I remember my toughest challenge was getting through the day after the tragic loss of my dad. After maxing out my paid time off to go back to Colorado to make funeral arrangements, I came home to the standard three days of bereavement time. I still cringe when I hear that this remains the norm. How is someone expected to grieve in three days time? This only contributes to the isolating feeling one experiences in the aftermath of a tragic loss when they question, “Am I grieving the right way?” I have put together a few tips to help you get through the day, when getting through the day seems nearly impossible. Will it make the pain go away? No, it won’t. But, I do hope that it offers you a little relief when you find yourself searching for a way to get through your day.
1.) ACKNOWLEDGE the pain. Nobody wants to feel the pain. In fact, who wants to feel pain in general? We go to great measures to avoid feeling any type of pain. The thing about pain though is that it demands to be felt. The more we try to ignore it, the greater it becomes. Let it know that you feel it. Acknowledge it, and let it know that you will come back to it later. We have created this belief that avoidance is a bad thing. When it comes to grief, it can actually be an incredibly effective way to cope. You can’t grieve all day, every day. Which leads to my next tip…
2.) TAKE grief breaks. We take breaks from our computer, breaks from friends, partners, and even family. Take breaks from grief! Avoiding grief in order to get through your work day is a means of coping. It is the best thing you can do for yourself. It does not mean that you are forgetting your loved one, or doing them a disservice. You are simply giving yourself time to breathe, time to regain your strength, and power to get through the day.
3.) Give YOURSELF a break. Get up, move around, meditate, listen to music…get out of your head! Have a strategy for yourself to help you regain your composure. We often go in empty handed, and when the pain hits, we panic. Remember tip #1 and have a plan for yourself to help separate yourself from the pain.
4.) WRITE. I almost wrote journal, but have found that many people shy away from this strategy. People assume that journaling means sitting down and pouring their hearts into a cute little notebook that they picked up at Target. There are many ways to jot down your thoughts. Aftertalk.com is a great online journaling tool. Even better, you can link your therapist to it, if you so choose. We are often glued to our computers. This tool makes it easy to open a tab, login in, jot down a couple thoughts, and go back to what you were working on before. It is amazing how simply ridding ourselves of the thoughts can instantly change our moods, and make the task of getting through the day more attainable.
5.) ASK for what you need. We often assume that others know what we need. Let me go ahead and fill you in on a little secret…they have NO idea! Especially if they have never lost a loved one to suicide. My “ask” wasn’t so pretty, but it worked. The day I returned to work, I had a rather unattractive ugly tears meltdown in front of my boss. I couldn’t handle the “business as usual” demeanor that he was displaying, and certainly could not perform the duties of my position at the time. I wish I could report that he told me to “take all the time you need,” but he asked me to come back the following week. I did, but was more prepared when I returned. I knew what to expect, and had a plan for myself. More importantly, I did not hesitate to ask for what I needed. Rather it was a little time to go outside and catch my breath, or time to just sit and cry in the stairwell, I asked for what I needed. Don’t expect them to know; tell them.
Have any other tips for our readers on how you make it through your day? Please share! The more tips the better.
Thank you. Your emails are always helpful.
7 months since my dad’s suicide. My brain just keeps “picturing” the moment I found him. It scared me so bad that I could hardly breath or speak when calling 911. The next few days were a blur.
People who haven’t experienced this have no clue how to help us.
While your loss saddens us, we are happy to offer you support and understanding along your journey.
Hi Brenda, my dad died from suicide earlier this year, too. I feel for you. And I’ve also struggled with difficult images. There are so many details specific to traumatic grief that it’s difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it yourself. I don’t know if this will be helpful for you, but one thing that’s helped me is trying to replace a negative image with a positive memory whenever I can. I wrote down some happy memories with my dad, and when I catch my mind going to a bad image, I try to stop that by pulling my focus back to one of those happy memories. Looking at old pictures can also help redirect my how I’m feeling and what I think about. And at night, if I can’t sleep, I play a ‘sleep story’ from a free app on my phone that helps me focus on something light and unrelated until I can fall asleep. I know different things work for different people, I just wanted to share some things that have been helpful for me this year. Sending strength and healing thoughts your way.
It’s been less than a month since I watched my beautiful 17 year old niece burial.
My family doesn’t believe in talking about suicide. I am not allowed to talk about it. I am actually now isolated and shunned because I asked questions after. I have always struggled with anxiety and depression and knew my niece did, but we don’t talk about that. We talk about everything people do “wrong”. We criticize and judge and shame and isolate each other.
I watched my teen and adult children and nephews and nieces sob and dry heave over the casket.
…but I am the problem because I want to keep talking and making sure we don’t lose any more…