CHAPTER 2
Acknowledging Loss and Honoring Grief
Grief, like despair, is an emotion that asks us to depart from the ‘normal’—to be still, like a pool of frozen water in the winter. From out of this apparent stillness, an imperceptible movement occurs, from sorrow for what has been lost to gratitude for what remains. The trick is to let go and descend into grief’s cold waters.
—MIRIAM GREENSPAN,
Healing through the Dark Emotions
SO MUCH ABOUT SURVIVING TRAUMA and loving a trauma survivor has to do with loss and grief. As Don R. Catherall, Ph.D., writes in his book Back from the Brink: A Family Guide to Overcoming Traumatic Stress, “Traumatization always involves some kind of loss—at the very least, a loss of beliefs (such as an illusion of security), attitudes (such as trust), meaning, and feelings of control. More often, there’s a loss of dreams, of innocence, and of the basic sense of self. And sometimes, there are losses of actual people and physical abilities. The main problem with failing to acknowledge loss is that it interferes with the process of adapting, changing, and creating new avenues of fulfillment to replace the ones that are lost.”
Read Catherall’s words once more and sit with them for a moment. He writes, “Traumatization always involves some kind of loss.” If we are a spouse, child, parent, or close friend of a trauma survivor, we might be able to grasp what our loved one has lost as a result of a trauma, but too often we fail to recognize what we ourselves have lost in the wake of our loved one’s trauma.
Our family first visited the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. when Jessica was in high school. It struck me as a large, dark wing of death. It is carved into the earth, and you walk down a gradual slope to read the names of dead soldiers, etched into the smooth granite in the order in which they died. Jessica and I stood more than fifty feet from each other at each end of 1969–1970 (Michael’s tour of duty), and I was taken aback by the enormity of the loss as I ran my fingers over the grooved letters that formed names.
These losses are tragic, but they are tangible, even touchable when you have a memorial, a cemetery marker, or an urn. Physical deaths can be mourned through ritual and in community, and the grief of those who mourn runs deep as family and friends gather to shed tears and memorialize their lost loved one. But Michael and millions of other trauma survivors did not die. He stood physically whole to photograph his wife and daughter at the Wall. He lived to trace the names of his fallen brothers. Our little family was still complete, while other families would never again see their loved one. The man I loved was still at my side. That reality is cause for celebration, not grief. What right did I have to feel loss?
A man who was very involved in erecting the outdoor memorial and the museum at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing told me of the opposition his group faced when deciding to list survivors as well as the dead.
We didn’t want to “memorialize” survivors, but we wanted to make sure they were remembered. It took us eight months just to define “survivor” for the mission statement, and it was a difficult and often overwhelming process. Some who had lost loved ones were very opposed to the idea of a “survivors’” wall, telling us, “They’re here. They survived, so why do they need to be acknowledged?” I don’t think a survivors’ wall had been done before, but it became an important part of the memorial and museum. We’ve also urged those involved in the 9/11 memorial in New York to do the same.
The planners of the Oklahoma City memorial held their ground, and the result is a stunning place of hope and healing. On the grounds where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood are 168 bronze and stone chairs, each symbolizing a life lost, with smaller chairs to represent the 19 children killed in the blast. To the east are the only remaining walls from the Murrah Building, and they were left standing as a reminder of those who survived the terrorist attack, many with serious injuries. More than 600 names of these survivors are inscribed on salvaged pieces of granite from the former lobby.
I’ve visited this memorial twice, and I find it to be one of the most meaningful monuments I’ve ever visited—and the only one I’ve seen that takes into account how widespread the effects of trauma can be. The words at the memorial are inclusive, and as I read them, I felt as though they were written for me and for everyone else who had been touched by trauma, any trauma: “We come here to remember those who were killed, those who survived, and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this Memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.”
As these words underscore, trauma does change us forever, all of us—survivors, families, rescue workers, and healers. We will never be the same. This doesn’t mean we won’t grow stronger and healthier, or that our lives can’t be richer and fuller than before the trauma. But our lives are changed, and it is important to grieve what we’ve lost before we can move forward into wholeness and healing.
It is understandable that trauma survivors suffer losses. Although they may not acknowledge it, it is also normal for other family members to experience loss when they give up pieces of themselves and their lives in an effort to support their traumatized loved one and hold the family together. It took many years (and many therapy sessions) for me to understand that I had a need—and a right—to grieve what I have lost. Being given permission to grieve was a gift that helped me cope with, then emerge from, the intermittent yet chronic depression I tried to ignore for such a long time.
Grief is a messy process, and despite all the books and discussions about “stages,” it is usually a nonlinear process in which feelings can wash over you long after the trauma has passed. Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, for example, but many Louisiana and Mississippi residents are still trying to pick up the pieces of their lives. Homes, livelihoods, and lives were lost, along with a sense of safety and security. Houses, businesses, and lives are being rebuilt, but those losses are still mourned.
Grieving Lost Innocence
When people talk about the effects of trauma and PTSD, they often describe a loss of innocence. The world doesn’t seem as safe or predictable, and many emerge from a traumatic experience with more fear and anxiety—emotions that can have a long-lasting effect on other family members, as this child of Holocaust survivors recounts:
I have always felt that human beings were capable of terrible things and were being kept in check by tenuous bonds. That has made life fearful and I struggle with anxiety.
I felt a loss of my own innocence early in our marriage one night after we had tucked Jessica into bed, when Michael said he was ready to have a “Vietnam night.” He explained he just wanted to get it out of the way so he could be done with it. (If only it were that easy.) He spread his pictures from Vietnam out on the desk in the little trailer home we rented in Kent, Ohio. He matter-of-factly told me things he had told no one before that time, reciting horrors detachedly, as if they had happened to someone else. (I didn’t know about emotional numbing back then).
I listened to his stories deep into that night and began to ache from the weight of that terrible war. Of course, I couldn’t know what it was like to actually be there, but his descriptions of burning villages made my eyes sting. I imagined the villagers hugging themselves tight in fear and grief, as I drew a blanket tightly around me. I still remember the name of the little cat—Titi Lau—that was eaten by the rats. As he talked, I felt like I walked in jungle heat with him. Through his eyes, I saw two little boys get ripped apart by machine guns after they set off a homemade bomb that killed Michael’s fellow marines.
Michael put the photographs back into their envelope, stuffing them and the memories away in his sea bag, and we didn’t talk about these things until years later. But the stories and images stayed with me and even invaded my dreams on occasion. I was glad Michael trusted me enough to tell me his war stories, but in gaining his confidence I also lost something that night. The world seemed more fragile, less certain; a darker place where little boys and nineteen-year-olds could be made to kill and be killed. I grew more protective of Jessica, and more fearful for myself and those I loved.
A certain loss of idealism often accompanies a loss of innocence when trauma suddenly invades our once-secure world.
I was headed to a friend’s house for a barbeque. It’s a tree-lined neighborhood in the city. People were out on their porches, kids playing in the street. I’d been there many times and always felt safe; the ‘tough’ neighborhood was blocks away. I stepped out of the car, reached back in to grab the groceries, when three shots rang out. Pop, pop . . . pop. I can still hear the cadence. I don’t remember those three to five seconds. I do remember yelling for help. As I tried to run, I felt my left leg going out and I hopped to the light pole, grabbed it and sat down, still yelling for help. Me, the good boy who never did drugs, spent my career serving poor people, volunteering as a church youth director: I had been shot in a random drive-by shooting.
Witnessing, hearing about, or experiencing trauma shakes us awake and makes us achingly aware of our vulnerability. Studies show how children can exhibit post-traumatic symptoms from just seeing or hearing news reports after a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, a murder, or other catastrophe—not to mention all the kids who are exposed to daily violence in their neighborhoods and homes. When trauma strikes someone close, a piece of their childhood is lost, and that initial loss makes them more susceptible to later traumas.
I worry about my five-year-old niece. Her mother’s sister died of a rare illness when she was a little girl, so both the mom and grandmother live in constant fear that my niece will contract the same disease. They talk about the girl who died a lot, and anytime my niece is sick—even with a little cold—they both hover and noticeably worry. It’s so obvious that my niece picks up on their anxiety because she gets withdrawn and anxious or acts out in some way. They’ve all become nervous wrecks, and sometimes I just want to say, “Just let her be a normal kid!” But I can’t. It’s really sad to see how trauma is “infecting” three generations.
Grieving a Changed Relationship
Trauma survivors and their families learn the hard way that “happily ever after” is a simplistic notion best saved for greeting cards. Happiness and family togetherness take hard work in the best of circumstances. When unexpected trauma strikes a loved one, strong bonds are tested and behaviors change in an effort to adapt to what one wife of a trauma survivor described as her family’s “new normal.” The physical and emotional intimacy that both partners enjoyed before the effects of trauma materialized is often damaged or diminished when symptoms grow stronger and more intrusive. We try to be patient and understanding, but we often miss our loved one during “trauma times,” when a symptom is triggered or he or she withdraws in anger or silence into the darkness that trauma memories hold. This loss of intimacy is especially difficult for survivors of rape and sexual abuse and for those who love them.
Effects from such trauma might be present immediately afterwards or may not show up until long after the assault or abuse. Survivors of sexual abuse might become afraid of sex or approach sexual intercourse as an obligation. Traumatic thoughts or memories could be triggered by physical touch, which can be frightening for both partners. Male rape survivors might have difficulty getting an erection, and women might experience vaginal pain or trouble having an orgasm. Although these symptoms are normal and understandable and usually pass with time, they can be confusing and disturbing for a couple who longs for but cannot achieve the intimacy they once enjoyed.
In her book Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery, Patricia Weaver Francisco recalls:
My anger had already contributed to a growing distance in my marriage. When I withdrew sexually, Tim was faced with a strain of guilt by association. Was he somehow accountable for the sins of his gender? How could we engage while I was so withdrawn unless he initiated the seduction? Was that pressure? What is the relationship between erotic aggression and rape? Had the line moved? Would he overstep? He became trapped in one of those undecodable logical fallacies:A man harmed the woman I love. I am a man. Therefore, I. . . .
When Tim inquired at various agencies about a support group for male partners, he was rebuffed. ‘We don’t have enough funding to take care of the women who need us,’ scoffed one overburdened voice on the phone.Give me a break, people in the field seemed to be saying—a rape support group for men?
There’s greater recognition now for the fact that partners need help when their world has collapsed. The skills it takes to manage the strain that trauma places on a relationship are not common knowledge. This is another consequence of the silence we keep. Blindsided, we become statistics. Eighty percent of marriages don’t survive a rape.
If your loved one is a survivor of rape or sexual abuse, it is important that you get appropriate help and work together to rebuild intimacy. It is crucial that your loved one feels safe and can trust that his or her limits will be respected.
It is not only rape survivors and their families, however, who experience and grieve the relationship changes that often take place in the aftermath of a loved one’s trauma.
We had a great marriage and tons of friends, but since my wife’s aneurysm, everything has changed. She’s not the same, and I miss her; miss what we had. Once in a while I’ll see a glimmer of who she was, and I’ll let myself hope again. But things are getting worse. Her short-term memory is gone and she is very childlike and dependent now—which is hard, because she used to be the one who took care of me. I feel like I’m losing her bit by bit. I also feel like I’m losing me in the process.
Grieving the Loss of Self
Perhaps the most complicated and confusing loss for family members is the intermittent loss of self that occurs when they put their own lives on hold in order to focus on their traumatized loved one’s needs and problems. Many of us—especially women—were taught to take a backseat to others and try to please at all costs—even when the costs are high and eventually take their toll in bouts of depression and self-doubt and a pattern of codependency.
I use the word codependency knowing full well that it is a loaded term that some critics maintain is just another way to blame those who exhibit noble qualities of love and self-sacrifice. After all, being sensitive to another’s feelings and caring for others are qualities we admire and try to embrace. But taken to extreme, these behaviors can become unhealthy.
Melody Beattie is credited for coming up with the term in her 1986 book Codependent No More, in which she describes codependents as people who become so obsessed with other people’s feelings and behaviors that they—in an effort to control or fix another’s behavior—lose sight of what they themselves are feeling or doing. Giving up this illusion of control is an integral step in achieving a healthy balance in relationships. It is true that being loving, giving, and nurturing are admirable qualities. We just need to balance that with taking time to love and nurture ourselves too. Often that means letting go of the idea that we have the power to change anyone.
This is what our grandparents were trying to get us to understand when they told us, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” We can guide and we can nag others, but we cannot script their lives or control how they will act or react. We can plot and plan our own lives, yet the unexpected happens. We can buckle our own and our children’s seat belts, and drive as carefully as possible, but we have no control over the careless driver who veers into our lane and smashes into our car.
There’s a joke in Twelve Step circles about how you know you’re a codependent when you have a near-death experience and someone else’s life flashes before your eyes. It is often easier to put another’s needs ahead of our own, but the more we do that, the more difficult it becomes to define who we are and what our needs are independent of our loved one’s. They usually don’t ask for that level of attention, and we may not give it all the time. When we do, however, our loved one may often feel weighted down and a little smothered by our “selfless” devotion.
I got used to letting Michael’s issues overshadow my life, but the more I focused on him and his trauma, the greater my resentment became. Several years before he was diagnosed with PTSD, Michael began writing a memoir, which he published just before my father died. I so vividly remember the day of Dad’s death. I was at his side when he died in the early morning hours, but left my parents’ house to drive, without any sleep, to be at Michael’s side when he gave a reading from his book. I never thought to ask him to postpone it; I just set aside my grief and tried as best I could to get through the event. Now we both look upon that time with regret, but we understand so much more clearly how the pattern was set for Michael’s needs to take precedence.
I also understand now how grief accumulates when you don’t give each loss the attention it deserves, and how a stockpile of losses can lead to depression. Fortunately, some loving friends in whom I confided urged me to get help, and a great grief therapist gave me a safe place to cry, complain, worry, and rage, which allowed me to “empty my cup” and be more present and genuinely supportive of Michael when he took a medical leave to do his own intense therapy.
It is normal—and sometimes necessary—to put our lives on hold and focus on a traumatized loved one. Yet it is important to acknowledge how dramatically their trauma has changed our lives, making it our trauma too. We may choose to give up our time and a piece of ourselves to tend to their psychological or physical wounds, but there is still loss in the midst of that choice, and it is good to grieve that fact.
I was at work when a coworker told us there had been an explosion downtown and to turn on the TV. I immediately recognized the Murrah Building, and I knew where my husband’s office was. All I saw was rubble. I think an event like the Oklahoma City bombing magnifies who we are and the traits we already possess. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not. I just knew that if the bomb didn’t kill him the moment it went off he would be okay because he is such a strong person. He did live, but his injuries were extensive, requiring 18 months of physical therapy. He went back to work too early (after 43 days), but he felt so responsible for that building and the people in it. I felt my role at that point was to do whatever he needed. I never had control over him anyway. He’s a very strong individual, but he was so physically and emotionally fragile. I had never seen him vulnerable.
I know I should have gotten counseling, but my mother tapes clicked in, and I simply did what I thought I “should” do. I felt like I needed permission to get angry about things or say, “I just don’t want to talk about it right now.” I had no sense of self. About six months after the bombing, I had a doctor’s appointment and my family physician who knew me very well asked how I was. “I have the strangest feeling,” I told him. “I feel homesick.” He said, “You’re not crazy; your life is totally different from a few months ago; you’re essentially mourning something you lost,” and he put me on antidepressants. I didn’t think I was entitled to have any mental stress is what it boils down to because I wasn’t there.
When I saw the pictures from 9/11, my heart sank because I thought, “I know what the next years of their lives are going to be like.” My heart immediately went to families who were losing people and to survivors and their families. I wanted to tell them not what to do, but to say, “It’s happened before and we’re on the other side of it now, so take heart. There is another side.” We got the opportunity later to talk to them about how survivors and their families are victims too and how theydo have a place in the story.
Green Grief
I’ve learned some of my most important grief lessons from dying loved ones. Before my forty-five-year-old cousin died from cancer, she told me how angry she and her husband were at each other. “I’m mad at him because he gets to live, and he’s mad at me for dying,” she said, teaching me how we are containers for all of it: the sadness, the joy, the anger, and the confusion.
We also talked about how difficult it was to put words to feelings. She wanted to talk to her four sons about her death and dying, but all of them were afraid to have “the conversation.” “You’d think if I was able to talk to them about sex by putting a condom on a banana, I could talk to them about this!” she laughed. That’s right, she laughed, and in doing so, gave all of us permission to laugh with her—another important lesson.
Thanks to another young dying friend, I now think of grief as green, like spring in Minnesota, with seeds of transition and hope buried within its dark soil. I visited her one dark and rainy August day, and found her content but in the confused state I had gotten used to since the discovery of her malignant and inoperable star-shaped brain tumor she dubbed “Stella.” “Everything is GREEN. Today is a GREEN day,” she pronounced, despite the dreariness outside. And then she directed, “Take this down. Rhonda Marie Carlson O’Gorman says, ‘You must follow your fear.’”
She had recently taken to referring to herself in the third person, and I wondered if that was her way of reinforcing to herself and to others that, despite cancer, she was still Rhonda, with all the identities the various monikers conveyed (individual, daughter, and wife) intact. Now she assumed the role of teacher, and I, her obedient pupil, took out a little notebook from my purse. “Did you get that?” she persisted. “It is very important.”
C. S. Lewis wrote, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” I think that is the connection Rhonda was making. She and my cousin reinforced for me that we are unique and complex beings with complex feelings that change as we change. We are not one emotion like grief or one diagnosis like PTSD or cancer. It’s all there, and if we peel back the veneer of our humanness we just might catch a glimpse of that green glimmer of hope.
While training to become a therapist, I worked with a group of Southeast Asian women refugees with PTSD who met weekly. They used their skills and cultural legacy to create individual traditional story cloths of their refugee experience and mourn their losses. Months of talking, sewing, and sharing came together when the individual cloths were joined to make a huge quilt-like wall hanging of their collective experience. I always smile when I remember the simple words of wisdom of one of these women. In her lovely, slow, and deliberate English, she said ‘We cry. We laugh. We feel better.’
Grief is the emotion that flushes us out and makes room inside for healing. Allowing grief is a way to befriend ourselves—even when we don’t understand it, when it doesn’t make sense, or when we just feel sad with no way of explaining the feeling. The more we work through our feelings of loss and grief, the easier it becomes to reclaim or reframe what we have lost in the wake of a loved one’s trauma. Be tender with yourselves as you do this sacred work in your time and in your own way. Cry. Laugh. Be angry. Follow your fear toward hope. And feel better.