Tag: grief and depression

When The Holidays Are Hard, Seek Hope

by Kime Eubanks

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We call this season the most wonderful time of the year but for many it can be the most difficult.  If you are in the latter group, you undoubtably are caught in a mixture of hope and hurting.  Even over the last two days, I have friends who have lost family and other loved ones.  No matter what time of year loss is one of the deepest pains, but even more so at a time in which most people are enjoying family and friends.  You want to smile, you know you are expected to be happy, but your spirit is just not having it.  If you are blessed to have others around you who also feel the loss it helps.  At least you can hurt together, talk about it, and hopefully even find some reasons to laugh as you remember.

The above picture is from Christmas Eve 2006, one week after my children lost their mom and I lost my wife.  The smiles are genuine but not indicative of the emptiness inside.  In fact it has been a 10 year journey in which we gradually have enjoyed Christmas more every year.  Some years we took bigger strides and some smaller, often depending upon other life factors besides the loss, but now we are at a very happy place in our family.  I’m not a fan of the phrase, “Time heals all wounds.” Instead, I think in time we adapt, grow, and begin anew if we are healthy.  The grief doesn’t go away, we just start again, and that is our most powerful ability.

If it is Christmas Eve and you have lost someone today or ten years ago, you must strike the balance of remembering but also living in the present.  If you can find some reasons to smile and laugh, do not hold it back or feel guilty.  You are going to hurt so when you don’t, embrace it.  This is one of your greatest healing gifts.  Give yourself permission to be happy.  If you know someone else who is hurting or lonely this Christmas, reach out to them.  Helping someone else in pain is a good way to ease your own, at least for a while.  You can’t force happiness but you can seek it.  Your chances are much better of finding it if you make genuine efforts.   Allow yourself to cry, allow yourself to laugh and begin anew.

Grieving for People Around the World and at Home

by Kime Eubanks

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As I write this, there have been many recent high profile deaths in the news.  In such places as Orlando, Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas, Paris, and Nice, hundreds have been killed in escalating climates.  We see a few memorials on the news, but most of the talk is about who is to blame.  Across social media people pontificate about the causes and solutions but make little actual effort to make things better.  While all of the chatter continues, families and friends of the ones who were lost are grieving.  They will get lots of help, and media attention on the days before and the day of the funeral, but when they go home their lives are forever changed.  For the rest of their lives their loved ones will be part of a news story forever linked with this era, but it will not bring them back.  If you know any of these people, they need you for the days and years to come.  Most who read this will not know any of these grieving people, but you do know someone else who has had a recent loss.  Reach out to them.

Hearing of someone else losing a loved one can bring back the pain of their own loss.  This is not to say they will never be happy again, but part of their happiness is gone forever.  More than ever they need to know that people around them care.  Because of the ease of communication in our time it takes little effort to send a text, email, Facebook comment or inbox, Instagram DM, Snapchat–the list is endless.  This is a nice reminder that someone out there is thinking about you but they need much more than that.  It is all too easy for a grieving person to stay in the cocoon of their home and read messages and marinate in their pain.  They need more than messages or even phone calls.  They need the touch of interaction with someone who cares.

In the beginning invite them to dinner, coffee, or for a walk.  Allow them to talk without judgement.  Resist the desire to tell them how to feel.  That just makes them hurt more.  Just listen, even if you don’t agree with everything they express.  They just need to vent.  If you put in the time they are more likely to allow you to help later.  Invite them to do some things that will distract them, such as a movie, concert or party but don’t force it early on.  When you do go out be sensitive to the fact that any of these things may bring memories which can bring sadness.  Don’t get angry just let it be.  It has to happen.  Hurting people must go through the dark times before they can see the sunshine again.  If you really care, travel closely with them through the full journey.  A friend that will do that is a rare and cherished one.  Helping one person around you might change the world.

Summertime Can Be a Healing Time for Grieving Families

by Kime Eubanks

Eubanks Family Branson

Summertime and the living is easy … well maybe, maybe not, but we do tend to find some down time in the summer.  Families with children regularly take advantage of the days when the kids are out of school.  Finding time to get away takes planning but summer is a good time to build some new, happy memories.  A happy time may be more difficult when there is a glaring empty space in the family.  This space cannot be filled by another person, nor can it be ignored.  Both will lead to more pain than healing.  So the challenge, as in all grieving situations, is to learn to enjoy life and still deal with the emotions associated with loss.

I have to begin by saying that it is okay to forget sometimes.  You must.  If you try to spend every waking moment remembering someone who isn’t there you will never find peace.  “Moving on” is not a profane phrase, it all depends on how you move on.  You can move on and still honor the person you lost.  This is a balance and I can tell you from experience that guiding your children is not easy.  Every child is on a different journey and they do not all need the same type of attention, but they all need attention.  You will hit the mark and miss the mark, but they will know you care if your heart and intention are genuine.  With that in mind here are a few summertime suggestions:

Idleness is not good.  Kids certainly need some down time and a week or two of doing nothing at home isn’t bad, but they need something to do.  This can be a vacation, spending time with grandparents, volunteering, camps, swimming pool passes, jobs–you name it.  Kids like to rest but they also know when they have wasted time.  Give them something positive to do.  They may resist but do it anyway.  They will feel better.

Do something new.  When planing a day trip or long vacation, familiarity can be good but it can also highlight the fact that someone is missing.  Early on after my wife died I took my kids to Branson, MO, a trip their mom had planned for us many times.  Although we did have a little fun it was hard on all of us and the overall vibe of the trip was not good.  I suggest going somewhere where new experiences prevail over old memories.

Include some one-on-one experiences.  Individual time with your children is the most reassuring for them.  I have three children, girl/boy/girl, spanning 7 years in age.  Of course they are all very different.  A day of fun planned specifically for each of them individually does much more to make them feel loved and secure than a big family vacation.  It gives you time to hear their specific needs and feelings.

Do not pack too much in the schedule.  The temptation when planning any outing is to squeeze in as much activity as y0u can.  Everyone has their own definition of a fun vacation, but don’t be so busy you don’t have time to connect.

Summer may not always be easy but it is a natural time to plan some healing activities.  You don’t have to go far or spend a lot of money.  Relaxing time together can be healing time together.  You can’t force a child to feel a certain way, but you can show them how you feel about them by giving them your time.

 

Helping Grieving Children

by Kime Eubanks
Photo of my daughter Rileigh at age 5 courtesy of Donna Evans Photography, Conway Arkansas

Whenever a child loses a parent, some well-meaning but patronizing person is bound to say to the surviving parent, “Well, kids are resilient,” as a platitude.  I can tell you from experience that this is not helpful at all.  In fact it hurts.  Don’t say it.  Kids will live on, yes, but the loss will also greatly affect the rest of their lives.   The most often used phrase, “This too shall pass,” is equally dismissive of the emotional affect that such a loss has on children, even as adults.  This is not to say children can’t lead emotionally healthy lives, but just saying that they will “get over it” because they are young is fallacious.  These are some simple rules that will help you with grieving children.  When my children lost their mother they were 12, 8, and 5.  Dealing with my own deep pain, I began the journey of also helping them heal.  Now, ten years after their mom was diagnosed with cancer, I am living with three wonderful children who bless my life every day.  I will not reference their private experiences–that is their story to tell.  I can, however, offer some general insight for parents helping their children after a devastating loss.  There will be many more specific posts to follow, but let this be a starting place.

Allow them to see you grieve.  One of the main ways that children learn to cope with pain is by watching you.  They take your lead.  If you always put on a happy or brave face around them, they will stuff away their pain and that is when real damage is done.  This is not to say they don’t need to see you be strong, they do, but an appropriate show of grief will help them feel free to express their own.

Seek private help for yourself.  In order to learn from you, your children must witness your own healing journey.  Whether it is dear friends, other family members, a pastor, or a therapist–get help.  I sought help from all of theses sources.  As much as your children need to see you grieve, they also cannot be your support system.  They are kids.  Find adult help and make sure it is from an emotionally healthy adult.  There are many free services that are available.  You can also ask people you know to connect you with another adult, preferably of the same sex, who has advanced through their own grief journey.

Listen to and watch your children, individually.  No good therapist dispenses advice without listening first, a lot.  Each child responds to pain within their own experiences and personalities and to advise or correct them, you must hear and observe them.  Doing so without listening first may well result in an unhelpful intervention.  Like adults, children respond best when they know they have been heard.

Take your time.  Healing takes a long time and in fact never completely happens.  There isn’t an end to grief.  Time does not heal all wounds.  You are helping them learn to lessen their grief and find a new beginning.  Give yourself time as well.  It took me four years to turn the corner, but it will always be a part of my life.

Start with this simple advice.  It will help you make it through the day, and that is the goal in the beginning.  My pastor and grief mentor, Greg, told me this early on:  Grief forces you into a one-day-at-a-time perspective, and that is okay.  Yes, kids who lose a parent can heal and thrive, but leaving them to figure it out on their own can lead to depression, bad relationships, intimacy problems, and substance abuse.  Some have to figure it out on their own and do fine, but their chances are much greater if you help them with wisdom.  If you are a person of faith, pray–a lot.  Faith is another topic for another time.  In my experience, it has been essential.

Trapped in a Fog of Grief

by Kime Eubanks

faceless-grey-gray-man-in-the-fog-750“That’s the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it’s impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.”        Elizabeth Wurtzel

 

The fog of grief can be overwhelming and debilitating, leaving the grieving person unable to function properly.  Even the most familiar daily tasks become difficult or impossible to complete.  When there is a painful shift in your life, nothing makes sense anymore.  You can’t return to the familiar because the much of the familiar doesn’t exist anymore.  It never will again.  You are left feeling consumed by the unknown, in despair, immobile.  This can be a consuming fog for a person who has experienced the loss of a family member, a friend, or even a job.  We often speak of fog as “lifting” but grief this deep usually doesn’t just go away.  Nobody, no matter how much they love you, can take it away.  Somehow, you have to find your own way out of the fog and into a new beginning.

For me it was the loss of my wife, Tina, after her battle with cancer that brought the fog.  Well, it really began before that.  I remember while she was in ICU and I knew she would not come home again, a close friend came by to visit.  He said, “Are you okay?  You seem to be in a fog.”  I wasn’t okay and he could see it.   The fog had already drifted in when, after an eight month battle, the doctor told me we weren’t going to win.  My mind couldn’t handle it.  What will I tell the kids?  What will I say to her parents?  Should I keep fighting?  Am I giving up too easily?  How will we live without her?  These were just a few of the many layers of fog that began to cloud my mind and there was no good answer for any of them.  For the first time of my life I could not say myself, “It will all be okay.”  Of course it only got worse a few days later when she truly left us.  Grief and depression came to stay after the funeral.

Grief and depression do not have to come together.  A person can most certainly have depression which is not brought on by grief.  Likewise it is possible to move through the grief process without becoming deeply depressed, but it is not as likely if you try to do it alone.  Along with the support of family and friends, sometimes the help of a professional is needed to help find a new and happier life.  I help people find their way out of the fog.  I started Genesis Grief Care to help people find their own Genesis, their new beginning.  I have a variety of options to help.  First of all keep reading this blog.  I will be updating with new information regularly.  If you would like help please contact me at 501-249-9810 or email me at kime.eubanks@gmail.com for help.  Let me help you find your new life.