As a Psychologist, the biggest theme in our offices this week is the grief that people are feeling over the loss of a cultural icon, Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. Her unexpected, sudden death is re-triggering the loss of loved ones for many of us.
There are a number of changes we are not ready for when someone we love dies. Even though someone may have been ill and we may have been expecting it, there is a traumatic factor that just cannot be trivialized at all. We feel stunned, shocked and cannot fathom life without that person in our lives. A huge gaping hole is left and each of us deals with that loss in our own unique way. There is no set way in which a person grieves. Each of us has our own unique way of being with sudden loss, or even anticipated loss. Sometimes we can tend to be hard on ourselves if it is a loss we anticipated since we can say to ourselves that “I should cope better since I knew it was coming.” That type of sentiment will tend to delay the natural grief process that has to emerge even if the loss was predicted.
Loss is loss is loss.
A few areas where we may anticipate changes are in our eating and sleeping routines. We may feel a need to have more social support or maybe less social support. We may feel very irritable or we may have moments where we may be overcome by huge bouts of sadness. We may feel a need to take out pictures of our loved ones and we may be fearful of taking out their pictures because we may be overcome with deep sobs. It may be extremely difficult to feel pleasure in any activity you engage in and this is very normal.
If it is a loss that is as significant as the “mother” of a nation where millions of women were able to have their rights upheld, this type of loss can trigger massive amounts of fear with it. The uncertainty a loss like this creates has been very strong for a segment of the community. At this point, it is very important for us to honor the loss by memorializing what is important to us about that human being or even a pet. We create memorials since they serve the purpose of giving us a place to pay homage to and a place where we can honor the person and make sure that they live in our hearts with their legacy. The collective, supportive mourning that many cultures participate in allow for a full expression of grief. Within many traditions, we have a specified length of time where visitors come to the aggrieved daily to say prayers with them and to make sure that they do not feel alone with their grief.
As Jamie Cannon mentions in her blog post, “The abyss that accompanies grief is almost organic. Newly bereft individuals are not only struggling to find new ways to relate to a drastically altered world, but they are doing so without the support they depended on before their loss. Replacing a life partner, a confidante, a beloved child, is impossible — as is replacing the unique role they played in your life.”
Each of us needs to honor the layers of past losses that are activated when we have a new significant current loss even if it was a person we did not know personally.
As many have been saying 2020 seems to be a year of gigantic losses
Loss of physical safety due to COVID
Loss of our normal routines
Loss of emotional predictability
Loss of schools and connections for our children and their friends
Loss of economic security
Loss of many lives due to police brutality
Loss of normalcy in travel and being able to see family
Loss of huge icons like Chadwick Bosman, John Lewis, Kobe Bryant, Kenny Rogers, Kirk Douglas, William Gates Sr., and RBG to name a few.
As we navigate loss, we all try to do our very best to honor the person who was meaningful to us and we have to be able to give space to ourselves to feel the deepest, darkest feelings that come up. If there is a feeling of hopelessness that comes over you, observe it, honor it, embrace it, and like a wave it will eventually pass. Here in the US we are a very linear society and do not tend to give ourselves space and permission to be in the “messy” of grief. Honor the messy and honor your loved ones, and honor RBG.
Healthy Within is an integrative brain health center, experienced in incorporating neurofeedback to help people re-engage in their wholeness and wellness. We also help clients with ADHD, PTSD, depression, concussions, OCD, stroke, dementia and more!
Contact us for more information about how we can help you get your mind back to functioning at its calm, confident self.
