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So tired of Day by Day Life Beyond Loss. Lets move beyond it. Loss is part of life. It seems to take about 2 years to move beyond into acceptance for most people studies have shown.
I keep reading this, over and over, trying to process how I feel about your post.
After several hours, debating if I wanted to reply or just ignore it (as I try to do with so many various posts here on CD that I disagree with) I felt I had something relevant to say.
At first, I was angry and defensive. I wanted to tell you how mean-spirited I felt your post was. I wanted to ask why, out of all the thousands of posts here on CD, you felt compelled to take the time and effort to complain that you were "So tired" of this particular thread. A thread that I strongly believe is positive and beneficial to those who CHOOSE to read and post in it. A thread that (as far as I am aware of) has caused you no personal harm or inconvenience, but merely provided support and encouragement to those who willingly read and post in it.
Pardon me I was trying to be helpful. As an ICU and a hospice nurse I have some experience in grief and grieving. I shall reword - It has been most helpful to me personally to learn something from deaths of those I loved. And that is to 'try' to love without attachment. I learned this from raising baby birds when I was a wildlife rehabber. You feed those little helpless creatures every hour from sunrise to sunset and raise them up. But to love a wild thing they must be let go. I could not cling to them because I had become attached to them. I had to learn to love them with an open hand. I have found that is helpful to ease my grief for the deaths of human beings, even patients I had become attached to. We get this lesson of death again and again in life. Why? Maybe it is so we have the opportunity learn to love like God loves. Of course, everybody grieves in their own way.
In a profession where you have to deal with death on a daily basis, you either make adaptations, learn, or end up finding it too much and are forced to quit. ICU and hospice can be brutal on caregivers, and professional distance is required both for you and for the patients. My bet is that you understand the concept of empathy better than most of us, as getting into the emotionality of sympathy and trying to experience the emotions of others could kill you. I am going to say something that needs to be said - thank you for your service. You do a hard job and live with things that many people are uncomfortable even thinking about.
Your experience is obviously valid. To make an analogy, you are in the position of someone with the skills of flying a commercial jet aircraft, where most people on this forum are trying to get through their first solo flights in a Piper Cub without crashing. Positive reinforcement and explaining the whys of any corrections works, no matter the skill level. I like your re-wording, and I think you reach more people with it.
This forum doesn't have a "chat" thread as some other fora seem to have and so the thread in question acts to serve the purpose of a chat and support thread. Perhaps a chat thread is a little off-putting on a grief and mourning forum but many people seem to visit it. A person coming here after experiencing a recent loss would probably not visit a "chat" thread but would visit a thread that talks about "...Life Beyond Loss". Nobody is forced to read it and I don't very often. I trust the moderator would keep it from being hijacked by a single person or going way off topic. Maybe there should be a chat thread if members are wanting a slightly more social thread.
I agree with OP.
It's WAY too long to even contemplate reading.
To the casual observer it's sort of a permanent fixture.
Maybe it could be it's own sub-forum, separated into years? or types of loss, like death of Child, Suicides, etc.?
Me? I'd never go near it.
I don't read it. Its just when I scan down the forum list there it is "Day by Day life beyond loss" for years for as long as I have read CD forum so I tried to start a new active topic.
Death is just part of life. Heck, half my family had died. My mother, my father, my sister, grandpatents, friends, ex lovers and at least 200 pets, horses dogs, birds. After a few days it hurts less and I don't wake up crushed by grief. Theres somehow a hole in my soul but life fills it in and I move on.
That's the thing about love. Everything dies. We have to learn to love without attachment. We have to learn to love with an open hand.
Those we have loved and lost... there will always be an attachment.
Attachment = bond.
Bonds are not lost just because of mere death.
Bonds grow ever stronger.
For some, perhaps it is different. For some, a wall can go up to protect them from their sadness and grief. That is another way of dealing with grief. Bonds are somewhat "ignored" or the grief put on the back burner because the heart just can't quite deal with the loss.
My point is, grief is different for everyone. There is not one correct way to grieve, nor is there a correct time period.
If a thread helps even one person, so be it. That one person is valuable and their grief, important.
So tired of Day by Day Life Beyond Loss. Lets move beyond it. Loss is part of life. It seems to take about 2 years to move beyond into acceptance for most people studies have shown.
There are so many different kinds of loss, and there are no generalizations when it comes to healing from catastrophic loss.
Two years ago this week, my husband killed himself. I am still struggling mightily. He was my favorite person, my husband, my best friend, and now he's gone, dead by his own hand. The "what-ifs" are agonizing. The first year, the emotional suffering was debilitating beyond what words can say.
Secondly, comparisons are odious, and you can not compare the death of a husband to the death of your uncle's sister-in-law's best friend (although many people do).
I have met women who buried a child 30+ years ago, and they still weep over that loss.
If there's a thread on CD that gives someone a morsel of comfort, I am all for it (although I may not choose to read it).
I don't know exactly when that thread started, I do know it's long BUT it was very helpful to me when I lost my husband last March and my Mom last June.
So I think it does get new posters, it helps them somewhat and they move on, some quicker than others.
I wouldn't complain about a thread that is not bothering my time, I don't care for subject matter I just scroll on.
As for o/p, I respect your profession but I also realize having known people personally in this profession and law enforcement you get hardened, you have too or you would not be able to do it every day.
So tired of Day by Day Life Beyond Loss. Lets move beyond it. Loss is part of life. It seems to take about 2 years to move beyond into acceptance for most people studies have shown.
I agree with you yet IMO it has nothing to do with grief, just a personal blog between a few people. I attending Grief counseling and found instead of helping me it was dragging me along so that I could not move on. For the few who are active on it, so be it. Unfortunately the title does not reflect the content.
Gosh I have not become hardened by being a nurse, just the opposite. You can't be distracted by your emotions in the ICU. But by being more tender I find I can let things go after I go home. Also, I have some evidence that only their body is dead. There is something that continues on.
A man who was an electrical lineman fell off the pole in an isolated area. His wife was supposed to bring him his lunch. She found him unresponsive on the ground and called 911. He was brought to my hospital DOA to the ER and was revived. Next, I got this patient. I heard in report that his first words when he came back to life were Hey! Your cutting off my best shirt!
He was so kind and polite but somewhat quiet and dreamy. Finally,he said Can I tell you something? I don't know who to tell. He said he didn't remember what happened, but suddenly he was so free and able to fly. He said he was in a sea of love going to something so immense and did not want to come back. There was a glow to him. Since it was a teaching hospital, I asked him if this was OK. I called the chaplain and said you know those theology students you have? Please send them to room 619. Several people got off the elevator and went in there and closed the door. When they came out, they too were glowing with love.
My own mother had a birth with a placenta previa. That is when the baby's umbilical cord is around their neck or caught on their arms or legs and they pull the placenta loose from the uterus. The mother rapidly bleeds out. This happened to my mother and she lost conciousness. Next thing she knew she was on the ceiling looking down at herself with the doctors and nurses jaming IVs into every vein she had and sqeezing bags of blood. She too, was in a sea of love and was drawn to a radiance but then she thought I can't go! I have other children. So she went back to her body and she was revived.
I have asked many patients who were brought back did they remember anything. Most don't, but some do.
I am saying this here for those who grieve. I am fairly certain you will see them again.
Last edited by BlackberryMerlot; 04-11-2018 at 10:32 AM..
Gosh I have not become hardened by being a nurse, just the opposite. You can't be distracted by your emotions in the ICU. But by being more tender I find I can let things go after I go home.
Yes, but the people you care for in ICU are your patients, not your loved ones. It's easier to "let go" after you go home. Professionals are not supposed to be distracted by their emotions, if they were they would not be able to do their jobs, perhaps I should have used the word detached not hardened but I think you get my drift.
Their is no time limit on grief, people grieve in different ways.
There is a quote attributed to Rose Kennedy, that woman had a lot of grief and misery in her life, her quote holds true to me:
It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.
When losing a loved one the wounds of grief are always there the pain of the wound just lessens. If the life alone thread helps anyone, even a few years later when some event may bring it to the surface again, I fail to see why anyone would be bothered by the thread.
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