By David Coy
Sunrise
Along with anxiety, guilt, sadness, anger, worry and brain fog, one of the emotional symptoms involved in grief is suicidal thoughts. This is not an exhaustive list. Not only does this show that our journey with grief is not a one size fits all experience, but the journey can be difficult to the point of thoughts of harm to self. If you add physical symptoms, which may include pain, lethargy, dizziness, crying, numbness, shortness of breath and exhaustion, then one’s life has become overwhelming, complicated and challenging. As we wrote last week, isolation and depression is not healthy when not dealt with for the long term. We also observed that one solution is to reconnect in every way that is available to us. We are social creatures, and we need the interaction with one another.
We begin by accepting the reality that has developed. If we are struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts then we need to seek assistance from appropriate resources. We need order, consistency and completeness. Stress and the feeling of inadequacy or being in over our head over time may build depressive feelings and, if not dealt with, lead to worse symptoms such as suicidal ideations. If we have a loved one who is showing changes in usual behavior (as I have heard told before from family members), we need to sit up and take notice. Love should foster open and honest communication. Fear brings isolation and separation. We build walls around our lives to ‘protect our fears.’ It is believed by some, anger, jealousy, hatred, envy and other negative emotions are all products of fear. It is true we respond to events in our life based on our beliefs. Grief can be unpredictable like a roller coaster ride. We need an engaged support system in good and not so good times.
This is Sunrise Aftercare, sunrise@sfdcares.com.
