Don't stand too close to a grieving man...

For my second post, I thought that I’d share some observations on my experience of the grieving process. As I’m told, everyone experiences it differently, so this should not be taken as a map to navigate it successfully (whatever that means). It is more a glimpse into what it was like for me, and what I found helpful, and in some cases, not so helpful.

For those of you who may recognise something you said or did that I happen to put into the ‘not so helpful’ category, please do not be offended: I know you meant well, and I appreciate that you tried. It is hard supporting someone who is grieving, and no one really knows what to say or do (least of all, me!). Furthermore, people who are grieving generally have a whole lot of stuff flying around in their heads, and are easily overloaded with feelings. I know I was…

Empathy, not sympathy…

Someone explained the difference between empathy and sympathy to me once like this:

Empathy is when you see someone drowning, you say “that’s terrible, let me help you.” Whereas sympathy is when you see someone drowning, you say “that’s terrible, I’m going to get in there with you and drown as well.”

This description struck a chord with me. When Melissa died, there were times when I felt very depressed, and having empathetic people around me was very helpful: people who would come around, and hang out, and listen. Sympathetic people, although well meaning, were hard work.

Invite me over for a meal, don’t drown me in your home cooking…

One thing that I really enjoyed was having friends invite me over for a meal. It was a social outing for me (and kids), it was time out of the house, it made me feel better. I had a good time, so did the kids.

On the other hand, a number of very well-meaning people decided to cook for the kids and I, and bring it around. There were a number of issues with this:

a.     I like to cook. It is something that I am good at. It gives me a sense of accomplishment to cook meals for my family. When people turned up with meals, it made me feel a little useless.

b.     My freezer got so full that there was no room for the basic stuff that a growing family needs to store in there, like bread.

c.     Just because you like your tuna pasta bake or fish pie does not necessarily mean that I will!

I needed support, not judgement…

My grief was very confusing. I had a lot of feelings and emotions running around my head. It was not an easy time. I just wanted to feel better. I found it hard to process what was going on. Many of my friends just got this, they were very accepting, and listened. They didn’t feel the need to really say, or do anything. Really, there was nothing that could be said or done to fix what I was experiencing.

Others had somewhat fixed ideas about how the process should go, and found it difficult that my process seemed different to what they were experiencing (or had experienced in the past). I’ll reiterate: everyone experiences grief differently. This was particularly the case for those who were experiencing their own grief. We had all lost someone special: a wife, a mother, a family member, a friend… It all hurts.

There were times when I felt judged for things that happened that some friends’ disagreed with. This was difficult because I needed friends, regardless of what was going on. I may have seemed OK from the outside, but I was scared and lonely, and had taken a big hit to my self-esteem.

What’s the key message here? Well, I guess that it is: this stuff is hard… take it easy on each other.