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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 03:53 PM
  #221
It’s pretty obvious that there is a realization of absence period that people experience after something important in their daily lives is no longer present.

And all those pills in your basket is not going to change that challenge either. Except for helping with the anxiety and agitation often experienced.

In fact if we did not experience this we would not do all the things we do to preserve life.

This has also been observed in mammals and especially in whales and elephants and primates. It’s a realization and acceptance period. And each person is different in getting to a point of acceptance.

Last edited by Open Eyes; Aug 22, 2020 at 04:55 PM..
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 05:34 PM
  #222
The psychiatrist at the hospital told me it's not possible "to medicate grief away." I agreed. He authorized prescriptions for me to fill to treat depression. There's no guarantee that those pills will be effective in relieving depression either.

Last time I got out of the psych hospital, in June, I threw that collection of pills in a drawyer. I just took the one antidepressant that has helped me for years. This time I'm going to stick with what I was on in the hospital - mainly Seroquel and Depakote. Those are giving me a more normal sleep pattern.

Taking this process one day at a time - which many have advised me to do - gets problematic when I never know when a day is going to end and when the next day will begin. If I have a bad spell at 5 p.m., I now can tell myself, "Just get through the next 4 or 5 hours and, then, sleep will provide a respite from the pain. Further grief will have to wait until tomorrow.

I've been thinking hard about a passage from Scripture: "Suficient unto the day are the troubles thereof." Mathew 6:34

A corollary of that can be "Sufficient unto the day is the grace thereof." What grace I will need to get through 2021 won't be given to me in 2020. So I need to stop projecting into the future my fears of all that might happen next year, or 5 years from now. I'm able to believe that I can get through what remains of today. I can't think about getting through more than that without getting very upset and consumed by anxiety and dread.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 05:47 PM
  #223
Here is a snippet from something I just read - a review of a book on grief:

"But the book’s biggest strength is that it tells the truth about something that everyone experiences that for decades our society has gotten entirely wrong. She writes:"

“But it certainly seems time to move beyond our current habit of using untested theories to create unnecessarily lengthy and agonizing models for loss, ones that I believe have created more fear of and anxiety about the experience.” (p. 197-198)

Here is the source: I Am Not Silent: Our Zoloft and Depression Story | Psych Central Reviews

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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 06:38 PM
  #224
The Truth About Grief: The Myth of Its Five Stages | Psych Central Reviews From this article, here is a snippet:

"Five Fallacies of Grief: Debunking Psychological Stages
From the stages of grief to the stages of moral development, stage theories have little evidentiary support"

Here's another snippet:

“no study has ever established that stages of grief actually exist, and what are defined as such can’t be called stages. Grief is the normal and natural emotional response to loss.... No matter how much people want to create simple, bullet-point guidelines for the human emotions of grief, there are no stages of grief that fit any two people or relationships.”

Here is another article: The Myth of "Stages of Grief"

Here is a snippet:

The Myth of “Stages of Grief”
By Mark Teats

In 1969, psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote the book, On Death and Dying, in which she outlined the now famous 5 stages of grief (also known as DABDA). These are the stages of dying as she
Over time, there have been many who have disputed the findings of Dr. Kubler-Ross, but our point is that these have become stages of grief now. When seen as a model for the stages of grief, this model has done more harm than good to grieving people.

From the above noted article, Friedman and James refute the stages and have added a response to the work done in February, 2007 in the Journal of the American Medical Association where the Yale Bereavement Study (YBS) was examined. YBA came up with stages of grief as well. The following refutes both models:

". . . they have never found anyone who was in denial that a loss had occurred. When asked what happened they say, “My mother died.”

Shock after a traumatic loss is very possible. The person is in a suspended state, totally removed from the events in the real world.
Most deaths are not sudden and traumatic and therefore do not produce shock.

Acceptance
Acceptance, as it relates to psychology or emotions, is a vague term. Acceptance is a confusing term, if not moot. The YBS study asked grievers to assess the level of acceptance they’ve achieved about the death of someone important to them. They would have had to accept that the death occurred or they would not have been in a bereavement study. There is no evidence this is a stage either.

My own belief: I accepted that my s.o. had died the very moment that he died. I sat by his bed, watching him die. When he stopped breathing, I knew he was no longdr alive. Paramedics arrived and said "He is still warm. We could start resuscitative measures." I responded, "No. It was time for him to pass away." I accepted that my s.o. was gone from this life and that further medical interventions would be out of place.

I would say that, more recently, I have a clearer idea about what living without him will be like, in some respects - all the bad ones. On May 31, I accepted that he was lost to me . . . that he was gone from this life. I did kind of believe that I would have the strength to transition to a life without him. Then - weeks later - I came to believe that I didn't have that strength. I came to believe that the future held nothing good . . . only unrelenting pain from loss.

Today I am telling myself, "You don't know what the future holds. It may hold good things you can't even imagine now."

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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 06:55 PM
  #225
Wow, that book seems to convey one persons need to explore why that young man could kill like that. I hope it includes this young mans explanation. However there have long been warnings in regards to how psychotropic drugs can have adverse affects on young adults.

I am not sure how grief comes into that story other than the parents devastation and shock that their son could ever kill someone like that.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:01 PM
  #226
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Wow, that book seems to convey one persons need to explore why that young man could kill like that. I hope it includes this young mans explanation. However there have long been warnings in regards to how psychotropic drugs can had adverse affects on young adults.
I think this was intended for another thread.

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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:09 PM
  #227
Oh you meant to post that link in another thread?
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:28 PM
  #228
Rose I understand that you had accepted at one point that your significant other was going to pass.

The kind of acceptance that I am describing in the realization of actual absence is once that presence is really gone. It’s not a going to be gone, it is gone and the finality of how that changes the way one navigates their life that is changed significantly.

When someone is part of your every day life it takes time to adjust to that person not being there and never will be again. There is a lost sensation that comes with that.

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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:44 PM
  #229
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Oh you meant to post that link in another thread?
O.E., look at your post #225 above. I think that you put it here by mistake. It's about some killer.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:46 PM
  #230
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Rose I understand that you had accepted at one point that your significant other was going to pass.

The kind of acceptance that I am describing in the realization of actual absence is once that presence in really gone. It’s not a going to be gone, it is gone and the finality of how that changes the way one navigates their life.

When someone is part of your every day life it takes time to adjust to that person not being there and never will be again. There is a lost sensation that comes with that.
I think that's valid.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 07:51 PM
  #231
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O.E., look at your post #225 above. I think that you put it here by mistake. It's about some killer.
Yes that is what the link you posted was about
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 08:09 PM
  #232
This is what comes up from the link you posted:

Quote:
I Am Not Silent: Our Zoloft and Depression Story
Book author: Gail Schmidkunz
Reviewed by: Joseph Maldonado, MS
Last updated: 17 May 2016
~ 3 MIN READ
The intersection of our mental health and criminal justice systems is one that is fraught with complications. Numerous questions arise when a defendant has a history of mental illness. For Gail Schmidkunz, this reality became all too apparent when his son, who has a history of depression, became a murder suspect. Schmidkunz shares this tumultuous story in his memoir, I Am Not Silent: Our Zoloft and Depression Story, giving us an illuminating look into the mind of a parent whose child has gone through one of the most difficult ordeals imaginable.

While the book does tell the story of Zach Schidkunz, a young man convicted of murder, the real heart of it is the author’s journey as he attempts to come to grips with what has transpired. The reader is witness to how a parent can make sense of a world in which his beloved little boy can go from college, to suffering from serious depression, to prison.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 09:00 PM
  #233
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Ugh your friends sound like emotional vampires Rose
And that’s awful that they shut down like that when you try to share things important to you.

No wonder you like the nicer facility. The staff and others are willing to listen and have patience and compassion. Have you looked to see if there are grief support groups around you. I know it’s harder with the social distancing rules however people still meet outside. Yes there might be some alanon meetings that are held outside. That’s what they have been doing around my area where they are having AA meetings outside.

People are getting creative in an effort to socialize despite the COVID social distancing challenge. Even if you find an alanon meeting you may find individuals that have other groups they are involved with that meet in creative ways.

I think one thing you learned in this experience is that you do better with people that are different than these women you know around you.
O.E., I want to thank you again for this post. Since coming home from the hospital yesterday, I have thought hard about how much I want to let, or not let, these persons back into my life.

I postponed responding to some calls and texts I got from them. I believe I would do very well to seek out other people to be in contact with. I do think I underestimated how much they were sucking life out of me. Actually, the problem was my willingness to let them. I felt I was strong enough. I figured they just didn't know how to meet my needs as well as I knew how to meet their's, since I'm trained to do that.

The truth is they weren't trying all that hard. It's time I wised up to that. I had figured they weren't self-aware and were relating to me as best they knew how. Even if that were true, I don't have to go along with it. Maybe they had some bad habits, but I don't have to enable that behavior. Once I stop enabling, they will either adapt and be less attention-hogging, or they'll lose interest in my company. There probably should be a limit to how much I will tolerate just to preserve a connection to another human being.

O.E., You might remember some of my earliest threads here at PC that were about my brother. He expected a lot of attention and was draining me. Eventually I said "No" to him, and I haven't heard from him since. In the years since, I've felt bad that I didn't handle my encounters with him differently. I've believed that he wasn't capable of being different from how he was . . . but that I had more options and could have been more patient and diplomatic with him.

After my s.o. passed away, I really mourned my lost relationship with my brother. I imagined his presence would have been a great comfort to me now, if only I hadn't alienated him. That wish probably belongs in the realm of fantasy. Once, when we were still seeing each other regularly, I told my brother that my s.o. was back in the hospital and quite sick. All my brother said was, "Well, we all got to go sometime." I guess empathy wasn't his strong suit.

It's hard for me to believe these friends I've leaned on have a true lack of empathy for me. Yet there's not a ton of evidence to the contrary. One texted me, when she heard my s.o. had died, "Well, you two had a lot of good years together." That seemed a bit sparse on sympathy to me.

I figured any human contact was better than none. I think I need to refigure that.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 09:09 PM
  #234
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Yes that is what the link you posted was about
Thank you. I clicked on the wrong link. My mistake.
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Default Aug 22, 2020 at 11:28 PM
  #235
I think that a lot of people genuinely don’t know how to listen. Actually I learned that when dealing with individuals that have dyslexia or adhd they can only listen for a short period then zone out. Yet can go on and on about themselves. In fact many of the individuals at AA meetings have to learn how to sit and listen and not interrupt when others are talking.

It sounds like the women you are friendly with don’t know how to listen and attentively interview you so you feel heard. That can be frustrating given that as a caregiver you are trained to listen and attend accordingly. These women most likely don’t have any of that kind of training. Doesn’t mean they are not nice or purposely selfish they simply just don’t know.

Once you were in an environment with others that had this training you felt heard and felt comforted.

Psychiatrists are not therapists. They tend to look for symptoms and consider what drugs may reduce symptoms. And they don’t always diagnose correctly either. Their interest is more about brain chemistry. But also look for behavior patterns that fit into different criteria’s that are listed in DSM manual.

I question that diagnosis of npd to be honest because I have not seen you gaslight or lie or manipulate. You have a devotion to making sure something comes out right and you love to learn. I think you get frustrated when you experience emotions when you don’t want to. It’s almost as though you were encouraged to see to much emotion as weakness or that you are a failure if you can’t contain them.

I think you tried to rationalize how things were going to be to prepare yourself for your SO’s passing. And you don’t like the grieving. Well nurses learn to detach and think about the medical care. And you did that with your SO but you also loved him. It’s not the same as just another patient. There is a different dimension to this. It’s much more emotional.

I don’t think the average person is capable of recognizing that. Yet I think the staff in the smaller unit were capable of having that kind of understanding.
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Default Sep 05, 2020 at 05:10 PM
  #236
I know this thread is old. When I started it, I didn't dream I would still be this much of a mental mess more than 3 months later.

Everyone says it takes time for grief to lessen. I do understand that. My problem is not just grief over losing my s.o. That loss triggered a whole other set of problems. I've struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life. I've been emotionally troubled my whole life. That is a chronic problem for me. It always will be. The best I can hope for is to manage my emotional turmoil, so that I can function reasonably okay. The loss of this important relationship has aroused mental health problems in me that were there long before the passing away of my s.o. Those problems are big and deep. I think I need someone - probably a professional - to recognize that grief is just the visible tip of the iceberg. Right now, that is what is most obvious. There is an underlying problem of aloneness that is making it vastly more difficult for me to cope right now.

I loved my s.o. Of course it's hard to lose someone you love. However, that one relationship was pretty much my whole world. He wasn't one of the people in my life. He was the only person in my life. I have no children. My sisters are thousands of miles away. I went 6 years without seeing them. I am retired. I don't have a lot of connection to other human beings. I never have had. That tendency to be too much alone has bedeviled me all my life. Now I'm alone like I was before I met this man who became my companion for years.

Back then, before meeting my s.o., I was nearly suicidal over the problem of aloneness. That's what I mean by a deep problem that is independent of grief over the death of one person. Sure, I understand that grief lessens with time. But I have this other problem that has haunted me my whole life. "IT" is not likely to lessen over time. This other, separate problem is now suddenly huge and likely to get huger. The two problems added together are just too much. I am overwhelmed. I need to tell someone that I am not able to cope.

I've been given a drawer full of psychotropic meds. Aloneness cannot be medicated away. Being in the hospital helped me because I interacted as much as I possibly could with everyone around me. That included staff and other patients. Now, at home, I am alone. I go online to interact, but that does not really work too well. It's no substitute for being with people IRL.

The easy answer is that I should find people IRL to interact with. For some reason, or reasons, that has always been kind of a losing struggle for me.

Losing at that struggle right now is like not having enough oxygen to breathe. It's easy to say I need to try harder. I say that to myself. Sometimes failure is not the result of inadequate effort. I need help from someone who could understand that.
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