Moving Beyond Loss

by Friedman, Russell; James, John W.

• ISBN13: 9781589797055
• ISBN10: 1589797051
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-12-16
• Publisher: Taylor Trade Pub

Summary

In October of 2010 the authors became exclusive providers of grief and grief-recovery related content on a memorial site called Tributes.com, a site that receives approximately 1.5 million hits per month, and to which readers submit very personal and unique grief-related questions. Collected in this book are not only a bounty of personal and often moving questions, but also the authors' equally compelling responses and tips for grief recovery. The book does not just deal with grief from loss of a loved one, but also the grieving that occurs following a divorce, a sudden downturn in health, the loss of a job, and even the loss of faith.

Author Biography

Russell Friedman and John W. James are the authors of the bestselling Grief Recovery Handbook and When Children Grieve. Together they run the Grief Recovery Institute, www.griefrecoverymethod.com. Both authors live in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Beginning at the Beginning	p. 9
Six Myths That Limit Us	p. 11
MYTH: Grieve Alone: Q&A	p. 19
My Husband Never Comes Out of the Bedroom	p. 20
I Wonder Why I Have to Be All By Myself	p. 21
Her Emotional Plate Is Way Beyond Pull	p. 23
It's Not Advisable for Family Members to Do Grief Work Together	p. 25
"Let Go" of What? and "Move On" to Where?	p. 26
I'm Scared, but Will Do It Anyway	p. 28
MYTH: It Just Takes Time: Q&A	p. 31
The Pain Often Gets Worse within Time	p. 32
Do We Ever Really Recover?	p. 34
They Want Us Looking Good and Being Productive 3-5 Days Later!	p. 36
Answering Questions Doesn't Resolve Grief	p. 37
How Long until I'm Happy Again?	p. 39
If You Move On, Are You Letting Go of Them?	p. 40
I Have Morphed into Another Person; How Can I Recover?	p. 43
When Is It Too Soon to Start Dating?	p. 45
When Your Heart Is Broken Your Head Doesn't Work Right	p. 47
MYTH: Be Strong for Others: Q&A	p. 49
The Real Key Is for You to Go First	p. 50
A Tangled Web of Losses!	p. 52
It's Amazing How Disconnected We Can Feel	p. 54
Saying "I Know How You Feel" Robs Dignity from a Griever	p. 56
Grieving People Need to Talk about What Happened	p. 57
Intervention Doesn't Work with The Grief Recovery Method®	p. 39
I'm Getting Tired of Propping Everyone Else Up	p. 61
All Relationships Are Unique	p. 63
The Word "Imagine" Creates Safety	p. 65
MYTH: Keep Busy and Short-Term Energy-Relieving Behaviors: Q&A	p. 67
STERBs-What Are They?	p. 68
Grief Is Exhausting!	p. 70
How Do I Deal with the Anger I Feel?	p. 72
Memorial Jewelry Doesn't Heal Your Heart	p. 74
Keeping Busy Just Exhausts Us	p. 76
You Can't Bypass Feelings, You Have to Go through Them	p. 78
Part II The Ongoing Controversy: The Alleged Stages of Grief vs. Typical, Normal, and Natural Responses to Loss	p. 81
Are There Actual Stages of Grief?	p. 83
No Stages of Grief: Q&A	p. 87
Statement of Death Is NOT Denial	p. 88
Adapting to the Painful Reality of Death	p. 89
Has the Reality of My Loss Set in Yet?	p. 90
Your Broken Heart Talking!	p. 92
He Won't See Me Graduate, Get Married, or Have Kids	p. 94
I Desperately Need to Know How to Live Again	p. 96
On Crying: Q&A	p. 97
I Still Cry Daily. Is that Normal?	p. 98
Force Myself to Cry to Make People Stop Worrying about Me?	p. 99
Death of a Spouse Can Be Like Losing a Piece of Your Body	p. 101
Feelings Don't Happen "Just Out of the Blue"	p. 103
Very Attached to Their Possessions	p. 104
Robbed of Goodbye: Q&A	p. 107
Sudden Death Robs Us of a Last Goodbye	p. 108
No Longer Together, but Still Heartbroken	p. 109
Is There Such a Thing as Complicated Grief?	p. 110
When I Need Him One More Time, He's No Longer Here	p. 112
Relationships Are Made Up of Time and Intensity!	p. 115
Missing the Funeral	p. 116
Cremains as a Permanent Relocatable Grief Recovery Monument	p. 118
Other Typical, Normal, and Natural Responses to Loss: Q&A	p. 121
Quieting the Inner Dialogue That Never Sleeps	p. 122
Life Itself Just Seems Very Tasteless-Nothing Seems to Matter	p. 124
Inability to Concentrate Is an Almost Universal Reaction	p. 126
Still Hurt and Angry	p. 127
Will I Ever Feel Normal Again?	p. 129
The Victims' Families Often Feel as if They Are on Trial	p. 130
The Emotional Pink Elephant in the Living Room	p. 132
Massive Reminders of Someone Who Is No Longer Alive	p. 134
My Mom's Picture	p. 135
Why Do Families Tear Apart?	p. 137
PART III A Host of Questions on Unique Situations	p. 139
Holidays, Anniversaries, and Reminders: Q&A	p. 141
Today Is Way Too Long to Stay Stuck in One Feeling	p. 142
Multiple Deaths Make Us Feel Like We're Drowning	p. 144
The Holidays-A Perfect Time to Demonstrate the Truth to Your Children	p. 14s
It Is the Fact That He Died That Is Most Important, Not the Method or the Date	p. 147
Resetting the Dysfunctional Default Settings to Create a Fuller Life	p. 149
Things That Don't Get to Happen Because They're No Longer Here	p. 151
Many Grieving People Struggle with Enjoying Themselves	p. 152
Will I Ever Be Able to Stop Being Numb and Let Go?	p. 154
Stuck on a Painful Image: Q&A	p. 157
Staying Stuck on a Painful Image Keeps Us Stuck in Grief Tragic Deaths Compound Our Pain	p. 159
Trying "Not" to Think about It Doesn't Work	p. 161
Completion, Not Closure-An Important Distinction	p. 162
Grief Is Not PTSD	p. 164
We Know What They Would Have Said	p. 166
As She Was Dying, My Mother Shut Me Out	p. 167
I Know There's Nothing I Could've Done to Stop Him	p. 169
Guilt and Blame: Q&A	p. 171
The "Story-Line" Sometimes Trumps the "Heart-Line"	p. 172
But for One Second Earlier or Later, Our Lives Are Changed Forever	p. 175
How Do I Accept the Things I Did?	p. 177
The Good, The Bad, and Sometimes, The Ugly	p. 179
Sometimes We Have to Break Our Promises	p. 181
Walking Through Life Without Your Mate	p. 183
Left with Unfinished Emotional Business	p. 184
Hamster on a Wheel	p. 186
The Nursing Home Facility Mistreated My Mom	p. 188
Death, Divorce, and Difficult Relationships: Q&A	p. 189
On Being "Ruled from the Grave"	p. 190
When the Last Interaction Was Negative	p. 191
Confused and Overwhelmed by the Death of a Former Spouse	p. 193
Discovery Does Not Equal Recovery	p. 196
Families and Legal Mayhem	p. 199
The "Warm and Fuzzies" That Never Happened	p. 200
The Death of the Person Who Harmed You	p. 202
Some Family Members Disassociate Themselves from Others After a Death	p. 204
Losses of Safety and Trust-The Painful By-products of Spousal Abuse	p. 206
Alcohol Can Leave a Trail of Destruction in Its Wake!	p. 208
Rather Than Reconcile, Become as Emotionally Complete as Possible	p. 209
Children: Q&A	p. 211
Putting Together a Puzzle with Very Few Pieces	p. 212
A Recurring Dream … After 58 Years	p. 213
Missing People We Never Really Knew	p. 215
My Daughter Wants to Take the Plane to Heaven to See Her Grandpa	p. 216
"Monkey See, Monkey Do"	p. 217
An Eleven-Year-Old's Upset Reactions to Questions about Death	p. 219
Helping Children in Foster Care Deal with Multiple Losses	p. 221
Explaining Death to Young Children and to a Child with Special Needs	p. 223
Whether or Not to Take Children to Funerals or Memorials	p. 225
Are Bedwetting and Grief Related?	p. 227
Three Little Girls Ask When Daddy Will Be Home	p. 229
Helping a Four-Year-Old Know Who His Mother Really Was	p. 230
Going to Church Reminds a Twelve-Year-Old of His Dad's Death	p. 231
In Closing	p. 235
Articles Section	p. 237
Time Doesn't Heal-Actions Do	p. 237
On Crying-Part One	p. 240
On Crying-Part Two	p. 242
Normal and Natural Reactions to Death	p. 245
Stuck on a Painful Image	p. 252
About the Authors	p. 255
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.