Posts Tagged ‘care’
Ghosts From The Past
By Josh Abel
I met Holly riding the bus in our community. She is very attractive with a winsome smile and piercing eyes that I would trade anything for. She was also the bus driver. At that time Holly went to school to become a nurse. After becoming a nurse, Holly didn’t drive the bus that much, but one of her fellow bus drivers mentioned to me that one of Holly’s patients had died and it had a negative impact on her. It brought back ghosts from my past as I also had a job in which people died which had a negative impact on me.
I used to help people deal with their addictions. One former client relapsed and overdosed leaving a one year old child behind. I couldn’t begin to describe how sorry I felt for that one year old. Then there’s the second guessing (guilt). Could I have done more and why didn’t I see this coming? Another former client on one Mother’s day killed two of his next door neighbours. Since that time, Mother’s day has never been the same for me. I felt similar emotions for the family of the two victims. My heart went out to them and although I never met them, somehow this was one of those occasions where saying sorry just isn’t enough. The police did catch my client who wasn’t “at risk” (he came from a nice home, wasn’t involved in gangs) of committing such a crime but it still got to me anyway.
As a caring person, those incidents affected me just as Holly’s affected her. You just can’t take the human part of you out of the equation. I did tell Holly I was sorry for the loss of her patient. Holly is also a caring person and I don’t want her to experience the same negative impact as my situation did with me. They can teach you every aspect of how to perform your job except one: how to deal with second guessing. The guilt will get to you if you let it, especially if you are a perfectionist at your job. Your work ethic teaches you to be the best at your job, but there are things you are going to encounter that you just can’t control. When I started my job I wanted to help people I wanted to make an impact on people’s lives, an idealist. In my case that’s what made the guilt even more of a challenge to overcome. Although I can’t control someone else’s behaviour, Mother’s Day will never be the same for me especially since my own Mother passed away last year.
Holly if you’re reading this you are going to have a lot of success in your job and you probably won’t give it a second thought. Please give the successes more attention than the failures because that’s what makes the job enjoyable (helping people).
Holly’s true reflection is beauty and she made the bus fun to ride.
Craig – Supporting Someone in Grief
Craig – Supporting Someone in Grief
Craig discusses his personal experience with grief and how he felt when people didn’t reach out to him during a difficult time. He offers advice on how to best support someone who is grieving, emphasizing the importance of simply showing up and letting them know that you care.
Grief and Parenting in the Disability Community
By Carrie Batt, Grief Educator
Parenting is complicated as it has so many twists and turns. There are a variety of parenting styles such as hovering, free and easy, and everything in between. The one thing parents have in common is the fact that parenting never ends, thought it changes. Many parents can look forward to their child changing as they age and gain independence. Parents often look forward to and are proud of their child leaving the nest. Yet for many parents with children who have developmental disabilities, that is not the case. These parents must offer unwavering support, care, and guidance to their child or children who live with disabilities.
These are parents who are relied on in various ways, being the primary caregiver and managing everything. Some parents aging into their 70s, 80s, and 90s remain the sole primary caregiver to their child. Their day-to-day parenting tasks have never ended as their child has grown into adulthood. In fact, for some, their parenting roles increase as their child ages and may begin to lose daily living skills, develop early-stage dementia, show signs of aging or illness, begin to regress in specific areas or require much more support. Some parents must also cope with the fact that their child may be experiencing mental health issues in combination with a developmental disability. This is a most unique parenting experience as it is all-consuming. Such parenting speaks to a level of commitment and unconditional love where unwavering support is a constant.
In conjunction with these realities, there are times when such parents become a part of the end-of-life and palliative care communities. Once their child with a disability is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, the only choice is to navigate end-of-life care, and there is no road map for what these parents will be embarking on. When it comes to death, dying and disability there is no education or expertise readily available. The same is true for grief, loss, and disability. Currently there are few disability-sensitive supports for such families who are having to transition from being the primary care giver to preparing for the impending death of their child.
The grief surrounding these realities have yet to be spoken of or integrated into the bereavement services and are rarely acknowledged within the developmental sector. The same is true of the reality faced when a child with a disability must face to mortality of their parents and primary caregivers, as for many of these children they may never have left the family home.
This is a type of grief most cannot imagine. This type of grief has not yet been recognized, validated, and honoured. There has been no space made within our grief support services that speaks of the magnitude of the grief surrounding these families. My hope is that the light can shine to meet these needs in the developmental sector for the families we serve.
Weathering the Intense Emotions of Grief
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW
Grief often comes with powerful, unpredictable emotional shifts that can be painful to experience. While it’s important to find ways to sit with these feelings, to acknowledge the pain of grief and accept loss, it’s also necessary to find ways to ease and manage the pain. There are several simple activities that you can explore to help.
Ground Yourself in the Present
Use your senses to remind you that you are safe, here and now. When we are feeling intense emotions we are often caught reliving a moment in the past, or we are fretting over some anticipated event in the future. We can’t undo the past and we can’t control the future, which only intensifies these difficult feelings. When you use your senses, it pauses your racing thoughts and can help calm the turbulent feelings.
Notice the things in your environment you can see. Count the number of items that begin with the letter A, then the letter B, or count the number of green things.
Notice what you feel around your body. Sense the ground under your feet, the chair under your bottom, the clothes against your skin, the sun on your cheeks, or the breeze in your hair.
Notice what you hear. Voices. Background noises of the building such as the furnace or a fan or the hum of fluorescent lights. Music. Nature sounds.
Notice what you smell. Is the air stale or fresh? Is there some overpowering smell, or not much smell at all?
Notice if you have a taste in your mouth. Is it the sweetness or savoury taste of something you just ate, the minty freshness of toothpaste or gum, or perhaps the sour taste of morning breath.
Breathe.
A deep slow breath can activate the calming centre of our nervous system. When you breathe deeply and exhale slowly, you set off a cascade of calming chemicals in your brain that help ease tension and stress.
Try 4-7-8 breathing. Inhale as you count to four. Hold your breath for a count of seven. Exhale as you count to eight. Repeating this breath three times takes less than one minute, and when you practice it often you develop a muscle memory that helps you access this deep, slow breath during times of strife.
Indulge in Self Care
Enjoy a cup of your favourite herbal tea or soup. Take a hot bath, perhaps adding Epsom salts. Or a shower with your favourite body wash. The warmth and scent of these activities will work together to activate the same calming centre in your nervous system that is affected by deep, slow breathing.
Plan Intentional Change
Sometimes our routines cue us to experience distressing memories and disturbing thoughts and feelings. When this is the case, it can help to examine your schedule and activities. What seems to upset you? Is there a way to pause the activity or shift it to another time of day to try to break the connection with the difficult experience?
It’s true that we can’t help our thoughts and feelings. It’s also true that we can develop responses to the experience of intense grief that help us feel more in control as we heal.