Has your father ever died?
He died once and I went blind
They washed him and took him away
I wouldn't have expected this from my father, I became blind
( Cemal Süreya )
All over the world, losses have been the subject of every branch of art. The most concrete form of loss is the death of someone we love. However, separation, divorce, job loss, and economic losses also cause us to mourn. In this article, I mainly aimed to talk about what we experience after the death of someone we love
.
1) When do we start to lose? Can we gain from losses?
We grow up losing things from the moment we are born. Some losses are the key to healthy growth and development, both physically and spiritually. When the baby is weaned, it leaves its mother's breast; But at the same time, he starts drinking his milk from a glass and climbs the stages of development. Another example is that the baby loses the security of being carried in his arms when he starts walking. In this way, the baby's dependency (not to be confused with attachment) on the caregiver decreases. The child, who goes through his developmental periods without any problems, takes steps towards freedom and autonomy. We know that many parents apply or receive counseling saying "my child is not self-confident"
It becomes difficult for children whose developmental losses, which I briefly mentioned above, are prevented or delayed
to manage themselves and make original decisions.
And this situation causes the child to have self-confidence problems now and in the future
It becomes one of the reasons.
2) Why do we react differently to the death of a loved one?
When a relative dies, what we call "mourning" , the process that re-establishes balance between our inner world and the outer world begins. Just like our fingerprints
our ages are different from each other.
While some of us mourn and move on with our lives, some of our lives seem to freeze at one point
. A person's ability to grieve is affected by the following situations;
- the person's emotional maturity an
-characteristics of the lost relationship
-conditions in which the loss occurred
-degree of dependence (not attachment) on the lost object
-painful feelings from the ability to endure
-from the restriction on expressing the grief felt after the loss
3) What happens after the loss?
What to know about losses There are a few important points. The first is that every loss inevitably drags us into "grief". The second is that every loss brings to life
old losses that we thought we had closed, forgotten, or ignored.
The third part, and the part that is considered a gain, is that when mourning can be fully
held, it can be a good tool for growth and renewal.
4) "When I lost Him, I experienced many emotions and thoughts until I accepted his death.
I felt confused. Why does this happen?
After our losses, if the conditions are suitable, we go into the "grieving" period.
Sometimes conditions may not be suitable for mourning. Like war times. In times of war, the priority is to survive and keep those left behind alive. When we are away from the environment where the loss
happens, the denial phase will be mentioned below.
It may be prolonged.
There are two phases of grieving. The first is "Grief in the Crisis Period" and the second is
"Mourning Work".
In crisis grief, we resist accepting death.
We make every effort to avoid confrontation. Because at the first moment, loss shakes the belief that we
can control everything and understand in advance
how everything will follow. However, we need to adapt to "deprivation" and "abandonment". What dominates the process is our intense desire
for the return of what we lost. We often find ourselves thinking "this is a bad dream, I will wake up and it will all be over"
. Grief during the crisis period consists of five sub-stages that often occur in a chaotic way. The first phase mentioned above, which we also call "denial", absorbs the shock we experience in the face of loss. the bitter truth It prepares the necessary ground for us to accept it little by little
Sometimes we find ourselves hearing the voice of our deceased relative
, feeling his/her presence in the room, and waiting
as if he/she is going to walk through the door at any moment. This phase is called "splitting". While one side of us denies death, the other part of us is aware of the loss. On the other hand, we try to bring back the last days, the last moments before the loss. In this period, which we call "bargaining", we say: "If I do this
I will wake up from this bad dream, I wish I had gotten what he wanted, I had not said those bad words,
If I had paid more attention when he was sick, if I had listened more carefully when he spoke. We are overwhelmed with thoughts like ..."
As the feeling of loss penetrates us, we feel "boredom". At this stage
our feelings of rejection and powerlessness are now activated. Because if someone leaves our life unintentionally
being left behind causes us to feel "anger". The anger phase is a healthy process that shows us starting to accept the facts.
It should not be forgotten that
these phases are often intertwined. As the grief in the crisis period ends, the stages of denial and division
are seen to gradually decrease.
A new and more appropriate relationship with the emotional presence of the person we lost
>we call regulation "grief work". It is a very tiring process. We constantly remember the past over and over again in order to make sense of what the relationship means to us
and what we have lost.
Disappointments, unresolved tensions, wounds left behind... Sadness and anger
They cause us to feel.
In addition, every loss has side losses. Such as economic losses, loss of position
and loss of comfortable life.
4) "It has been painful for me to laugh since he died. I will be able to continue my life without him
p>Am I? I don't know. Isn't it unfair? I can't do the things he likes,
why do I feel guilty?"
Grieving is quite tiring. We mentioned that it is a process. So much so that
We become paralyzed, we stop eating or drinking, or we find ourselves overeating.
We lose sleep. Many more physical symptoms appear . The feeling of grief we feel also provides a
kind of relief. Because it is still the most obvious connection between us and the deceased. On the one hand, daily life confronts us with a to-do list. A job to go to,
children to look after, a wife to take care of and so on. In this case, we feel as if we are betraying the deceased in the face of the gradual decrease in grief
.
"How can I think of such things when he is lying there alone in the grave?"
p>
"He loved ice cream very much, I can't eat it since he died"
"He is dead, gone. How can I deal with so many things that need to be done? It's like I'm in a dream. I feel like I'm in a
movie. As each task is completed, my pain seems to increase..."
We find ourselves in these and similar discourses.
5) "Actually, I'm fine. My life seems to be on track, but why do I suffer every year on the date of his death?
When I experience our important moments?"
Do not forget that we are , we never completely abandon anything or anyone
that is important and valuable to us. This causes us to feel the feeling of grief again at some moments, even when we mourn fully. Death dates, important days,
seasons, some months, hours... etc.
6) When should we consult a specialist after a loss?
Losses are inevitable for all of us. We feel such great pain that; We enter the mourning process with a feeling of intense grief, abstinence from eating or drinking for a while, thoughts that many things have lost their meaning, changes in sleep, and a growing sense of longing. We continue to live, completing our mourning within one to two years. Sometimes grief doesn't go as it should and situations may arise where we need help.
These situations are;
-The grief and other emotions we feel last longer than 2 (two) years,
-It is so bad that we cannot carry out our work, social relations, and academic studies.
feeling,
-wanting to die due to intense feelings of guilt, making suicide plans,
attempting suicide
-worthlessness, inadequacy f It is the presence of thoughts and other depressive symptoms.
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