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nonightowl · Mar 02, 2019 at 02:28 PM

Poe824, I tried two types of groups: Walk in, ongoing and fixed "closed" group.

Both had pros and cons.

I went to the walk-in or drop in group first through my health plan. It wasn't my first choice of where to go but I was desperate. I had lost a good friend suddenly, and months later my mom. I went to the group a few months.

The pros are that it's an ongoing group so it's good to know it's always there. What I got out of it mostly was being around others who experienced loss or multiple losses. The cons is that it was always way too large for the 80-90 minutes allotted. There was never fewer than 15 people in there; the largest it was was 25 people. So not everyone even got the chance to speak, including me.

So it didn't feel very "intimate" and the drop in nature didn't give me the stability I needed. But I did end up keeping in touch with a couple of people from it.

People dropping in and out was the hardest for me. I know it's the nature of the group, but it changes the dynamics when that happens. AND talking in front of a large group of people was scary.

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Months later (I think), I went to one at one of our local universities. The intake was much more thorough, as I did one on the phone AND one in person.

The group was much smaller, so it felt more supportive. But it just ran for 10 weeks. And maybe because it was free, not everyone came every week so that threw me off. I say "closed" cause once they have their group, that's their group. No one dropping in.

Also, they had us fill out a LOT of forms, both when signing up for the group and during the group's 10 weeks. One of them was keeping track of how you felt day to day, with rating your grief on a scale of 1 - 10 for both the highest/lowest points of the day. Then an "average".

This was hard, but it wasn't required. I did it, and I think it was to look for patterns.

I briefly kept in touch with two people from that group also, but they both abruptly stopped texting me. They might as well have poured salt into my wound.

I miss the supportiveness of the group, but I don't feel like doing another intake, filling out more forms, driving to taking the bus there, etc. It was all exhausting and took a lot out of me. I had to take a bus then a train to get to the university.

Groups can have people that make you upset or say inappropriate things. In the university group, one woman said to me to imagine how much worse I'd feel if I lost my dad too. Hello?? Not helpful and completely out of line to say such a thing. I'm glad she didn't come regularly and dropped out quite early.

So even if you're around others grieving, keep your guard up until you get to see how the dynamics of the other members are.

Recently I started writing things down again when I feel the need. I also keep telling myself that grief is not a linear process. You can go back to earlier "stages". There's no time table, and no "right" way to grieve.

It's okay to cry, and it's okay NOT to cry. It's okay if you're not sure how you feel or if you can't label it. I tell myself these things whenever I feel I wish I can label it. Also, there's physical symptoms like fatigue, insomnia, etc.

I don't have any other support in my life, as my emotionally unavailable stoic dad has made it clear he doesn't want to talk about mom, and my brother stopped speaking to me.

In a nutshell, if you decide to try a group, just keep expectations low and guard up until you get to know the group members and facilitator a bit. That's another thing-----you might like the members but not the leader. Or vice versa.

Also, I'd wait until you feel up to answering questions and filling out forms. Depending on where you go, you might do just a brief phone screening or an in-depth one in person. And it might be grueling and painful to answer the questions they ask, like if you live alone or do you have emotional support from family.