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Grief
and Bereavement in Accidental Death
Dr.
David J. Baxter, Psychologist
Ottawa,
Canada
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Grief
is grief: no matter what the circumstances of your loss or who it is you
have lost, grief is an inevitable and intense psychological reaction
that is unlike anything else you will experience. And while you are
grieving, what you are experiencing will always be the most intense and
dominant aspect of your life.
Having
said that, I also recognize that the circumstances of a loss may make
the loss more or less difficult to come to terms with.
For example, where the person dies after a protracted illness,
there is an identifiable cause (which in at least some cases can be seen
as unavoidable) and the survivor has some opportunity to anticipate the
loss and to start to come to terms with it prior to the event. On the
other hand, I think that sudden death, by accident or misadventure or
malice, brings up additional issues for the survivor which can
complicate the grieving process for
years – the “what-if’s”.
More
than 20 years ago now, my mother died at age 59. She had had some health
problems for several years prior to that but I was unaware that any of
them were life-threatening. Her loss was sudden and it was a shock to me
at least, and part of coming to terms with that loss was that I berated
myself for letting life get in the way and not making the time to visit
her more often in the last few years before her death (she lived and
died in England, while I was living in Canada). At the time, this was
the worst loss I had ever faced and, because of the kind of relationship
I had with my mother, I was devastated by it. It also seemed to me that
for her life to end so young was unjust and intolerable.
Then,
about 8½ years ago, I lost my 17 year old daughter in an automobile
accident. Where the loss of my mother was devastating, this loss was
paralyzing. In retrospect, I realize that as shocking as was the loss of
my mother, it was the result of failing health and at least there was
some sense of it conforming to “the natural order of things” – one
sort of expects that eventually one’s parents will get older and
predecease you. With the loss of my daughter, I was plagued by a myriad
of feelings triggered by the fact that it was accidental (and therefore
preventable), that in part it was the result of somebody’s negligence
(at the time the county was trying to save money on snow clearance and
salting/sanding; she died when she lost control of the vehicle on an icy
road that had not been sanded), and that it seemed to me that it was
contrary to all natural laws – parents are supposed to die before
children, not the other way around.
But
certainly one major component in my grief then and now was anger and
outrage at the council members who had made such a short-sighted and
stupid decision to save money on something that ended up taking my
daughter’s life – to think that she might be alive today were it not
for a decision to save a few dollars was almost unbearable. Even now,
every time I read about a town council talking about saving money on
services like that, I want to scream – as I write this, the nearby
city of Ottawa, Canada, has recently adopted a policy of not sending out
the snow plows until there is a forecast of at least 7 inches of snow
(previously it was 4 or 5)… I wonder how many people will have to die
in automobile accidents as a result of this policy before the city is
sued and/or agrees that the few hundred thousand dollars saved by the
decision are not worth the life of even a single human being.
I
think that these are similar to the feelings many people experience when
a loved one is lost due to an industrial or workplace accident. Again,
there is that sense that the loss could have been avoidable,
preventable, if only the employer had been more focused on employee
safety and less focused on saving money. The anger, the rage, the hatred
that one feels in response to such a perception is almost worse than the
grief. One seems to be torn between grieving the loss of the person you
love and wanting some sort of revenge against the people who took him or
her away from you. In my case, I felt at times “angry that I had to
feel angry”, since it felt as though in some ways the county decision
had first taken my daughter from me and now was taking away my ability
to focus on grieving for her – irrational, of course, but nonetheless
real.
“The
Five Stages of Grief”
Most
of you have probably heard about “the five stages of grief”:
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. What is
not well understood as that the concept of The Five Stages was
introduced by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross (On Death and Dying, 1969,
Macmillan) to describe the process she observed in terminally ill
individuals in coming to terms with their own approaching deaths. She
was not talking about survivor grief. However, since that
time it has come to be used in a general way to describe the process of
grieving for the loss of a loved one.
As
such, the concept has some general utility. However, what worries me
about it is the implication that there is some sort of schedule or
time-course for grieving. This is even suggested in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric
Association), where a distinction is made between “normal” grief,
“complicated bereavement”, and major depressive episode, again
partly defined by severity of “symptoms” but also partly according
to whether grieving lasts longer than 2 months or 6 months respectively.
Let
me be very clear about my own opinion in this regard: There is no
recipe for the proper way to grieve; there is no schedule or timetable
for grieving; there are no right or wrong ways to grieve.
Grief is a very individual and personal thing. The only right way
to grieve is to do whatever you need to do at any given moment. The only
timetable for grieving is your own. There is no length of time beyond
which grieving should end: you do not “get over” a loss like
this – you learn to accept it to some extent, to cope with the
loss, and to live with it. In
some cases, depending on who you are and who the individual you have
lost was/is, grieving in one form or another may well last a lifetime.
On
the other hand, if you do not feel that you are making or can make
progress on your own toward a degree of resolution of your loss, or if
you feel that you are just not able to cope with the loss by yourself,
seeking counseling or psychotherapy from a professional who has some
expertise in grief and bereavement can be helpful. It is also true that
sometimes grief can precipitate a major depression and you should seek
professional help and treatment if that occurs (symptoms of major
depression include depressed mood, “anhedonia” or loss of enjoyment
or pleasure in previously enjoyed activities, changes in sleep patterns
or appetite, impaired concentration, and emotional liability, with the
cluster of symptoms persisting for a minimum of 2 weeks).
Coming
to terms
In
the beginning, most of us who have suffered a loss struggle to make
sense of that loss – How could this have happened? What could I have
done to prevent it? What can I do to make it go away? What kind of world
is this where something like this can happen (or even what kind of god
would let something like this happen)?
This is about trying to make sense of the death of the person we
love and miss. It is a normal reaction to such a loss.
Many
years ago, the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl published a book titled,
“Man’s Search for Meaning”, which is still in print. Dr. Frankl
developed the ideas on which he based his book and his approach to
psychiatry (which he called Logotherapy) on his experiences as a
concentration camp inmate during World War II. On a daily basis, he
suffered loss and grief, humiliation and fear. And he tried to make
sense of his experiences. His belief, described in the book, is that the
need to find meaning in life (and death), to make sense of our
experiences, is universal. So in the face of loss of a loved one, this
is what we do.
However,
I have come to the conclusion, at least on a personal level, that it is
fruitless to try to make sense of death – for me, it simply did not
and does not work. But what I can do instead is to try to make sense of
life – to learn how to focus on and force something
positive to come from the life that person lived and the legacy
she or he left behind.
This
is not about “finding the silver lining in the cloud”
– there is no silver lining in the loss of a loved one. Rather, it is
about refocusing your thoughts and memories on who that person was when
she or he was alive, what gifts she or he has left behind that will
continue long after all of us have passed on. You are who you are today
in part because of that person. So are all of the other people who came
into contact with that person during his or her life.
It
is about honoring the memory of that person’s life. It is about
understanding the legacy of that person’s life. It is about creating a
living monument to what that person’s life meant. Because that is
something that never ends, that cannot be taken away from you.
Finding
and creating a legacy
This
may seem contradictory at first: Is the person’s legacy something that
already exists and your task is to define or identify it? Or is it
something that you, as the person “left behind”, need to create?
I
think the answer is, “Both.”
As
with all other aspects of grief and loss, there is no single way or
right way to do this. For some, it is a very private, personal, quiet
thing: part of it for me was a resolution to take what I had learned
from my mother and my daughter and try to make sure that I lived my life
by those lessons, and that I passed on their gifts to me to other people
I had the opportunity to influence in my life. I think of this as a
network across time and across space: Their influence on my is not lost
if I use that influence to pass on to other people, and in that way they
are both immortal. Similarly, every time I interact with another human
being in my life, I can choose to try to make that a positive thing or a
negative thing – and the choice I make at that moment, because of how
I influence that person and how that person then goes on to influence
others, can ripple across
the lives of many other people, people I will never meet. I think of my
mother and my daughter in all those interactions, about how what they
taught me and gave me I am passing on to people who have never heard of
either of them – and that is another kind of immortality.
You
might also choose to do this in a more public way, especially where your
loss was the result of accident or malice – think of something you
might do that even in a small way might help to prevent such a loss in
the future. Years ago, I was involved in an inquest where I was required
to provide some information to the coroner as to the sequence of events
that led to the release of a convicted repeat child molester who went on
to murder a young boy. I was impressed by the courage and determination
of the boy’s parents, who day after day showed up and stayed in court
until it adjourned to the next day, listening to what must have been
painful details of what had gone wrong. When I completed my testimony,
they both approached me to shake my hand and to tell me that whatever
came out of the inquest they were committed to activism on behalf of
their son to do whatever was possible to try to ensure that no other
parent had to suffer the loss they had suffered. To me, that was an
example of two people who, in the face of unspeakable and unimaginable
tragedy, were determined to make sure that the life (and death) of their
young son would not be forgotten – that his legacy would be something
positive and meaningful.
I
think this is very relevant in the case of accidental deaths or deaths
by misadventure. One way to
do this is by creating a website designed to draw public attention to
the problems or issues – to the mistakes that were made or to
weaknesses in the system that contributed to your loss. This website is
of course an excellent example of this. You can find a few other
examples on my website (www.psychlinks.ca/pages/grief.htm).
Another way is to get involved in activist groups or lobbying
groups (e.g., Mother’s Against Drunk Driving) which work towards
systemic change, changes in legislation or public attitudes. It often
takes time for such groups to have an impact but they do
work. Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper to draw public
attention to the problem. Call local or national radio talk shows. The
best way to initiate change and to force those responsible to take
responsibility is to raise public awareness.
But
again, whether you choose to create a private legacy or a public one or
both is entirely up to you – whatever works for you and helps you to
accept and adapt to the loss that you have experienced. The only rule
that applies to grief is the one that says there are no rules.
Seeking
help and helping others
-
Sometimes, and perhaps usually, we find that we cannot travel
the road alone – that to come to terms with loss we need the help
of someone else. This can be hard to admit for some of us. For a
year after my daughter died, I blundered on somehow, thinking I was
doing okay. And then one day, an old friend asked, “How are you
doing?”. I answered, as I always did, “I’m okay”. He
immediately replied, “No, you’re not”, and I broke down in
tears. That’s when I realized he was right and that’s when I
went into therapy. And yes – it did help.
-
Don’t hide your grief from others who care about you,
especially your children. Initially, as a parent, I tried hard to
grieve alone, away from my sons, in the mistaken belief that this
would make it easier on them, or easier for them. After a while I
came to understand that I was conveying a message to them – I was
inadvertently telling them that it was wrong to grieve openly, or to
“inflict” your grief on other people. Once I understood that, I
was able to share my grief with them more openly, and by doing that
I was telling them, “Your grief is understandable and expected,
and it is okay to share it – you don’t need to hide your grief
from me to protect me, just as I don’t need to hide mine from you
to protect you”.
-
Within the first couple of days after my daughter died, a
neighbour approached me and said, “I know how you feel. I lost a
son.” Now, I knew
rationally that this person meant well and outwardly I mumbled
something socially appropriate. But inside I felt a surge of anger.
Inside my head I was saying, “No you don’t! You don’t know me.
You didn’t know her. You don’t know anything about us. You
can’t possibly know anything about how I feel.” Now, when I am
asked by others how they might help a friend or family member who
has suffered a loss, I tell them about that experience. Listen.
Offer support. But don’t try to fix what cannot be
fixed. And don’t assume that you have any insight into that
person’s experience beyond your own experience – it is better to
say, “I can’t pretend to know how you’re feeling but I too
have suffered the loss of a loved one and if you ever need an ear
please let me know.”
-
You may find it helpful to participate in on-line grief
forums or in local real-life support groups. You can find listings
for on-line grief support resources on my website, or do a search
using Google for the phrase “grief support”. In my area, there
is an organization called Bereaved Families of Ontario which offers counseling
and support groups. Another resources is a free monthly
newsletter called “Healing Hearts”, available at www.healingheart.net
(primarily a support group for bereaved parents and siblings).
A
final note
It
is not uncommon for someone who has suffered a loss to feel guilty for
laughing or having fun or enjoying anything ever again. Resist this
feeling: remember that what you are trying to do is to honor the life
of your loved one, not his or her death. When that person was alive, you
shared laughter and joy and life – the legacy he or she left behind
should surely include those memories and a determination to live the way
he or she would want you to live. Celebrate life. Celebrate your life,
and the life of your loved one, and the life you shared. That is, in the
end, how we defeat death.
Dr.
Baxter is a psychologist in private practice in Ottawa, Canada, and
owner/webmaster of www.psychlinks.ca
(a Psychology and Self-Help website).
©
David J. Baxter, 2004. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without the express written consent of the author is strictly
prohibited.
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