create a holistically focused, stigma-free residential center for young adults with significant mental health challenges. It’s intended to fill a major treatment gap, fostering hope and connection for young people who often feel alone in their struggles.

In many ways, this project has been emotionally exhausting, but the initiative has provided an essential way for my husband and me to feel that we are honoring our son’s goodness.

Dr. Tedeschi said grieving parents don’t have to invest the time and energy in starting a nonprofit to see the benefits. “What’s most important is to do something that benefits other people, something that is of service to others.”

There obviously is no panacea, and every circumstance is different. Time ultimately may be your greatest ally, Dr. Singer said.

“The grief will never go away completely,” Dr. Singer said, but as the months and years pass, “you’ll have longer stretches between episodes of debilitating sadness.” Dr. McGann says that eventually, the emotions that surface from the memories of your child will be positive instead of the frightening or traumatic ones surrounding his or her death.

Dr. Tedeschi and other experts also said that some bereaved parents eventually go through a period of “post-traumatic growth,” which can lead to a greater appreciation for the value of life, positive changes in relationships and a recognition of personal strength. Of course, it’s hard to view suicide loss through an optimistic lens. As for me, I must accept the life I’ve been dealt, post September 2017. And I have to find a way to live it.

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