When Is It Too Long To Grieve?

[AllyNoble]

okay probably a stupid question - but lately have found myself confronted by this quite a bit - its coming up to 3 years since my son was killed and some of the comments I get range from the completely hurtful to the not so thoughtful

for example - have worked a long week I am tired - get invited out for dinner Friday evening - I reply no thanks I am a bit tired - reply received - you do know its nearly 3 years - he wouldnt want you hiding yourself away

. o O ( well duh yes I know its nearly 3 years I live with it everyday - I don't wish to go out I am tired from work etc - why does everything get brought back to his death ) I now never respond because I am just so overwhelmed by this response

another example when I had a bad day recently -

bout time u worked it out dweeb he is dead and no way ur gonna bring him back hell who would wanna come back to this world

granted it was a public forum but I didnt quite expect this response

[dpodesta]

Ally,

Unfortunately people who haven't experienced a loss of a child or spouse don't understand the amount of grief associated with it. Each of us experience grief in oyr own ways and in our own time. I just lost my wife 11 weeks ago, she was 45, so I can't tell you how long I will be experiencing this. I do know when I lost my grandmother (Who lived with us all of my life)when I was 17 (I am now 36) I grieved for a very long time. In fact, I still have problems around Christmas time and it is 19 years later. I wish there was a magic answer or soloution to this, unfortunately there isn't. You came to the right place tho to find the answers. There are plenty of caring people here that can and will help. I have yet to see any negative remarks on this site to what someone posts.

God Bless

Derek

[shell]

Ally,

People can be so cruel and uncaring and just plain dumb. I don't think anyone realizes what grief is all about if they have never been through it. For that matter, I have known a few people who have been through it and got over it very quickly, or at least appeared to. They seemed to act like it was just a tiny bump in their road in life. Everyone grieves differently and for different periods of time, etc. And losing a child has got to be the worst, I personally think. So, do your own thing, and at your own time and try your best to ignore the fools we all have to suffer. As they say, you never get over it, you just work through it to where it is more bearable. You are allowed to grieve for as long as you want. And I'm so sorry for your loss.

Hugs,

Shell

[KathyD]

Ally,

I agree 100% with Shell and Derek in that unless you've lost someone you cared about you really cannot fathom how intense and emotional grief is. I read that in a random poll of people who hadn't lost anyone that most expected that a person should be "over it" in 6 weeks! The author went on to note that that was a ridiculous expectation and that everyone has their own timetable. Because people who haven't been through the experience have no clue they tend to say stupid or hurtful things, probably without considering what they're really saying. A friend of mine told me he knew I was in "turmoil" and he was experiencing my loss as well (after meeting Dad ONCE) and although that's nothing compared to what has been said to you it's still maddening. People just don't know what to do for the most part - another friend lost his girlfriend 7 years ago and when he told me I had yet to lose someone and couldn't fully comprehend what he was going through. I didn't think he'd be "over it" in a set time but I also naively believed that he'd be back to his old self sooner rather than later. Now I realize how very wrong I was, and when I get angry at people I think back to how I once didn't understand. Hope this helps and keep posting here, everone has been wonderful.

Kathy

[Paul S]

I couldn't agree more with what derek, shell and kathy said. You grieve in your own time and you'll be over it when you're over it.

I haven't experienced this idiotic phenomenon (yet) but after reading about it enough on this board, I'm more than prepared to deal with it. As you're finding out, this place is a great place to talk to people who get it.

[kellymarie]

Ally, As I read the following, I thought of you and your question "When is it too long to grieve?" Hopefully it may help (and I hope it's o.k. that I posted it here; I tried to post the credits). You're in my thoughts, Kelly

Reprinted from the Summer, 1998 issue of We Need Not Walk Alone, the national publication of The Compassionate Friends.

Life Can Be Good Again

By Don Hackett

Kingston, MA

For nearly sixteen years, his voice has been silent. It is a span now nearly equal to the time it was heard. Never did I anticipate life without the sounds that marked his presence. Learning to survive that silence once seemed an impossible task, one so overwhelming I could find no hope or expectation of finding life once more.

He was our son, our only child. The tempo of his growing measured the cadence, the beat, for our own living. His passing left an existence without any value that I could immediately perceive. Ultimately, I came to recognize that I was wrong.

Life still had meaning, but it had fallen to me to find it, just as it had been in the years before his coming. Indeed, even as it had been throughout the time of his living, life still demanded my active participation, my own commitment to give it purpose and resolve.

Hindsight affords an ease in stating this realization that did not exist while struggling in the depths of bereavement. The steps taken to finally seize life again seem logical and ordered while intellectualizing the process but I know that this is much easier to write than it is to experience.

I confess, with both sorrow and gladness, that I can no longer summon the full measure of those savage feelings and the unremitting pain that engulfed me in those early years. Working through them was the most demanding challenge of my life, enacting tolls in physical health perhaps even greater than the long term effects on mind and emotion.

Today, however, I can reflect with gratitude upon a decade of mastery over the sadness. Control of my thoughts returned to me and I know freedom from the utter devastation of those early years.

Looking back reveals essential turning points on the road to healing. Some would seem to generalize easily for anyone. Others seem to respond to personal strengths and weaknesses more particular to an individual.

These points included:

· Self forgiveness for the many deficiencies found within on the endless soul journey that is our lot in the wake of our child’s death.

· Forgiveness of others, relatives, friends and associates, who are less affected than are we, who seem unable to help us in our time of deep trouble and need.

· The accepting, at last, the finality of our loss, and that we must gradually unleash ourselves from our former lives and structure anew.

· Learn to communicate value to spouses, friends, and surviving siblings, our love for whom seems shrouded behind the totality of our grief.

· Find ways to give expression to our need to somehow memorialize our child, be it through writing a book, planning trees, sustaining scholarships, or any number of ways. Our need to preserve and safeguard our child’s memory is real and deserving of our attention.

· A time comes for many to find new homes, jobs, and purpose. These are often part and parcel of any significant change in our lives.

· Surrender to time, giving ourselves space within it to do our work. Use time to foster healing within, to enable us to grasp today and tomorrow with hope.

No recovery will return us to life as we knew it while our child lived. That life is forever gone and, to a certain extent, we may well have to accept that, as we perceive life today. The finest days or our lives may well be a part of our past. Somehow, we must recognize that this is not unique to surviving our child’s death, but is often a portion of the human condition.

Olin is dead. As much as I would wish it otherwise, it will never be. He is not forgotten. His voice, his laughter, his joy, and his shortcomings live on in me.

No day passes without thinking about him. I am grateful for his touch upon my life. Yet, joy is again mine. Pleasure is no longer a forbidden or guilt producing element in daily living. I live, gladly and with purpose, with Olin both behind me in time, but with me internally.

Is this not our goal, to heal, to find strength to love both yesterday and today? Our children have been the richest part of our lives and today should reflect the grace of that love in all that we are today.

[AnnC]

I'm glad to see this topic. I just joined this discussion group because I found it when I was surfing the net to find out about how long grief lasts. I am getting comments from people that I "should be over it, it's been two years."

My ex-husband died two years ago. We met when we were 18, and were together, dating, engaged, and married, for a total of 12 years. At that time, he had to face that he was gay, and we got divorced, which was devastating, as we really loved each other, and he had tried everything he could to stay with me, but it wouldn't work. But this was in the 1980's, so neither of us knew that much about it, or what could be expected (like, could he change, stuff like that -- I know much better now.)

We kept in contact for several years, but finally I just found it too hard to be "just a friend", and we stopped talking, and went on with our own lives. Then, a few years after that, he contacted me through a friend. He needed information from me to apply for Social Security disability, because he had nearly died of liver failure, and couldn't work as he recovered. I called him back, and we talked for hours. We became very close during the year and a half of his illness. Then, although the doctors thought he was doing well and they had a transplant for him, his kidneys failed and he passed away.

I was so devastated. I went to the service (on the opposite coast), and his friends and partner told me all the wonderful things he said about me. I feel so much loss, of his love and friendship.

I kept journals, and when I reread my entries from the first year, I see that I am better now -- I cry less often, I only have some mornings when I wake up and think there's just nothing but a gray world to live in. I go to work, and I laugh with friends, and I love my family. But I still have this empty hole in me, and it doesn't seem to me that it will ever be different. Then someone will say, Are you STILL upset?? And I feel like a loser. Or the even more cruel comment, He was just your ex, why do you care?

I guess I just want people who will tell me it's not abnormal to still feel so awful two years later. I'm better, but I'm certainly far from "over it". I think about him practically all the time.

Thanks for listening/reading.

Ann

[dpodesta]

Ann,

I lost my wife a little over 3 months ago to a heart attack. Like some of the posts in this topic, I can't imange life getting better with Karen gone. In reading a lot of othe rtopics on this site I have read that each person has their own time for grief. Some it might be a year or so, others might take 2 or 3 years and so on. No one that hasn't or even has been through this can not say how long the greiving process will take. I am glad that you have found this site it has helped me a lot since I found it. I haven't seen anyone yet to say, "You shouldn't be feeling this way" or "You should be over it" Everyone here is understanding and have been there. Keep coming back to this site, you can use it to vent and ask questions. Hope to see you around.

God Bless

Derek

[AnnC]

Thanks for your reply, Derek. I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your wife. I just read the news post about disenfranchised grief, which is what I have, I guess, because people don't see me as a widow, because we were divorced, so they think I must hurt less. They assume I should be "back to normal" now. How can I be normal? What is normal? I can only think I will always feel this way, only I'll just get used to it.

My ex's partner sent me some pictures of his vacation last month. There is a picture his sister took of him, and I can see clearly the extreme pain in his eyes. Because they were gay, he is a disenfranchised griever too. His eyes look like mine feel. At least we comfort each other, because we both loved him.

I'm happy to find this site, where people understand how hard this is.

[Maylissa]

Ann,

I'm glad you found Marty's article on disenfranchised loss, cuz that's what I was going to suggest you take a look at.

You're not the first to wonder how long is too long to grieve, either. I can tell you that having already experienced what was a great loss to me at a very young age, I already knew that there WAS no set timetable and that in some or many ways, depending on the relationship with the loved one, one always feels the loss in some fashion. I think of this as one of the best examples of what Einstein said about time being relative. After almost 'interviewing' people I know about their own losses, it rapidly became apparent that even deaths that happened 20+ years before could still be experienced as if they were yesterday...although not usually with the same degree of intensity as the first months of grief. So every time I've had a loss, I now know my OWN timetable, more or less, will last a few YEARS for the heaviest feelings associated with my loss, and after that, it will still last my lifetime.....unless something extraordinary occurs to change that. And since reading even more on grief and bereavement, I was rather 'delighted' to find that even the wisest sages among us, and before us, couldn't turn off their feelings with loss ~ they just managed them differently/better than the average joe.

It hasn't been easy knowing that it's not abnormal to carry grief forever in some way, though, as there were some people who thought there was something wrong with me. However, I noticed that when THEY finally had a loss that was very important to them, they soon changed their tune. And yet, there were still those who swore they were 'over it', but if I started asking questions about their major loss, they'd start tearing up right then and there, so I realized that they'd just been fooling themselves and their loss still affected them deeply....they just didn't want to think about it, so denied it was really so. In light of all this, and despite all 'opposition' to the length of my griefs, I decided that, although unpleasant to experience it this way, it was also okay and not abnormal to still have strong and deep feelings about someone's passing, no matter how long ago it had been, and to heck with what anyone else might ( erroneously ) think!

As for your ex, in particular....hey, this was an important and lengthy relationship, so why wouldn't you mourn for it and him???? I've got an ex myself, and strangely, although we'd been apart for many long years, and only intermittently spoke, I still had a connection to him, made most apparent when I'd once been suddenly wondering if he was still with his second wife, and I called a few months later to let him know my Mum had died.....just to find out he and his wife HAD split up, right around the time I'd first started wondering about this! Some part of me had known, even though we hadn't spoken then for about 2-3 years. Since then I've often wondered where he is and if he's still alive and how I'd feel if I ever heard he'd died. I don't expect to be devastated, as there's been no real relationship with him for so long now, but there's still a connection to my/our past, and I know I'd be shedding some tears.....just as it still hurts to think of his mother and sister having died, even though we were already divorced by that time.

The psychologist I was seeing for my 2 most recent losses told me that what 'they' look for is simply an easing of the heaviest parts of grief after about a year....nothing more. There's only a problem, supposedly, if someone's still feeling like they did the first 6-8 months or so, after that year or so. The fact that you've seen some improvement is a marker of you being on the mend, even if it's slower than you'd like. The fact that it's been disenfranchised could likely make it a slower process, too. The acknowledgement of your grief is being denied you by others, and that carries its own frustrations. I say this from experience, as even my own Mother's and brother's deaths were mostly disenfranchised, from the behaviours and treatment from the rest of my family, and it put the brakes on healing. So for me, it was just over 2 years before I started feeling like I could really start healing, so I'm still in the process. But I don't consider this to be abnormal, especially considering how complicated my losses were.

Why IS it that society seems to think grieving is something shameful, to be denied and hidden, anyway? Fools! I say, hold your head up proudly, for honouring, through your grief, someone you love(d), which shows you have the capacity for feeling deep love!

[AnnC]

Thank you so much for your post, Maylissa, it made me feel much better! I am lucky, I did manage to get some good support in the first year. I work at a college, and there is a professor here who teaches a psychology class on Death and Dying, and he said our society is very uncomfortable with grief, and he thinks it's awful the way it's reported in the news, making it sound like you should be over a major loss in two weeks or something. He helped me enormously. But still, I do get those looks sometimes, and I'm careful who I share with. I got together with friends from college last month, and was excited. We hadn't seen each other in 20 years, but in college we four were very close, and it was my ex who introduced them to each other, and now they've been married 30 years. I didn't intend to start crying and talking about my grief with them, but instead to talk about him, share memories, and funny things he said and did (he was always the life of the party!) But every time I said his name, they would look away and change the subject. I felt very hurt, but my mother said some people just can't handle it, and avoid anything "unpleasant".

I suppose, considering it took me some years to feel "over" my divorce, that I take a long time to process, so it will take a long time this time too. I survived that, I will survive this. And I do feel blessed to have had a true love in my life, even if life came and threw us a twist ending or two. Our friendship during the last year and a half of his life was wonderful, and we talked so honestly and forgave each other for transgressions in the past, which we knew were never deliberate, because we always cared about each other. We realized that, even with the years we didn't speak, we each kept track of the other, and we actually did love each other for the entire 33 years we knew each other. We each loved others later, but it didn't take away from our love for each other, something that surprised me, but it's true.

I appreciate the warm support you all have offered me. Many people are uncomfortable with my talking about it, not only because of my grief, but because he was gay. But I will never apologize for who he was, and that I loved him.

[Maylissa]

Ann,

No, you shouldn't ever have to apologize for your ex's orientation or for the love you shared, either between yourselves or with others, no matter their gender. I'm no homophobe, so it doesn't bother me in the slightest, but I know plenty of people who feel terribly threatened by this kind of gender nonsense, so I can well imagine how this would make for less than compassionate responses. It never fails to amaze me how people preach about LOVE and all sorts of other worthy aspirations, then scoff at, oppose or deride these same things in relationships they don't personally agree with. They are choosing fear over love. What you and your ex had together is a gem of a relationship and I'm so glad to hear you've got such a solid conviction about the love you created together, and apart. I would like to ask those who are so uncomfortable with his orientation and your grief.....is this not better than hate and separation? Is this not an honourable thing?

It's just crazy-making business the way Western society tries to avoid all emotions that aren't subjectively considered 'good'. No small wonder so many of us have problems! I agree with your prof. that the media doesn't help, either. Have you ever noticed how contradictory they are about grieving people? On one hand, they try to capture someone's distress on camera ( as the "human interest" side of the piece ), but on the other hand, they applaud and commend those who are able to 'keep it together' after a loss. No wonder most people are confused about it! I think your mom's right, too, about people wanting to avoid any 'unpleasantness'....as humans, we seem to want to run from anything less than the idea of perfect joy. Maybe it's our basic nature, deep down, to try to make joy from anything we can, and that's not a bad thing, but when we go too far and cover up other natural emotions, we're not doing ourselves any favours. I think we need to start afresh and all learn what the best methods are for dealing with the more agitation-causing emotions, and then just practise, practise, practise! We need to remove a whole whack of stigmas that end up hurting others.

It took me about 2 years of soul-searching, reading, inner debating and finally simply using my gut-feeling, or intuition, in order to carry on with my life after mine and my ex's separation w/o feeling so burdened by the marriage's breakdown. I learned during the process that divorce does, indeed, feel much like a death, but not quite as bad, because it's not necessarily like you'll never see the person again, or be able to talk to them if that's your choice. Not quite as 'final' as death. There are certain things about my ex that I will always reserve a soft spot for, if not for the marriage as a whole ( as he was an abusive person, and drank, too ). However, we did remain on speaking terms and I'm grateful for the lessons our marriage taught me, so there was good to be found despite the bad and I grew quite a bit from its dissolution. Because of this experience, I hope to be able to say the same thing, and maybe even more, about all of my physical losses to date.

[spela]

Ann,

I'm sorry for your loss. We all - probably - have similar experience, not being able to talk to people about our grief. It's true, people don't want to talk about something "unpleasant", don't want to think about it, but we can't do that, we are in it and can't just choose not to think about it anymore.

It is normal that you grieve for your ex-husband, as Maylissa already said. People who don't understand that, don't understand the connection you two have always had. Love is real, love is what counts, not the official recognition of the relationhisp. I lost my love, our relationship was not "defined" - he was ill, and I feel he didn't want to make a commitment while he didn't know what would happen to him. But the love between us was (and is) real.

I can imagine in must be even more difficult for you to talk to people because they think you, as his "only" ex should be "over it". But they don't know how you still had a very good relationship, maybe because it's something they can't even imagine ... You said you can talk to his ex-partner and that you can comfort each other? I think this can be very good for both of you. I could talk to my love's sister, now she's moved abroad (far far away) and I don't see her. It was easier while she was here, though I didn't see her that much but I had someone to talk to.

Unfortunatelly I have to agree with your professor about the media, though it's not the fault of the media, the society is such that it is expected you would be over a major loss very soon. But it's impossible. Which is ok and normal. If we could just "forget about it", what would that say about our love? Love is forever, and our loved ones will always be with us.

[AnnC]

Thanks, Spela. I went through a lot of pain and anger when we separated and divorced, because he wouldn't tell me why. He kept in contact with me for many years, but I had to make him come out to me. It was the 80's and he was so afraid I would be horrified or disgusted that he was gay. I wasn't. It was kind of a relief, to finally know what had caused the problems in the last year of a marriage that was very happy up to then.

We were in contact during his illness by phone (I live near Seattle, he lived in Atlanta), but we had often had phone relationships (we lived in different states during our engagement.) So we were comfortable with that during his illness. I guess the fact that he had a life-threatening illness just put things in perspective, and I realized I loved him still, and it really didn't matter whether this was marital love, romantic love, family love, whatever. I learned not to put love in little boxes, defining and restricting it.

When he died, I felt this compulsion to go to his funeral, so I got on a plane and went. It was hard to go into the service with all these people who had been his friends for 15 years, and I didn't know a soul. (Talk about disenfranchised!) He had no family by then, having lost both his parents and he was an only child, and had no cousins or aunts or uncles. But he had some friends who were like sisters to him, and had taken care of him when he was ill, and they were very warm and welcoming to me and took me in. But it felt so weird that they sat in the front pew, and I sat in the back. Disenfranchised, again. I met his partner, and although you would think we'd be jealous of each other, in fact it was Bruce who deliberately sought me out to tell me what my ex had said about me, that he never would have left me if he hadn't been gay, and that he considered me his soul mate. I thought what an incredibly generous man Bruce is, to tell me that! So we have become close email friends, and have really helped each other through the grief. It was tragic, they only had five months together.

It's kind of funny, Bruce recently told me that a man he is seeing now was interested to learn about Bruce's loss of my ex, but completely floored when he learned about me: "You're close friends with his WIFE???" Bruce said to me, "Oh, I suppose that is unusual, huh?" He's a sweetie. I believe my ex is watching over us and pleased we have met and become friends and given each other support and comfort.

[andrea]

it was my sisters 3 year annivarsry on the 19th july this year and i dont think the pain gets any less i cried from the moment i opened my eyes that morning i had to walk around with sunglasses on all day. me and my family went up to the cemetry to lay some flowers and the pain was unberable at times (people say time heals) my sisters children seem to be getting over her death better than me does any 1 feel the same has me i feel if im enjoying myself i start to feel guilty and i know my sister wouldnt want that she was the life and soul of the party but i cant help it thankyou andrea xx

[dpodesta]

My son seems to have gotten over this a lot easier than I have. He is only 7, he talks about missing her from time to time but that is about it. He has shown a lot more affection towards me than he used to, but that goes with the terriority of being a mom and a dad rolled up in one. I to feel guilty when I am feeling good or doing something that I like to do, I know Karen would not have it any other way, she would want me to go on with my life and to be happy but it is hard because the times I was truly happy was when she was right beside me. I knew that nothing could happen that we as a team ccould not get through. Now that I am only one, sometimes I am not so sure. But I know with God's help, any thing is possible.

[shell]

I used to feel guilty about being happy too, but I think sometimes we have to try to be happy for others in our life, I have 11 cats (all inside) and they are my babies. Animals are very sensitive when it comes to their owners emotions and when I'm unhappy, they are upset. When I realized that my babies were suffering because of my grief, that's when it hit me I had to try to be happy again. They don't understand exactly why I'm unhappy (although they know that "grandpa" was sick and "went away") so it was for them that I started acting happy. It was an act at first, but eventually I actually felt happy too. Of course, it's been a year and a half for me since my dad passed away, so for you guys who have had more recent deaths, this is harder. It took me at least six months to get to this point. But I think this is true for children too, if you can't relate to the pet angle. I just felt terrible that I was making them suffer too, so I put on my happy face and eventually it helped me too. And there are still days it is an act, instead of the genuine thing, but not as many days as it used to be. And, like everyone says, the person who died would not want you to be unhappy, truly. So let go of the guilt.

Hugs to all,

Shell

[STARKISS]

Hi All,

The comment about not knowing about losing a spouse or child and understanding what it is like upsets me because I have not lost a spouse or a child but I know what it is to lose someone who I can so much about. So I do understand about grief because I am living it each day of my life. I may not have lost a spouse or child but my parents were everything to me. Thank you for letting me vent Shelley

[shell]

Shelley,

Don't be upset. I think because they were talking about a son and a spouse, he just used those words. I think, and I'm assuming, but would bet a lot on it, that he meant people who have not lost ANYONE don't understand. I know we all agree on this board that losing anyone who you love is going to make us all have grief and that one is not easier than the other. And, that because we have all lost a loved one, or loved ones, we can easily relate to each other, even though it may be a father for one person and a spouse for another.

Hugs,

Shell

[STARKISS]

Hi Shell,

I am sorry for the venting I did earlier, and I understand now. I just find it hard when others say I do not understand because I have not lost a spouse or child. I do agree without this site most of us would be alone trying to cope with our own grief and now we are just like a family. God Bless Us All and Thank God for this Website Shelley

[shell]

Shelley,

That's ok. I have written things that later I thought might offend someone and hoped didn't. Sometimes I mean something in a certain way, but it comes out different, and I'll later worry that it insulted someone. But I think we all "know" each other enough to know that most of us mean no harm, even if it sounds that way at the time.

Hugs,

Shell

[STARKISS]

Thanks Shell,

I just wanted to say thank you again and to thank God for helping the people who created this website so people like us have somewhere to go and to talk about how we are feeling during our grief journey. I hope I did not offend anyone out there with anything I have ever written because that is not what I wanted to do. Take Care All and God Bless Shelley