Tag Archives: Alan Wolfelt

I GIVE MYSELF GRACE

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14. KNOW THAT GRIEF DOES NOT PROCEED IN ORDERLY, PREDICTABLE “STAGES”.

Be compassionate with yourself as you experience your own unique grief journey (HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, Alan D Wolfelt, PhD, 2005)

I have finally, after 11+ years, arrived at a place where I can give myself some grace. I no longer feel the need to punish myself for my son’s death. I write this with some trepidation, although I note that I did not write “I no longer blame myself or feel guilt”.

I have finally arrived at the place where I can truly mourn his death. The horror of finding him is less obtrusive. It no longer blunts the grief as much. 

I visited his grave the other day. I straightened the angel on the decorated Christmas tree someone left there…likely his dad or sister. They also left a panda ornament hanging on the headstone, one of his favorite animals. It was bitter sweet. I believe I said, “Hey Brat,” as I looked at his photo embedded in the stone. I didn’t stay long, but it was different from other visits. I was present. I remained in my body.

I think having both of my daughters and my grandchildren with me on Christmas Eve helped to bring along this softening. I feel more at peace. I am ending this year on a more self-compassionate note.

I AM SUPPORTED BY OTHERS

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UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need #6: Receive ongoing support from others.

  • Grief is experienced in “doses” over years, not quickly and efficiently, and you will need the continued support of your friends and family for weeks, months and years.  (Alan D. Wolfelt, PH.D., HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

It’s been more than eleven years, and yes, I need continued support. I “accidentally” found my Survivors of Suicide group one evening, when I walked into my local county library branch and saw a hand-written sign that said “SOS”. The facilitator of the group, now my friend, likes to say it was the Holy Spirit that brought me in. I can’t disagree. At the very least, it was a “wink” from God or the Universe.

This group meets monthly in person and via Zoom, but also socially from time to time. It’s a group none of us would have chosen to join, but we find ease and comfort in each others’ presence as we share losses that are difficult for others, who have not, to understand.

Some of us recently attended the International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day program hosted by our state’s Traumatic Loss Coalition (TLC), sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Events are held annually on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Our event included the showing of a video of interviews with survivors of suicide loss, updating their journey; a panel discussion with survivors on how their journey has been and continues; a lunch; and, breakout groups. I co-facilitated the mothers group with another mom. We’ve done this together several times now. This event is the only time we see each other, but we are closely tied together and share a warm hug when we meet.

A bunch of us from the SOS group travelled together to Survivor Day and socialized afterward at our driver’s house. His wife didn’t attend, but she cooked for us, and we all brought something to share. Others came only to the social gathering. It was good to be with them all. There is a love there that knows no bounds and I am forever grateful for the “accident” that brought me to them.

THERE IS NO MEANING

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12. UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need #5: Search for meaning

  • “Why?” questions may surface uncontrollably and often precede “How?” questions. “Why did this happen?” comes before “How will I go on living?”

CARPE DIEM:

Write down a list of “why” questions that have surfaced for you since the death. Find a friend or counselor who will explore these questions with you without thinking she has to give you answers. ( HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, Alan D Wolfelt, PH.D., 2005)

I didn’t ask why then; and, I don’t ask why now. I believed I knew. I believed and continue to believe it was my fault. Oh, there’s a part of me that gives him the dignity of making his own choice, but if I hadn’t told him that day that he had to move out…If I hadn’t told him, “My heart is broken”…he would still be here.

I didn’t and don’t blame God. As a matter of fact, in a spiritual direction session, I asked Jesus where he was when Joseph died. He told me he was here with him. I saw Joseph walk right into his arms and say to Jesus, “You ARE real!” 

For that I am grateful. 

The “Why?”s I do have include: 

“Why did God give me not one but THREE mentally ill children?” 

“What was he thinking?” 

I thought I did a good job raising them. No, I didn’t. I struggled and judged myself. But I worked so hard at it. I STUDIED to be a mother. I didn’t feel I had any “mother’s intuition”. I had NO IDEA how to be a parent. I read and reread the Gesell books with each of my four children, Birth to One Year, Your One Year Old, Your Two Year Old, etc…Between Parent and Teenager. I read Parent Effectiveness Training. I took trainings. I reached out for all the help I could get. 

I thought I was doing them a favor by letting them be who they were. Now I wonder. Nah. I still believe letting our children be who they are is best…a gift.

I remember, when they were young, thinking “I don’t know what I would do if I had special needs children.” Well, most of them were, are, special needs. It just all seemed normal to me having grown up in my family. 

Joseph had made multiple suicide attempts before he died. I believe my comment, “My heart is broken,” after discovering he had been using again, released him. Maybe he held on so long because he knew I couldn’t handle it if he died. Maybe that comment made him think I’d be better off without him. Who knows?

I AM STILL JOSEPH’S MOTHER

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11. UNDERSTAND THE SIX NEEDS OF MOURNING

Need #4: Develop a new self-identity

  • You have gone from being a parent to a “bereaved parent”. You thought of yourself, at least in part, as your child’s mother or father. Even if you have other children, this perception of yourself has changed. If the child who died was your only child, you may wonder whether you are still a parent at all.

CARPE DIEM:

Write out a response to this prompt:  I used to be . Now that

died, I am . This makes me feel . Keep writing as long as you want.

I didn’t “used to be” anything. I am still Joseph’s mother. For a time after his death, eleven years ago, I may have filled in this blank differently. No. No, I wouldn’t. Likely, I wouldn’t have filled it in at all. I couldn’t. It was too raw.

I remember, shortly after his death, sitting in my therapist’s office and asking him, “What do I say when someone asks me how many children I have?” I am past that now. I answer, “Four”. I gave birth to four children, regardless of how many still inhabit this earth. When I am asked their ages, I respond differently depending on who is asking, and why. Sometimes the conversation is easy. Someone is genuinely interested; and, I will respond fully, saying Joseph died. If they ask how, I tell them.

I find that, sometimes, when I share that he died by suicide, people have experienced their own suicide losses. Sadly, it is not all that uncommon.

COMPASSION FOR MY CHILDREN

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7. BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOUR SURVIVING CHILDREN

  • Grieving siblings are often “forgotten mourners”. This means that their parents and family as well as friends and society tend to overlook their ongoing grief or attempt to soothe it away.

CARPE DIEM: 

Hold a family meeting and talk to your children about their feelings since the death. Even if the death wasn’t recent, you may uncover lingering resentments, fears and regrets. Expressing these feelings may help bring your family closer together. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENTS’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

Sadly, it was a long time before I could look around and see how Joseph’s death affected my children. My youngest daughter is actively involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (https://afsp.org/). She is on the Board in our state and is their Social Media Ambassador, with a team of volunteers. She is very open, publicly, about how her brother’s death affected her. On the anniversary of his death, for the past few years, she, her daughter, and I have been going to the beach to watch the sun rise. Afterward, we go to breakfast. One year we threw flowers into the ocean. Another, shells marked with the names of others’ lost loved ones, from an Out of the Darkness Walk (https://afspwalks.donordrive.com/OOTDWalks). We talk about Joseph a lot, but I can’t say that we talk about our feelings. Our relationship has had its ups and downs. She was able to share with me some of the resentments she had toward me that had nothing to do with Joseph. I was able to apologize. Our relationship has gotten better. There is still room for improvement.

My eldest daughter has her own mental health struggles and carries a lot of resentment toward me. We have not had a conversation about it. She has levelled some pretty nasty words toward me. In the hospital emergency room last year, she told me to leave the room when the screener asked her if she would be admitted voluntarily. She then asked her husband to have me come back in and said to me, “My mother is fucking up my life again.” When she came home and I tried to explain to her how, by having the hospital staff give her the contract I drew up for her return to my home, my intention was to tell them she was homeless if she would not agree. Before I could finish my explanation, which was that the hospital would then have to find her an appropriate supportive place to stay, she looked me dead in the eye and said, with venom, “The last time you told someone they were homeless, they killed themselves. Is that what you want?”

When I later recounted this experience to her sister, she looked at me, shrugged and nodded. I remember her saying, “Well, yeah”, but that may just have been my impression from the nod and the shrug.

My other son, well, he has not spoken to me in ten years. Our last conversation was on Mother’s Day 2015, the year after Joseph’s death. I was having a tough day. I had not heard from any of my children, so when he called, I was crying. Trying to hide that fact from him, when he said, “Happy Mother’s Day…ok, gotta go”…or something like that, I said, “Okay”. He sounded surprised; and, we did hang up. If I remember correctly, I then went to the cemetery, where I found my younger daughter and granddaughter. I walked to the grave, crying, and my daughter hugged me. (I could be confusing this day with another…) 

I saw my son sometime after that at my granddaughter’s First Holy Communion. I may have put my hand on his shoulder as I passed him in the pew on my way to receive communion myself. At the end of the Mass, he was gone. The family went out to eat, but I went home. It was just too difficult.

My mother passed away in January, and I saw him at the wake and funeral. I met his girlfriend for the first time and gave her a hug. I said, “Hello, Son” to him. He looked like a deer in the headlights, eyes shifting back and forth. I just walked away, giving him space. I saw him again the next day, at the funeral. I gave him an icon I bought for him in Fatima, Portugal, and had blessed by the Archbishop for the Military. Again, I walked away. We did not sit together at the repast, but he stood with my younger daughter, granddaughter and me for a photo his girlfriend took. She sent me a copy. I am grateful.

So…sitting down for a family meeting with my children for a discussion of our feelings about Joseph’s death, or about anything, is out of the question for now. Maybe someday.

SELF-COMPASSION

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BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOURSELF

CARPE DIEM

What are you beating yourself up about these days? If you have the energy (and you won’t always), address the problem head-on. If you can do something about it, do it. If you can’t, try to be self-forgiving. (Alan D. Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART: 100 PRACTICAL IDEAS AFTER YOUR CHILD DIES, 2005)

What am I beating myself up about these days? Same as always…shoulda, woulda, coulda. If someone came to me with my story, I would be horrified for them, at the trauma of finding their dead child. I would give them grace, listen with compassion and empathy.

But for myself, no. There is nothing I can do about it now. He is gone. Can I forgive myself? That is the hard part. That is the journey I am on now. Because until I do, forgive myself, I cannot get to the grief that lives inside me, externalize it into mourning, and develop a new relationship with my deceased son. I cannot believe that he forgives me. That last day plays over and over in my mind…wishing for a different outcome…

He had made multiple attempts in the past that had no relation to anything I said or did. But that day, the day he died, was after I told him he needed to find somewhere else to live. We had an agreement, no drugs or alcohol. I had found empty packages of cold medications with DXM, dextromethorphan, his drug of choice, robo-tripping. Big deal breaker. I gave him the rest of the weekend to get out. I had locked him out of the house while I went to work…at a psychiatric children’s home…I had offered to give him a ride somewhere. He said he had “no place to go”. In retrospect, that was a big red flag. I had reached out to his sisters and his father, letting them know what was going on. I left him sitting on the deck, using the wifi on his phone. 

We took the teens at the group home to fireworks that night. I left work telling a coworker that I had to go home and deal with my son. I had trouble getting the door open and when I finally did…I screamed and screamed…had difficulty getting through to 911. I will spare you the gory details. One comment only…a police officer kept saying, “Calm down, calm down”. I looked at him as I tried and, in my mind, said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

He had found a way in. I could not understand how, but later found my garage unlocked. He must have done that before we walked out of the house.

I have two other children with mental illnesses, who have made attempts in the past. One was living in my house with her husband and son, while I lived and worked in Germany for over a year. She had lost her job shortly after she moved in, so the plan for her to save money and buy a house by the time I came back did not happen. I was not prepared for the condition of my house when I returned…a filthy, hoarder situation. It took me two days to clean my bathroom…a whole bottle of bleach just to get the scale out of the toilet bowl. 

All of our communication while I was away was pleasant. The first indication I had that anything was wrong was a quick pan through one room in our last video call before I came back. I asked if the house was clean, but realized later that she never answered me.

I reached out to my county’s Intensive Family Support Services (https://naminj.org/resources/intensive-family-support-services-ifss/) for help. I had a wonderful consultant, who managed the program, and I attended support group meetings.  About a month after my return, my daughter had a psychotic episode and ended up in the hospital. While she was there, I went through her stuff and got rid of garbage, unused medications, including ketamine she was getting through the mail, and THC vapes. I created a contract, which she refused to sign, but, I informed her that by coming back to my home, she had agreed to it. 

As you can imagine, the history with my son loomed large over the situation. Fortunately, I had the support of my IFSS consultant, who even came to the house to meet with us. After a while, my daughter got herself a hotel room. Her son was staying with his father. I was left with her husband, for whom English is a second language, and all their stuff. After about a month of this, I gave her 30 days notice to vacate. It was a difficult decision, but one I needed to make for my own sanity and well-being. I rarely hear from her, but I reach out via email from time to time. I have learned that I can make plans through her with my grandson, which is a blessing.

I KNOW I’M NOT ALONE

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Excerpt:

2. KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE

You are not alone. In the United States alone, more than 100,000 children die each year. (In other, less fortunate countries, of course, this number is staggeringly higher.) This number does not include miscarriages and stillbirths. Countless more adult children die; consider that most people who die in their fifties or younger leave behind a surviving parent. If you add up these numbers and consider all the children who have died in the last two decades, this means that literally millions of other parents are grieving the death of a child. (Alan Wolfelt, PhD, HEALING A PARENT’S GRIEVING HEART, 2005)

The support groups I participate in are not specifically for parents, but there are parents among the members. One is for clinicians who have lost a family member to suicide. As clinicians, we are not immune from child loss by suicide. 

I used to participate in my county’s Traumatic Loss Coalition before I lost my son. We responded to traumatic losses in our communities (https://ubhc.rutgers.edu/education/trauma-loss-coalition/overview.xml). I realized, responding after I lost him, that it was retraumatizing for me, and I dropped out. Someone at one of the regular meetings once said that, knowing me, he was surprised that I lost my son this way. Being a clinician does not always guarantee that we say the right things. 

The other support group is for survivors of suicide loss, again, not specific to parents, but there are other parents among us. Sometimes people tell their stories with specifics to the method of death; and, they want to hear specifics of other’s experiences. I do not find this helpful, but, again, retraumatizing. It brings back memories of the night I found my son. I still go back there from time to time. I do not need reminders from others. I have, though, actually presented, to a group in a Counseling class, the details of that night. I asked them to close their eyes and go with me. The professor, my dear friend, was available to meet with anyone affected by the presentation, and I offered Reiki (energy healing) to those I suspected were being activated.

There was a group for mothers that met three times a year, but it faded away. I consider starting one again, but I still have work to do before I can do that.

Resources given by Dr. Wolfelt:The Compassionate Friends is the largest organization of grieving parents and its chapters hold support groups in hundreds of communities across the United States. Visit them on the web at www.compassionatefriends.org. Bereaved Parents of the USA (www.bereavedparentsusa.org) is another growing and reputable organization. For parents who have no surviving children, a group called Alive Alone (www.alivealone.org) may offer valuable assistance. (Wolfelt, 2005)

SURVIVING

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In my neck of the woods, there is an organization called Stephy’s Place (https://www.stephysplace.org/sp/). It’s a support center for those who grieve. Last night they sponsored a talk by Alan Wolfert, PhD, of the Center for Loss & Life Transition  (https://www.centerforloss.com/). I attended. 

Before the talk, I picked up a couple of his books. The one I’m using for my renewed attempt to regularly write this blog, starting today, is entitled, “Healing a Parent’s Grieving Heart: 100 Practical Ideas After Your Child Dies”. My son, Joseph, died by suicide 11 years ago, July 5, 2014. He would have turned 34 this month, which is probably why I am feeling the ”urge for going”…(https://youtu.be/ZvSvTRhAJxg?si=jNr174FC02Brv7rF).

So…excerpt:

KNOW THAT YOU WILL SURVIVE 

Many newly bereaved parents also struggle with feeling they don’t want to survive. Again, those who have gone before you want you to know that while this feeling is normal, it will pass. One day in the not-too-distant future you will feel that life is worth living again. For now, think of how important you are to your remaining children, your partner, your own parents and siblings, your friends. (Wolfelt, 2005)”

I am not “newly bereaved” but I still struggle, at times, with feeling like I don’t want to survive. At those times,I don’t see my importance to anyone. Two of my surviving three children don’t speak to me. I have no partner. My last surviving parent, my mom, died in January. My siblings…we’ve never been close…although I do talk to one brother and my sisters from time to time. My closest friend died in 2020. I do have other friends, one is struggling with dementia. I have a couple of support groups I attend sporadically.

I get most of my self-worth from work. When I’m engaged in work…I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, by the way…I am in the flow. I love helping people. I am semi-retired now, taking assignments from time to time. I’m considering an assignment for a school-year position 10 hours from home…that “urge for going” working on me.
But…I have survived eleven years. I will continue to survive. I am hoping this exercise results in exorcise of the demons within.