The Grieving Process

“Are you OK?”  There are other ways of checking in on someone, but that just happens to be the most common one. Asking someone are they O.K doesn’t make things better for the person, it just gives the one that’s asking certainty about the person’s being. As for me. I’ll be honest about if I’m fine or not, but i’ll let that person know so they’ll not have to worry about making me feel O.K. “No, I am not O.K” came out faster than the paramedics that Sunday morning when my mom collapsed on dining room floor.

She was admitted to Einstein Hospital around 2pm on Valentines Day. When my dad arrived at the hospital room, the doctors explained that they tried everything the could to bring her to back life. When my dad came back from the hospital I was expecting good news. The words “she didn’t make it”  had me lost, I was confused and angry. I started pointing fingers blaming the paramedics for being late, blaming the doctors at the hospital for not doing the best they could but most importantly myself. I continued asking myself was it the food I gave her that morning to oily or salty? Did I stress her out? I panicked and fell to the floor screaming  because I couldn’t bear with the fact I lost my mother, my other half.
Therapy wasn’t my first option for handling grief. My dad worried about me because I was too quiet. When someone ask about the situation, I would avoid the main subject which was her dying. I would talk about her death as if she had never passed away and she was still alive. I told my dad I prefer talking to him about everything that I felt and that I just need different opinions on how to handle the situation. He suggested for me to go to therapy because they are more professional and have more experience with incidents that deal with grief. I’m not comfortable with the fact that therapy was one of the options because of my trust issues. My views on therapy was that the therapist was only there to pass your personal information on to the next person. The therapist will take your deepest darkest secret and go home to their families, sit down at the dinner table to share their day at work. “ She told me that she says she’s the reason for her mother’s death. Isn’t that ridiculous?”. See what’s ridiculous is taking my trust for granted and that’s the last thing I needed.

My first therapist was someone that understood me. My first session of the three sessions we shared were mostly about what happened and how I felt in the moment. I hesitated at first but I went on with the story and she told me how she felt the same pain when her father passed. I felt more comfortable because not only did she  have a family member that passed away, this family member was her parent. Our first activity together was a goodbye letter I wrote during our second session. The goodbye letter was a source for letting out what you might want to say to the person before they passed. In my letter. I wrote about how my last words shouldn’t of been “I’m sorry” It should of been “I love you” or “I admire you” or “ you’re the best”. She read my letter and asked if I need a moment and I told her no. I felt relieved and more free to say whatever I felt about the situation and how I am dealing with it because we shared similar experiences. My third and final session wasn’t really a session. I arrived to the appointment late and she was heading out the door. “I have been assigned to work for another company. I needed you to be here on time so we can talk about you meeting with the your new therapist. You’re going to receive a phone call from NHS in two weeks to set an appointment. Nice working with you.” Then she left and I was angry. It was bad enough I had trust issues and told my personal business to someone I barely knew. Then that person leaves and takes my business with them to pass it onto the person.

I received my therapist three weeks after I decided I didn’t want to continue going to therapy. I was still stuck on the fact that I opened up to someone and now they’re gone. What possibly could encourage me to continue telling my business to another person who don’t know me besides the fact that I am grieving? I ended going to my appointment anyway because I still wanted different perspectives on how to deal with grief. That Tuesday afternoon, I went to my session and waited twenty minutes into the 1 hour session. The twenty minutes felt like hours and I just wanted to go home. She finally came down and we walked to her room on the second floor. She opened her door and offered me to sit anywhere but I choose the corner because she is a stranger. I sat down and she asked me about the situation but I looked at her like how doesn’t she know about it already. My thoughts were she wanted to hear the story to pass time and that old my therapist didn’t go over the details from the previous sessions I’ve had. I just told her the story because I wanted to see how she feels about it. As she took notes on her computer, I asked what kinds of activities are we going to go over to help with my grieving issue. She told me she had the “5 stages of Grief activity” which is an an article that is going to help with seeing where my emotions lie within the situation. For the next session we went over the 5 stages of Grief which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. She had a list of questions and I would answer these questions so that she can see which of my emotions fall under certain category. The results were I was mostly angry at the situation and I was accepting the fact that I was the reason for her death. For the rest of the session we talked mostly about why I feel like I’m the reason. I explained to her I only felt like this because I was there at the moment with her, when she collapsed, when she was taken out of the house, when she was in the ambulance. She told me that it is good that I accepting the fact that she is gone, which really means that I am not in denial about her passing away. She comforted me by telling me that we will work on ways on how not to feel like I am the cause of her death. I went home that night thinking that therapy might not be so bad after all. Maybe putting my trust into my therapist is for the greater good.  I know my mom would have wanted me to give it a chance, now I feel like I’m doing it for us.

Little things in life will lead to bigger things. Having school work, coming home to a house full of people who are loud, helping my little brothers with their school work, cooking dinner, and getting myself together for the next day day are just the little things. The bigger thing in this case, would be maintaining my own lifestyle without out my mom. Setting my opinions and my feelings aside to benefit myself is the best choice I have made so far. What I learned was that putting my pride aside should only be done if I feel comfortable enough to do so. I have also learned that making choices for myself shouldn’t have to start with me being “O.K” it should start with how I want to feel in the end. Trusting my therapist just a little should help with adjusting my trust issues with other people. My mom’s death gives me strength and knowledge to know that I am putting my trust into something for a reason. Knowing that my guardian angel is watching me makes me feel proud to say that “I am going to be O.K”.