Articles - Family / Friends / Co-workers

“The longest wait in life is for grief to turn into wisdom.”

• Mark Goulston

Janet had suffered the worst loss a mother can endure: the death of a child. Always a horrendous event, this one was especially devastating because Janet’s grown daughter had committed suicide by drug overdose. This made her wonder whether she had done enough or could have prevented it. Janet also had recently lost her mother and her own breast to cancer. She saw no reason to go on living.

Hoping to buy time, I told her that she wouldn’t have consented to see me if she was 100 percent committed to ending her life. If that were the case she would have done it already. I got her to promise that she would not commit suicide until she gave me at least a couple months to find that small part of her that wanted to live and try to expand it.

But other than coming to her therapy sessions, Janet did little except stare at her garden and photographs of her daughter. At times when my patience wore thin, I would join her husband in urging her to get on with her life. “I can’t go on until I get over this,” she said.

Then the irony hit me. “It’s just the opposite,” I replied. “Unless you go on with your life, you won’t get over it.” I explained that only by pushing herself into activities and building new memories would she be able to dilute the impact of the excruciating thoughts that hounded her day and night.

It is certainly appropriate to grieve, and there is no reason to pretend the grieving has ended just because a customary mourning period has passed. But if at some point you do not pick yourself up and get involved with life again, you can become a prisoner of the past, trapped in the hypnotic trance of ongoing grief. If that happens, the year you suffered your loss could turn out to be not only the worst year of your life but, in effect, the beginning of the end.

“The past is but the beginning of a beginning,
and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.”

• H.G. Wells

 People who suffer a great loss hesitate to go on for several reasons. They might have been so dependent on their loved one for their identity that they feel unable to function adequately alone. Or, they might feel comforted by people’s sympathy. What they don’t realize is that people will ultimately lose sympathy and start to avoid them.

Another reason people cling to grief is to idealize the departed, thereby assuaging their guilt for any negative feelings they might still harbor. They also may believe that moving on would dishonor the deceased. But in all my years of working with dying patients I have never heard a person say to a loved one, “Grieve me forever” or “Please don’t remarry.” On the contrary, they invariably say things like, “Don’t waste time mourning. Go on with your life. I want you to be happy.” Janet agreed that this would indeed be the message from her deceased daughter.

Finally, many mourners think there is no way life can be the same now, so why bother? But the goal is not to replace what cannot be replaced or duplicate what cannot be duplicated, but to create opportunities for new memories.

One of the most difficult things to do—and one of the most important—is to create new memories in the area of your life you experienced the loss. People who lose a spouse, for example, tend to get more involved in their work or spend more time with friends and children. While that is certainly better than isolation, it’s not as constructive as dating. After an appropriate period of mourning, becoming intimate with another man or woman hastens healing by building new memories in the area of the loss.

“The only cure for grief is action.”

• George Henry Lewis

Of course, the parallel between old and new memories doesn’t have to be exact—and in some cases it can’t be. A middle-aged woman such as Janet, for example, could not give birth to another child. However, she could direct her energy into an approximate area. Her daughter had represented, in part, someone to care for and help and someone who needed her. She felt a huge emptiness where her need to nurture had once flourished (before it was thwarted by her daughter’s deep, treatment-resistant depression). So, at my urging, she volunteered at a hospital and joined a support group for parents of children who had committed suicide.

Eventually, she took a distraught young parent whose 15-year-old daughter had died from anorexia under her wing. Extending herself to others in this way infused new energy into Janet. She became more assertive with mental health advocacy organizations and participated in groups lobbying for patients’ and families’ rights. Now, three years later, she has meaningful memories after her most devastating trauma.

When you suffer a severe loss, you have to accept the fact that life will never be the same. If you can’t let go of your loss, start building new memories and perhaps, in time, the loss will let go of you.

“Moving on is living with life never being the same again.”

— Grieving patient

Do the same process internally by allowing less and less time each day to dwell on the past. Start to build new memories to dilute the intensity of the painful ones. Become involved with new projects, jobs and people.

Instead of mere time-fillers, try to select meaningful activities that enhance your feeling of self-esteem and make you feel proud. For example, devote time to helping those less fortunate than you. Join a support group. Only fellow sufferers can say, “I know how you feel” convincingly and ease the sense of aloneness.

by Mark Goulston, MD
© 1996 by Mark Goulston and Philip Goldberg. Reprinted with permission from “Get Out of Your Own Way” by Mark Goulston, MD and Philip Goldberg.

Mark Goulston, MD, has a wealth of knowledge in personal growth, family relationships and communication skills. He is a respected and popular source for major news outlets for discussion of issues ranging from parenting to workplace violence. He is author of, “Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior,” and is writing a book about restoring love, sex and fun to intimate relationships. He specializes in adolescent, individual, couples and family therapy.

Dr. Goulston currently serves as an assistant clinical professor at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, and received his medical degree from Boston University.