Lianna Champ for https://happiful.com/
A suicide can leave behind a particularly devastating kaleidoscope of pain, which is complicated and can be long-lasting. It can become so hard to separate the fact of the death from the actual circumstances in which it happened, and the shock and disbelief are sometimes too much to bear. The edges become blurred and grief becomes enmeshed with trauma.
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Why we need to talk about death – Even though it can be a difficult topic and can cause us to face the truth of ageing, talking about death and our wishes and plans is a really helpful and useful thing to do.
“Why not talk about it? We make arrangements and plan for so many things that may never happen, yet the one thing that we know will happen, we put off in the hope that ‘we don’t tempt fate.
Talking about the weather doesn’t make it rain and if you don’t talk about your own passing or at least tell your family what you want and what you want to happen to you after you die and how you want to be remembered, then all the decisions will end up being made by someone else, hopefully a relative but perhaps with input from a professional who never even knew you.”
You can read the full article here!
Lianna wrote an article for The Daily Mail with some helpful strategies on how to cope with spending Christmas alone.
“Being apart goes against all our instincts and families are yearning to celebrate together, especially at the end of such a dreadful year. We cannot change what is, but we can change how we feel about it.’
Sometimes in our moments of loneliness, we withdraw into our own private place, and our thoughts can go round and round endlessly and it can feel there is no end. There is an old proverb that says ‘It is the lifted face that feels the shining of the sun’. If we really think about that, it means that we have to make the effort, to find an inner spark, a determination not to sink. To harness a discipline and force ourselves to make changes and create good habits so that we feel better about ourselves. Also, an acceptance that we cannot always control events that separate us, like the pandemic. We cannot change what is, but we can change how we feel about it.”
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Lianna Champ writes a piece for Female First to celebrate the release of her new book How to Grieve Like a Champ and discusses A widower’s guide to getting through your first Christmas.
You can be surrounded by family and friends and be the loneliest person in the world following the loss of your partner. Christmas can feel like an impossible hurdle as there are so many reminders that this is a time for celebration and of families coming together. The build-up can be intensely painful because it lasts so long. It isn’t that we feel the loss of our loved one more at this time, it just feels worse because there are reminders wherever we look. Everything has changed yet the world just carries on as normal.
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Lianna recently wrote for We Are the City about how It’s ok to grieve when you’re going through the menopause.
“Grief is the intense emotional experience triggered by the loss of someone we love or of something we value and that includes changes in the things we are familiar with. Grief is a normal and natural reaction when we suffer any kind of loss and it may be surprising to learn that the menopause can also be a grieving experience. Some women are able to navigate the menopause relatively easily, but for most it can be a real dark night of the soul. We mourn for everything that was as we try to come to terms with Mother Nature’s conveyer belt. The menopause signifies the end of so many things – our biological reproduction clock, our youth, changes in our energy levels, to name just a few.”
Read the full article here.
It’s that time of year where universities open their doors again and for many parents it is the first time their child has left home. This can leave an odd feeling at home and Lianna offered some advice to parents on how to avoid feeling redundant when the kids leave home.
“There is such an intensity about parenting, that when our children branch out into the world it’s no wonder we can find ourselves crying into one of their t-shirts, especially if we have identified strongly as a parent. We also know some of the dangers and temptations that await them in the big wide world. Losing the daily interactions and constant presence of our offspring can feel like a bereavement.”
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Lianna shared her advice and expertise on happiful.com and spoke about how to deal with suicide bereavement.
Suicide bereavement can feel very different to other types of grief and can leave a wide range of emotions that can be difficult to process.
“A suicide can leave behind a particularly devastating kaleidoscope of pain, which is complicated and can be long-lasting. It can become so hard to separate the fact of the death from the actual circumstances in which it happened, and the shock and disbelief are sometimes too much to bear. The edges become blurred and grief becomes enmeshed with trauma.”
To read the full article click here.
Lianna recently wrote for Celebrityangels.com and talked about bereavement, Grief and Coping After Suicide.
This September marked the 10th anniversary of World Suicide Prevention Day. Lianna has over 40 years’ experience in grief counselling and funeral care and used this expertise to give an insight into life after grief and coping with suicide in the family. Read the full article here.
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Stages of Grief for Red Online By Lianna Champ
We often hear about the stages of grief and it would be encouraging to think that we do go through certain stages and come through the other side stronger and wiser. At least that would seem to give us some semblance of what to expect. However, grief is much more unpredictable than that and we don’t always follow stages but what we do share, rather than stages, are the symptoms of grief. The symptoms of grief are various and overwhelming and we can feel so many things all at once and in any order. Grief is incredibly personal and even though we may share similar emotions to others, no two people will experience the same loss in quite the same way. The experience is as unique to each of us as our own fingerprint. There is no magic formula and no one size fits all.
Often it can take weeks or months for the reality and deep pain of the loss to sink in. There are several factors involved in how we cope: who we are as people; the things we learned about loss as children; where we are at in our lives and, of course, the nature of the relationship with the person we have lost.
In her influential book On Death and Dying (1969), Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief following the diagnosis of a terminal illness – denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance. These stages have come to be known as the five stages of grief following loss in general, particularly the death of someone significant. Some of us may experience some of these feelings and in no particular order. Grief is a complex, multilayered process.
So let us look further into these stages –
Denial – we can never deny that someone has died but we can choose not to believe it. There is shock, numbness and we may not want to let the truth in. We may even try to carry on as if nothing has happened.
Anger – When we suffer a significant loss we go through a roller coaster of emotions and in this mix of emotions, anger can be thrown up. Anger is not an emotion in its own right but stems from hurt, fear or sadness. Grief makes us feel out of control and that in itself is scary. The anger can grow into a large ball and it can be easier to remain angry than to process the truth around the pain of our grief. And even though anger means we are not in control, it can trick us into thinking we are. It was CS Lewis who said “No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.” Bitterness, frustration, lack of being able to control what has happened can all manifest in the feeling anger. We may lose patience with ourselves and wonder why we haven’t ‘got over’ it. Anger is not a forward emotion – it holds us in the same place. Always. Unless we identify what it is we are really afraid of.
Bargaining – We can never change what had happened no matter what promises we make. We can only resolve to do better or be better. We cannot swap one emotion for another, we can only admit how we really feel through our losses so we come through the other side.
Depression – The symptoms of grief are so similar to that of depression. Grievers have a reduced sense of concentration and often have trouble focusing. It plays havoc with their sleeping and eating patterns. Simple tasks become difficult. Grievers can also self-identify as being depressive, if they believe this is a stage they must go through. If we ignore our sadness and carry unresolved grief, it can have a negative impact on our physical and mental wellbeing. When we grieve, our emotions can feel overwhelming and we do experience an enormous mix of different emotions. In grief, the intense sadness of the early days can be lifted in the times we share our happy memories of the person who has died. We then remember and return to grieving. This is normal. However, if months after the loss your intense feeling of sadness is persistent and pervasive, you feel disconnected from everything around you and are struggling to get back into the mainstream of living, you may be suffering from depression. Also if you have feelings of hopelessness about the future and are struggling to think outside of yourself. If you have suffered from depression previously, you need to be extra vigilant when you experience your losses. If you feel that you may be suffering from depression, no matter how mild, please reach out for help. Reach out to someone you feel safe sharing your feelings with.
Acceptance – We arrive at that place where we have reconciled the feelings of our loss and have found ways to continue our emotional relationship with the person who has died. Some may feel that if they move forward they are losing their loved one again, but when we find ways to stay connected and continue our bonds we allow ourselves the joy of living meaningfully.
As human beings, we never naturally stay in any one state indefinitely and we are constantly fluctuating. As long as you keep coming up for air, you know that you will survive. Be open to and embrace your feelings whilst you grieve and be kind with yourself – don’t expect too much. We don’t recover from loss, we learn to live with it by accepting and managing it. Part of the healing process is to feel your feelings and process your thoughts, so you can take your learnings and begin to move forward. If you make your life about missing someone instead of accepting their death you may make yourself resistant to healing.
Tips for coping –