What's really important: one person's opinion and a soulworm.

 

We are now well into the pandemic season that has shut down much of the U.S. and the world.  States and countries are starting to relax their restrictions and life is to a degree getting back to normal.  However, we are still far from in the clear.  Regarding pandemics, I've always thought of them in terms of an out of control contagion literally striking down everyone it comes across.  In other words, I hadn't really thought about it much.  What I thought was more like the Hollywood depiction of it.  What I've come to realize is that like earthquakes, there are magnitudes of disaster in pandemics.  Just like each earthquake isn't the 'big one' like the 1906 one that destroyed San Francisco, every pandemic is not the Spanish Flu or Bubonic Plague.  Covid-19 may not be the Spanish Flu or Bubonic Plague, but it is a game changer in some ways for sure.  Hopefully, it will be seen as a warning shot that we heeded for that day we might face an even more deadly and contagious flu or plague. 

What got me to think about all this was the movie Contagion.  It depicted a deadly pandemic originating out of Hong Kong.  By the end of the movie, we are told that it would infect 12% of the world with a 20-30% fatality rate before a vaccine would be widely distributed. In other words, deadly on a scale worse than WW2.   The movie opens up with Gweneth Paltrow's character exhibiting a rough cough.  She was on her way home from Hong Kong.  A few days later in dramatic fashion, she literally dies before her husband's eyes.  Her son--his stepston--dies also passes on from the deadly virus shortly thereafter.  This was just the opening sequence.  As we see during the movie, people are dying left and right.   This leads to chaos erupting--stores, pharmacies, banks, ect. are looted, mobs forming, fighting breaking out for limited supplies, states totally shutting down their borders and the government hiding out from the virus.   While, this is happening, her surviving spouse--played by Matt Damon--and his daughter are navigating their way through survival.  He's immune, but his daughter may not be.  So, it is his responsibility to protect his daughter's health and survival.  That means her and her boyfriend can see each other until there is a vaccine as he could theoretically pass it on to her.  

By the end of the movie, the vaccine had been developed and slowly being distributed.  Shortly after they receive the vaccine, Matt Damon's character relents and lets his daughter and her boyfriend get together at his (Damon's) place.  It is prom season and the we see that the family room is decorated for the occasion.  The young couple is in their prom finest.  In any case, before the boyfriend arrives, Damon's character notices on his camera pictures of his late wife and finally breaks down.  The movie closes out to the young couple dancing in the family hauntingly to All I Want Is You by U2.  It was the perfect close.  

Literally society and they in particular were impacted by the pandemic and their world was changed forever.  They lost loved ones close to them and a cross section of the population was gone forever.  There is no telling what all they lost during the pandemic:

• Part of their family and likely friends.
• Freedoms
• Relative sense of invincibility.
• Everyday things we take for granted.
  
• Loss of the life they knew it.

The time before the vaccine was hard and they lost a lot. However, the remaining family--the dad and the daughter and the daughter and her boyfriend--had not lost each other.  It was a bittersweet time, but hey had kept their dignity, sense of right and wrong and most importantly kept each other.

--

Anyone who has experienced tremendous upheaval in their life, realizes that eventually that they following can be survived or replaced:

• Job loss
• Friend loss
  
• Pat of your income.
• Much of your material belongings
• Bankruptcy.
• Loss of part of the family
  

What ultimately matters is that we find ourselves left with ones who love and value us and that we keep our faith throughout it all.  They likely lost a lot, even part of their immediate family, but they hung in there and didn't lose each other.   I've heard that people are a social creature.  We aren't meant to be alone and unloved.  Heck, even in the Bible, God saw that Adam was lonely and made him a mate.  Now, there were problems in that relationship that led to the loss of Eden, but still the point remains.  Adam needed a mate.  So, I think what really matters is keeping those we love close, striving to treat each other well, valuing each other and the time we spend together and appreciating that we all are God's children. 

I've heard a song that you just can't shake to be an earworm.   Contagion and the way it ended were like a soulworm for me. I can't shake it.  The song it closes to, All I Want Is You, is desperate pleasing by Bono of really matters: You*.  An earworm, is a just something that captures you ear.  But, sometimes stories, events and circumstance just capture your imagination in a profound way, which to me is a soulworm.

During this pandemic, I hope and pray my loved ones and my readers and their loved ones keep are safe and keep remembering what is really important.

Peace out.

-- Rich

 

* It was a love song to his wife.

Placing Sadness in the Anger Bin

According to grief.com, the Five Stages of Grief are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.   The idea is that you first deny the reality of that which grieves you; you are angry about what seems unfair or not right; you 'bargain' with your higher power that you'll do better if only you wake up and this horrible nightmare is over; you fall into a depression when you realize that no matter how much you wish it weren't so, there is nothing you can do to change that which grieves you and of course you accept that which you and move forward.

What I've learned along the way is the practice of 'medicine' is as much of an art as it is a science.  I believe this to be the case with psychology as well.  I believe that some models of human behavior, interactions and thought are better than others, that there is no one-sized, fits all model.  Each model has its flaws and exceptions as well as its accuracy and strengths, but I digress.  I believe the "Five Stages of Grief" model has a lot of value to it.  However, I believe the progression of grief doesn't always follow that model and frankly sometimes people never quite reach the acceptance stage.   From what I've seen some people never make it through the depression stage.  It's like they deny the loss, are angry about it, try to bargain the loss away, and hit the sadness or depression stage and struggle to handle it.

I called this post, "Placing Sadness in the Anger Bin", because essentially, the griever is at a point in which he or she should be working through the sadness, but for whatever reason, is struggling to.  What should manifest itself as Sadness or Depression instead comes out in Anger.  The sadness exists, but the griever is not processing or allowing it to fully express itself.  In my own life, this circumstance manifest itself with my brother's suicide, written in Don't you forget about me: The blog I needed to write one day about my late brother,

Due to the circumstances and timing in which he was found, the family was never allowed to see him after he was found.  As I worked through his belongings in his apartment that in the week that followed, a part of me expected him to walk in and gripe about what were we doing with his belongings.  It was surreal and was obviously the denial stage.  Gradually, it gave away to anger.  I knew he was struggling and did what I could to help him, but I felt the family overall had let him down.  He would 'disappear' from time to time and it seemed as if few in the family did anything more than to ask about him (from my perspective).  Had dealt with the same type of sexual abuse that I did as a kid and the struggles that come from growing up in a dysfunctional family which was unnecessarily poor and led by an alcoholic dad.  He struggled to find acceptance and had cried out for help in his teens with an overdoes on Tylenol.  From my perspective, he was largely abandoned and left to his own devices by the family.   I was angry and humiliated that as a family that we let him down.  I was angry at God I'm sure.  I was angry at myself.   I knew he was struggling and I dropped away for a little bit.  I didn't care that I was dealing with my own failing marriage, depression and unemployment.  I told myself I knew better and let him down.

In some ways, I'd wake up for a bit and just hope that this was just a bad dream and he'd show up and hoped there was a way that that could happen.  But, at my age, the 'bargain' stage didn't last too long as I am a realist.  At this point, having gotten over the shock, having worked through some anger and realized that bargaining was fruitless, I was was struggling with the sadness/depression.  Why should I have to deal with this?  Why should I have to feel this bad?   Why was I the one who was the last one in the family to attempt to be there for him?   I bounced back and forth between sadness and anger.  Eventually, I worked through the sadness and came to accept the reality of never seeing him again, but it wasn't a clean, linear five step progression.

As with the story above, I have come to realize in my life, a phenomenon.  I have seen in the life of others, especially, but not limited to kids and younger people that same phenomenon: Sadness hiding behind Anger.  That is Anger being Sadness's spokesperson, instead of Sadness speaking for itself.

• The sadness hurts. Why should I have to feel this hurt or loss?  
• The sadness leads to unexpected/uncontrolled expression sobbing or crying.  Why should we have to deal with something that makes us feel 'weak' or 'unsafe'?
• It can make us feel vulnerable or 'weak'.   Anger tells us we should be able to better deal.
• It can feel humiliating.  Crying, while healthy, is best done in a safe place.  If not done in a safe place, it can lead to humiliation.  Anger hates humiliation.
• The sadness seems never-ending.  Why won't this stage ever end?  Why can't I just move on?  Anger hates an unresolved endless repeat of the same painful story.

Anyway, from what I see, Anger serves two purposes, not necessarily healthy, but nonetheless two purposes.

• Anger can serve as seemingly less draining than working through the sadness.  
• Anger doesn't require the level of introspection and processing of sadness.  It is a raw unfiltered emotion.  Let's face it, if you don't feel like you should have to deal with sadness, anger seems to be a good option.
• Anger can serve as a way to block the sadness (at least for a time).   
• In a way, it can be seen as the emotional version of cutting.  My understanding is that the raw physical sensation of cutting serves as a distraction for emotional pain of sadness.  If you are focused on the acute physical sensation of cutting* and all it involves, for a time, the emotional hurt is overridden.  Anger can be raw and intense, and in a similar way to cutting it can overwhelm sadness the emotional hurt of sadness.

I think most people have seen instances, either portrayed in the movies or somewhere in their own lives or those around them an angry person who is lovingly embraced and proceeds to break down and cry.  While I wouldn't categorically endorse that technique in dealing with angry people, it does emphasize a point: that sadness is often underlying anger.  

I guess my takeaway is this: Before you write off someone who has anger issues at least consider that there may be more than just meets the eye.  It isn't always just some jerk who decides that hating is an acceptable way of life.  It isn't always necessarily some psychopath who has predatory anger.  Sometimes, an 'angry' person is simply a person who is trying to avoid dealing with sadness.  So, instead of placing their Sadness in the Sadness Bin, they feel more comfortable placing it in the Anger Bin.  So, before you condemn an angry person, consider that there may be a sad person inside who just needs some understanding.**

Just my thoughts,

Rich

* I understand there are other reasons behind cutting as the Mayo Clinic details.  I've known people who cut, but I never began to understand why they cut themselves UNTIL one day when I chewed a fingernail too far down on the nail bed.  I'd done this before where it caused an uncomfortable, acute pain.  But, I had found that pressing down on that fingernail until it turned white for a while would lessen or block the pain in the nail bed.  I believe my higher power gave me an insight that day.  What I was doing was substituting one pain for another less intense pain.  In other words, I was blocking pain with pain.  I realized that day that people often cut for the same reason.  They are blocking an (emotional) pain with a less intense physical one.  I realize now that perhaps anger is just another form of pain displacement.

**But don't be so foolish as to try to hug and angry person with a knife or to ignore the symptoms of 'psychotic anger'.   Personal safety comes first.  ;-)

Grief doesn't care what is proper, part 2

As I noted in the blog post Grief doesn't care what is proper, part 1, grief like love exists independent of what society thinks is proper or approves of.  The focus of the first part was grief's look or form and society's timetable on grief.

As we know, we grieve how and on what timetable our soul 'tells' us to.  Now we may outwardly conform to societal expectations, but inwardly the grief remains and needs to be expressed.

In part 2 of this blog concept, I will explore the 'whom' questions of grief.  That is to say, who are expected or not expected to grieve for and whom we are allowed or not allowed to grieve for.

• Expectations on whom to grieve for
• We are expected to grieve for our family.
• We are our expected to grieve for our friends. 
• Our friendships are typically our choice and therefore it makes sense that we'd openly and obviously grieve for them--and we typically do. But, there are a few exceptions in which we don't.
• If it is a 'friend' that we effectively fell out of touch with and/or had a falling out with years ago, we have may have already done our grieving for them and therefore have little to show when they pass.
• If it is 'friend of a friend' or a 'group friend', we may be sad for those closer to him or her, but we may not feel so much grief.  It's not that we don't care, it's just that we may not have the connection required to feel a huge loss and truly grieve for him or her.
• We are expected to grieve for coworkers.
• It really depends in this situation.
• If they were someone we worked around, but didn't really know, we might be stunned or feel bad for their loved ones, but we might not fells the loss too much by their passing as we didn't have much of a connection.
• If they were someone we worked closely around and got to know, their passing might really stun or upset us. It is like losing 'work family' or 'work friends' in this case.
• We are usually not expected to grieve for strangers.
• Most of the time we don't grieve for them.
• Sometimes we might think the story on a stranger's passing is sad, but we can't personally relate to them and therefore it's hard to have feelings that aren't there.
• Sometimes we do grieve for strangers.
• Sometimes we can relate and their stories hit home such as the tragic loss of a child.
• Sometimes with famous people, we may not really have known them, but they represented something to us: a loss of a childhood memory (Carrie Fisher aka Princess Leia), a loss of an ideal (JFK or famous musician), or something similar or loss of security (9/11 or the death of a police officer).

• Whom you are allowed to grieve for
• Family - Most of the time you are allowed to grieve for them.
• Friends/relationship - In most cases, you are allowed to grieve for them.
• Coworkers - Sometimes you are allowed to grieve for them.
• Sometimes their passing is openly discussed and acknowledged at work.
• Sometimes their family and/or coworkers invite you to be part of the grieving process.
• Neighbors - Sometimes you are close to them and are allowed to part of the grieving process.

• Whom you are not allowed to grieve for.
• Family - There are occasions when you are not allowed to grieve for family. 
• Examples include:
• When one parent keeps the kids from the other parent.
• When you are kept from the grieving process of a member that is outside the immediate family such as a grandparent, aunt, etc.
• Those who exclude in the grieving process often do it in a misguided attempt to protect us, a lack of realization of our needs or in a way of hurting us or sticking it to the one who passed.
• Unfortunately, sometimes the grieving process can bring out the worst in family and IF ALLOWED can become an opportunity to settle scores.
• Friends/Unapproved Relationships - Sometimes those left behind don't include us in the process.
• It may be due to an oversight or lack of understanding of our importance in the life of the one that passed.
• It may be due to them wanting the keep the process private.
• It may be due to them not approving of our role in the life of the one that passed.
• Whatever the reason, it can feel like a cruel rejection.
• Coworkers - Sometimes you are not allowed to effectively grieve for them.
• Some work environments do not effectively acknowledge the passing of coworkers.
• The family of your coworkers have a private process and/or don't think to include us.
• Sometimes, if we are close enough to our coworkers, we just need a way to grieve them when they pass.
• Neighbors - Sometimes we find out a neighbor passed away by hearing it from another neighbor. I believe we rarely are included in the grieving process of a neighbor by those left behind.

Closing out this blog post, I will circle back to love, they way I see it grief is a extension or expression of love.  If we truly didn't care about someone, then their loss not affect us grief-wise.  The fact that we hurt really does shows that we had a love or concern or care for the one that passed.  It maybe what they represented, but still it is a form of love.  Just like love, we may be denied the opportunity to effectively express grief, but that erase its existence.  

My takeaway is this, we usually the opportunity to express grief like we need.  However, this is not always the case.  In any case, when do not have the opportunity to express grief in the manner, timing, way we need to, it is important recognize the need that remains and find effective and healthy outlets to express it.

See: Grief doesn't care what is proper, part 1.

(the version of this song that I discovered it to)

Grief doesn't care what is proper, part 1

I wrote a bit about this subject in a previous blog called Letting go and letting God - The timing and art of letting go. I had touched upon many aspects of loss and grief including what is socially acceptable grief.  So, I'm not going to visit it here too much except to expand upon that point.

I believe society seems to have certain expectations for grief.

• What grief is suppose to look like.  That is the form it is suppose to take.
• What is an appropriate amount of time to grieve
• The people you are or are not expected to grieve for.
• Whom you are allowed to grieve for.
• Whom you are not allowed to grieve for.

When we break or don't follow those expectations, we can risk rejection, scorn or worse.  But, I've discovered over time that grief is a strange beast.  It will follow its own rules and will ultimately bow to no one.  Now, we can sometimes be shamed into how and when we show it or don't show it, but ultimately that is just window dressing the hide what our soul feels.

Let me break down what I see as aspects of grief.  I will touch on what I see as society's expectations for grief (and in some cases how we deviate from it)

• Grief's appearance or form.
• What many have been taught that grief is suppose to look like.
• Deep sadness
• Crying
• Serious demeanor.
• What it can look like.
• Relief 
• Suffering has ended for someone who had been long suffering.
• That we are no longer required to watch helplessly while they suffer.
• Our fear of being hurt by them is finally over.
• Anger at others 
• People let the one we are grieving down.  That people weren't there for our loved one in time of his/her need.
• Higher Power seems to have let us down by allowing our loved one to pass for seemingly no good reason.
• Anger - If they have left behind a messy circumstance for us to clean up or deal with or they didn't take care of themselves 
• That they were careless or reckless in their lifestyle.
• That they recklessly did not account for their own needs.  Not preparing for an eventuality. 
• That they neglected those whom they left behind.
• Didn't make proper preparations for dependents/survivor needs.
• They were more focused on their own reckless behavior than emotional and financial needs of those left behind.
• Humor 
• Laughter - That may seems inappropriate, but is really our way of coping with a circumstance that is so intense.
• Sarcasm - If the person we are 'mourning' for has mistreated us for a long time, it may be hard to feel much besides it. 
• Emptiness/Numbness
• Loss is too profound to accept or to have sink in.
• We are focused on survival after the loss.

• Timetable of grief
• Immediate timetable
• We are supposed to have it all packaged and delivered in a week or less in some cases and be back to work.  That is make arrangements, pull together a funeral and move as if nothing I had to do this with each parent.  Arranged/buried and back to work.
• In some cases, we are allowed more time, but we still have to pull it together in a few months at best and be productive.
• Family and friends allow us to be sad or upset.  If it is a child, we are given more time to openly and painfully weep/mourn.
• This is the time when those around us will offer to help the most as it is fresh in everyone's mind.
• The near term past immediacy.
• In most cases, we are supposed to have put the lost behind us and have moved on in our daily lives and be productive.
• Many/most people will start to shut off listening to or wanting to hear about our grief. 
• They don't know what to say, especially if they haven't been hit by it.
• They have their own stresses as well.
• Usually, they will be polite about it and 'listen' anyway.
• Counseling is accepted in this term.
• Longer term (year or two)
• Willingness to listen to our grief becomes rarer and rarer, especially from those who aren't close to us, but even with those who are close to us.  Losing a child is a situation which we are probably allowed more leeway on being listened to.
• Counseling is accepted in this term, but we are expected to be well on our way to coming to terms with the loss.
• Our daily lives are not expected to be impacted, no matter how we may feel on a given date about our loss.  Anniversary of a death is a big deal to us, but to our employer for example, they don't expect any impact.
• Long-term (years)
• We are expected to have adjusted, coped, or have come to terms.
• Most people have tuned out our grief by this point and may even tell you that it's time to move on.  They may 'humor' it if they aren't burnt out on it if it is the loss of a close family member.

This is a heavy read, so I will continue this blog post in another part to be published.  But for today, I will leave with this thought, if we try to deny grief its proper role in our lives, I believe grief will punish us in another form, often in an addictive form such as alcoholism. Until later (probably tomorrow)...

See: Grief doesn't care what is proper, part 2

The original recorded version of this song.

Finding Jewels in the Darkness

It's been a few years since my old life as I knew it stopped and it transformed into a new and different and in some ways better life.

I will eventually write a blog called "Growing up the hard way" about how the difficult and painful years from an early age to young adulthood and beyond can either destroy a person or be their path to maturity.  But, for now I will focus on something that I have realized recently.

Sometimes we go through dark periods in our lives in our lives animated by sadness, depression and/or grief.   At the time, we are focused on the hurt and the pain and surviving it.  In other words, we are too busy working through the pain to notice or to accept the happy moments.  In a way, we are stuck in the darkness of the moment and though we have happy moments, we really don't appreciate those moments until long afterward.  In other words, in hindsight, we locate jewels in the darkness.

The concept has been floating in my mind for a while not quite crystallized.  It was a simple thing that really flipped the switch on this the other day.  I was driving home from work the other day and heard "Wild One" by Flo Rida featuring Sia.  I love music and I have gotten some happiness or contentment out of listening to that song.  I looked back and at the time I was underemployed,  working through a divorce, didn't have my daughter, was in the process of losing my house and just lost my brother.  In short, I felt like I was living in hell.  But that song, for the few minutes it was on at a time, brought a little respite for my sadness and grief.

But, I look back and now I see that while I lost full-time custody of my daughter, I had some special moments with Olivia that I will savor.  It was me and funny girl facing the world.  We learned to enjoy "chasing nature": usually birds, ducks, squirrels or rabbits.  We went to church together and made friends.  We went on shopping trips together where I bonded with her over helping her to find clothes she loved.  We learned the simple joy of picking up food and refreshment at QT.  We learned the joy of sitting on the sidewalk, while picking out seeds out of pods.  I could go on forever, but what I realize in hindsight is this: while things were brutal around me, I look back and had moments of joy or happiness.  I call them "Jewels in the Darkness".

I guess my takeaway is this: always realize there is joy to be found in the darkest moments.

Goodnight and I hope my readers have a good day tomorrow.

--Rich

Letting go and letting God - The timing and art of letting go.

As some of you know two years ago (2014) I had two significant deaths.  One was a friend from a church group I was attending, the other was my mom.  In 2011, it was my brother Bill.  As many know, I had a divorce in 2011 as well and various relationship disappointments over time.

So, I've had a little bit of experience in losing and letting go.  I've noticed a few things about letting go and this isn't meant as a 'blame' blog, but rather an observation one.

1) Our society isn't built for the proper grief,  Maybe any modern society isn't, but I don't know.  It's funny one week you are burying your mom, the next week you are back at work.   It's like, well we are sorry your close loved one died, but time moves on, there are deadlines.  So, after a few days, suck it up and pretend like nothing happened and keep pressing on with your job.   I don't blame anyone in particular.  Everyone has a job to do and people rely on me.  They can't just wait around until my head stops spinning from the recent tragedy.  In other words, the world invariably has to move on at some point.  But, sometimes it feel a little bit insensitive.

2) Everyone says, I'm sorry to hear about your <lost love one>.   In my case, it was my mom last July.   I know they are and I appreciate them for that.  But, sometimes everyone is not really sure what to say.  I don't blame them, grief is not a subject taught in school.  It tends to be something we pick up on the fly.  My friend James, whom I love like a brother, lost his mom around the beginning of the century and his dad more recently.   I was a friend of the family to them.  I liked his parents, but I didn't have the day to day interaction with them.   I was sad for him and I was bothered that our circle lost two wonderful people and the world was a little less complete place because of that.  Alternatively, everyone who knew them was better off for knowing each of them.
---
     James, your parents really set the example of how to raise a family and how, as a couple, to treat each other.  You and Pat were very blessed, but you know that. :-)
---
Anyway, he first lost his mom and I attempted to comfort him along the way and then grieve with him.  But, I knew whatever I said/did, fell short.  I just couldn't relate.  When I lost my brother in 2011, it really hit home.  I finally understood the hurt of losing such a significant person in your life.  I was able to revisit the loss in the lives of friends and say, you know I get it.  Moving forward, I now know how badly it can hurt someone, and not just in an abstract way.

3) Grief, really doesn't care what anyone thinks.  Grief has its own wants and needs.   I could say, well, that person was just a friend I knew for a short amount of time, so it's silly that I should really bothered by their passing.   Society might say, it's been years since, he/she has died, you need to move on.  Grief says, I'm not ready to let go.  You can push aside grief, but invariably it is still there just waiting like a needy child to be comforted.    Now that I think about it, grief is a bit jealous.  It can demand your attention.

4) What is moving on, what it isn't.
    a) It isn't forgetting about that person.  It person/relationship was significant, this may never happen.  You don't have to spend all your waking moments thinking about them to honor them or the significance of them in your life.
    b) It isn't disrespecting that person's memory.  Going forward is not disrespecting, it is meeting healthy needs in your life,
    d) It is knowing that nothing you can do will change what happened.  It was time for the loved one to go or the relationship to end.
    e) "Going there" only from time to time, rather than focusing paralyzing time/attention on them.
    f) It is being able to look back more clearly at the timeline of the loss.

I guess, the takeaway for me, is to try to be respectful of the mourning of another.  Each person's needs are different.  The best thing you can do is keep the other in your prayers that God gives the proper healing they need, He does it in the time which is right for them and gives you the patience and understanding to accept it.

** Since this was originally posted, my dad passed away at the age of 74 (May 1, 2015)

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