Grief- An Overview

     Oh the not so wonderful 5 stages of grief- denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Many of us have been through them.  Some of us have been through them more times than we can count.  Some have never even experienced them at all.  Most people think that grief only happens when someone dies. Grief is defined as keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss.  Grief does not just happen when you someone you loves dies.   No, grief happens when you lose someone or something or an ideal. I have experienced grief and it’s five steps in so many ways- through the loss of my dad, the loss of grandparents, aunts, an uncle and a cousin.  I’ve experienced grief through the loss of an ideal marriage and through the loss of a the life I had planned for a child.  I experience it at each age and stage of Gillian’s life while I watch others move forward as we stay idle.  I’ve experienced it for my other two children when it finally hit me how they have lost so much normal in their childhoods because of parents being separated and losing loved ones and having a special needs sister.  

One thing that I have learned about the five stages of grief in my many journeys through them is that each time it has looked different.  Each journey has looked different, each stage has taken a different amount of time and has required different ways to get through them.  Grief has never looked the same way twice for me.  And I realize that grief doesn’t look the same way for any two people.  We all have our own way of dealing with grief and walking thorough its stages.  There is no right or wrong way to grieve.  For one it takes a lot longer.  For some they are able to move through some stages quite quickly but get stuck on just one or two of the stages.  We cannot judge someone for the way that they walk through the grieving process.  We can only love them as they walk though.

Let’s do a quick overview of each of the five stages today and then over the next week I’d love to tell you what it looked like for me to walk through three areas I have grieved over, marriage, a child’s perfect childhood and death of loved ones.  Personally, I don’t think everyone walks through the stages of grief in a particular order.  Now, please realize that I am not a licensed psychologist, I am only a biblical counselor, so I am not diagnosing anything here. I am simply talking through what I have personally experienced in my own life or what I have studied through biblical counseling courses.   Also, you will notice that I am only stated 5 stages of grief instead of 7.  I am putting shock/disbelief in the same category as denial.  I realize that many times these two can be completely separate but for the sake of keeping this shorter I will combine them. I have also combined bargaining and guilt together for the same reasons.  

     Denial (shock/disbelief)- Most people think denial means that the person doesn’t get that the loss actually happened.  Not true, you know the loss has happened, your mind is just protecting you from the overwhelming amount of emotions that want to flood through all at once.  Denial actually protects you from being completely consumed by what you have experienced.  Denial allows you to go numb for awhile while you get the stuff done that needs to get done.  You know in the back of your mind what just happened but denial puts up a little wall so that it can’t come to the forefront of your thoughts just yet.  As denial fades all the emotions can start to come out.  

Anger- Once the emotions start coming out anger is the first one to take over.  It is hard for any one human to process all the emotions that come with grief.  You cannot process through them all at one time and this can  make you very angry because you just want to be through it all.  Anger also comes out as questioning why this happened to you.  You can be angry at God or at your spouse, or at any number of things or people.  Being angry is Okay, it is part of the process.  It is okay to allow yourself to be angry as you move forward. 

Bargaining/Guilt- Most often people want to bargain with God.  “God, if you do this. I’ll do that”.  It’s our desperate attempt at trying to get our old normal back.  When we don’t get our bargaining ways answered we turn to guilt and the lonely phrase of “if only”.  “If only I would have done this then this loss wouldn’t have happened”.  It’s like we are trying to bargain with ourselves thinking we can go back and change the past. 

Depression- This is the point that you realize nothing you say or do can change what has happened.  Reality starts to set in.  You realize there is a new normal that you don’t want.  All the emotions have now flooded over you and seem to be shocking you from the inside out.  The depression stage of grief sucks.  All the stages sucks, but I think this one is the worst.  It is all consuming.  It usually starts to occur at the point that everyone has stopped asking you how you are and they’ve all gone back to their normal lives and you feel completely alone.  

Acceptance- This doesn’t mean that your time of grieving is over just because you have accepted what has happened.  Grieving is a lifelong process.  No one ever fully gets over the loss of someone or something.  When we accept our loss we are saying that what happened is not okay, but I am going to be okay.  We fully realize the new normal even though we don’t like it.  We start to get back to our lives even though there is now a big empty space inside us.  We start moving forward.  

Grief truly is a lifelong process which is why I believe that God tell us that in Heaven there will be no more tears.  He knows the grief we face here in this world and He grieves when we grieve.  If you are in the midst of these stages of grief today, please know that I am praying for you and my heart is heavy for you.  Do not walk through this process alone.  Reach out to someone you know who has walked through them ahead of you so they can be praying for you and so they can make sure that you don’t get stuck or completely consumed by your grief.  If you are blessed to be able to walk with someone on this road, please remember that their journey will look different then yours and that’s okay.  Don’t judge them or tell them that they are doing it wrong because it takes them longer than it took you or because they aren’t doing it how you did it.  Just be a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and a great prayer warrior.  

I’d Like to Sove the Puzzle?

    Wheel of Fortune is one of Gillian’s favorite shows.  Vanna White wears pretty dresses and Gillian loves pretty dresses.  Every night before bed Gillian watches an episode. We sit in anticipation waiting for Vanna to walk out in her pretty dress so we can see what color it is.  In a few episodes she has walked out in a pantsuit and Gillian gets so irritated that we end up deleting that episode and moving on to the next one.  Once we get through talking all about Vanna”s pretty dress we move on to the contestants.  Gillian has to know each one’s name so she can cheer them on when it’s their turn.  She gets so into it!  She even likes to call out letters with them. She’s just helping them fill in the blanks.  If someone lands on “lose a turn” or “bankrupt” she responds with an “oh man, that’s okay Bob (or whatever their name is)” while clapping for them. When the puzzle is finally solved she hoots and hollers for the person who won.  An episode of Wheel of Fortune is quite the exciting ordeal in our house. 

    I feel like life with Gillian and all her diagnoses is like playing a game of Wheel of Fortune that may never end.  This adult child of mine is very complicated and I’m often told by doctors and therapists that she’s like no one they’ve ever worked with before.  Some like the challenge of figuring her out and some just can’t handle it.  (It depends on the day which group I fall into.). Every so once in awhile we get to add more letters to Gillian’s long list of diagnoses and every time we do my hope is that we will be able to solve the puzzle.  Unfortunately, the puzzle usually just becomes more challenging.  We recently got more letters, we even got to “buy a vowel” to throw in there.  It always seems like once you get a vowel or two up on the board the puzzle becomes easier to solve, not this time.                                                      

    We recently saw one of Gillian’s specialist to talk about her severe anxiety disorder and the possibility of trying new medication. (So far we have tried 8 different meds and she has had an adverse reaction to all of them.)  That’s all the appointment was supposed to be about.  I wasn’t looking to add new letters to the puzzle that day.  We’ve got enough to handle already.  Chris and I sat there with the doctor and talked for 30 minutes straight telling her all that had been going on with Gillian lately and her anxiety. We gave her detailed stories and described in depth scenarios where Gillian had become completely out of hand.  She listened, asked some questions and then sat back in her chair and asked, “Does anyone in your family have obsessive compulsive disorder?”.  Chris and I looked at each other trying to figure out the answer and then replied with a “no”.  It took me a few seconds to realize what she was implying here. I finally asked, “Are you telling us that Gillian has OCD?”.  She immediately replied, “yes”.   

    After we finished talking about our newest member of the family, OCD, we talked about a few more scenarios we’ve had recently with Gillian.  The doctor immediately said, “She has separation anxiety”.  Wait, what?!  I didn’t come in here to buy anything and I definitely  wasn’t looking for the two for one special!  But I got it.  Yay! (That’s sarcasm right there for those who couldn’t tell. Lol). 

    Now, the way my mind works is that when it gets a new problem it finds the solution.  I go into head down and move forward mode.  I know that later I’ll be able to process the feelings and emotions but for now we need to get down to business.  We talked with the doctor about new medications we could try and about how this will be a lifelong battle we will have to fight for her.  See, that’s the thing with Gillian, she doesn’t have the kind of brain that can help her cope with and fight mental illness.  She can’t use the tools that most of us can to calm our anxiety or to talk ourselves down from an obsession.  That’s why we have no choice but to find the right medication that can help her brain do what she can’t do.  We, as her parents, are the ones who have to diligently remember to give her all of her meds ever single day.  We are the ones who have to keep a close eye on her to see if she is having any adverse reactions to a new med and then make sure to report it accurately to the doctor.  We are fighting this battle for her that she can’t fight.  At times it can be completely overwhelming.  Especially when you start questioning whether or not you are making the right decision or reporting the right reactions you are seeing to the doctor.  

   

    We walked out of the doctor’s office with way more than we came in with- 2 more diagnoses to add to the list, a new medication to try and a very heavy heart.   Fortunately we had an hour drive home where my brain and my heart could collide and start processing.  It didn’t take long for the feeling of being overwhelmed to wash over me and for the tears to fall.  The questions started pouring out, “Is this just going to keep happening for the rest of her life?  Are we just going to keep getting diagnoses to add to the list?  Will we get one thing under control just in time for something else to come out?  I’m suppose to give people hope but how can I do that when I’m feeling so hopeless?”  Tears and more tears streamed down my face as my heart, once again, aches for this child of mine who can’t help herself and as it feels completely overwhelmed and incapable of trying to do it all for her.  I sat, staring out the window, with my tears and my thoughts for awhile.  Then the music that had been playing this whole time started breaking through into my head.....

   “All the poor and powerless, all the lost and lonely..... will know that You are holy.....and all will sing out hallelujah, and we will sing out hallelujah.  And all the hearts who are content And all who feel unworthy. And all who hurt with nothing left, will know that You are holy.... shout it go on and scream it from the mountains. Go on and tell it to the masses that He is God!”  I couldn’t help but chuckle at first at these perfectly timed words piercing straight into my soul.  God, you always give me exactly what I need exactly when I need it. There was my hope!  There was my reminder of the hope I have for me and the hope I have to give to others!  He is God.  Period.  That’s it.  That’s all I need to remember.  HE IS GOD!  Tears of pain turned to tears of worship and remembrance of who He is.  He is God and God is good.  Even in the midst of diagnoses and medications and heartache, He is still good.  He is still God.   That was something that my heart and mind could easily process. That was something that I could grasp on to.  He is God is what I will shout from the mountaintops for all to hear!

    There’s still an unsolved puzzle to deal with though.  Gillian’s list now looks like this..... left hemiparetic cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, epilepsy, sensory processing disorder, polycystic ovarian syndrome, severe anxiety disorder, separation anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder.  Fortunately, when I deal with professionals or other special needs parents I can say- CP, ID, epilepsy, SPD, PCOS, SAD, separation anxiety and OCD.  These are the letters I use when I’m trying to solve the Gillian puzzle.  They add up to a whole lot of nothing.  Actually that’s not true.  They add up to a whole lot of me needing Jesus.  A whole lot of time spent on my knees crying at my Saviour’s feet.  A whole lot of learning how to be completely selfless.  A whole lot of love for this adult child of mine.  I’ve realized that’s it’s no longer about trying to solve the puzzle.  I actually don’t even think that there is a puzzle to be solved anymore.  It’s about shouting form the mountains that He is God even in the midst of new diagnoses, new meds and whatever else may come our way.  

___________________
Here’s a link to the song I quoted above.  “All the Poor and Powerless” by All Sons and Daughters. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ieOL4X3nk2c

This is My Story-Part 4

    Life was good.  Our marriage was in a better place, we were working on healing, and we were having a baby boy.  I felt like for the first time in a very long time I could finally exhale.  Little did I know that that was the calm before the biggest storm of my life.  2011-2012 was a year that I will never be bale to forget.  My dad was diagnosed with cancer, my parents moved in with us, I gave birth to Nolan, my dad had open heart surgery, Chris started using painkillers again, my parents moved out, Chris and I separated, I was homeschooling 2 kids while taking care of a baby, Gillian had the largest grand mal seizure she had ever had, my grandmother died unexpectedly, Chris moved back in to help me with the kids, my dad had a massive stroke the day he finished his 40th round of radiation, Chris started in on painkillers again, Chris had to move out again, my dad had another small stroke, Chris moved back in, my dad passed away. This all happened in less then a year’s time. What I thought was hell before came nowhere close in comparison to this brief amount of time in my life.  It all seems like such a whirlwind now.  It was like this giant tornado came through my life and picked up everything I loved and tossed it around and then threw it in all different directions.  There were a lot of pieces that had to be picked up because not only was I losing people I loved and dealing with a broken marriage, my kids were losing people they loved and had parents that had completely fallen apart.  There was a lot of damage done in this tornado.  

Many have asked how I made it through all of this and the only answer I have is that God was carrying me the whole time. I clung to Him so tightly.   He was my rock, He was my constant, He was my comforter, He was my healer, He was my everything.  That was the only way I could come out of all of that having a shred of sanity and life left.  And to be honest, we are still, 6 years later, picking up some of the scattered wreckage.  Just when you thin it’s all behind you, you’ll turn around and trip over something else that you have to work through. The key is, though, to keep picking up the pieces God hands you and work through it.  Don’t try to step over it or walk around it or kick it aside.  The best thing to do is pick it up, hand it to God and work through it with Him.  

      After my dad died Chris finally got his act together. We just realized that January 29th marked 6 years of sobriety for him and 6 years of restoration in our marriage. It hasn’t been a smooth 6 years.  We’ve had some bumpy roads for sure, but never in the past 6 years have we been on these roads alone. We have surrounded ourselves with many friends who have walked this road before us and some who we have had the privilege of walking on their roads with them. Most importantly though we have both worked on our own personal issues separately and our relationships with Christ. I know that I can’t fix my husband and his issues but I can work on my issues and confess and repent from my sins. I still struggle with many triggers that bring me back to times of hell, but I now quickly run to the feet of my Savior and He reminds me I am loved and I am safe.  

    This is my part in His story. A story that I continue to live out day by day, moment by moment. A story that has had its share of heartache and blessings. A story that has Christ completely woven through it because I am His and He is mine.

-My amazing dad with Emma and Nolan-

This is My Story-Part 3

     About five and a half years into our marriage Chris had had enough liquid courage one night to tell me about an affair he was having.  I still remember that night as if it had just happened.  I was a wreck and so began our journey down the road of infidelity and addictions.  We told only a few people about what was going on in our marriage at the time. It was a very isolating time of my life.  I was embarrassed and ashamed of what had happened in my marriage and drew away from people in hopes that they woudln’t find out about it.  It took a couple of months after the confession for us to realize that we needed counseling if we were going to have any hope of keeping this marriage together.  We went to some close friends and asked them to help us out and they walked along side us on this horrible journey we were now embarking.  For the next 10 years we lived in marital hell.  I was a complete co-dependent who thought that all my husband’s problems were because of me.  I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t good enough.  My daily existence became trying to please him and make him happy.  It was a task I could never accomplish and I would beat myself up mentally daily because of it.  Chris went from addiction to addiction over the next 10 years and encountered a few emotional affairs as well.  We were two really messed up people full of sin trying to hide from the rest of the world just how bad things had gotten.  

In the midst of our 10 year journey through hell I tried a few times to get help from the Church that we attended at the time.  At one point I took the girls and moved into my parent’s house.  When our pastor got word of this he immediately asked to meet with Chris and I.  I explained to him all that had been going on in our marriage and he responded by asking me when I was going to move back home.  I was stunned.  He told me that the kids and I needed to be back in the house by the end of the week and we all needed to be in Church on Sunday.  Then he turned to Chris and asked if he was going to be playing in the softball game that weekend and that was all they talked about after that.  No counseling, no help, no love.  Basically we were told to sweep it all under the rug, be at Church on Sunday and look happy.  Unfortunately we would be stuck at this Church for a couple more years until God led us elsewhere.
  

In the Spring of 2010 God finally softened Chris’ heart to look for another Church.  We came up with a list of about 5 Churches that we wanted to visit and decided we would start with a Church in Stockton that first Sunday.  Well we got up too late that Sunday morning and realized we wouldn’t make it in time for the service.  So we grabbed our list and figured out what Church we could make it to.  Redeemer Church was the only one that fit our timing that morning so we got ready and off we went.  We sat near the front row and listened to the sermon, it wasn’t the normal pastor that Sunday, but it was a good sermon and the worship was amazing and the people so welcoming.  We got in the car afterwards and we both said, “That place feels like home” and we never visited another Church.  On about our third or fourth Sunday at Redeemer this guy got up front and shared his story and talked about a men’s group he was starting up,  His story mirrored our story- adultery, addictions, broken marriage.  My jaw hit the floor.  Mostly because I couldn’t believe that he was actually allowed to talk about this from the front of the Church!  I had never witnessed anything like this before and it was so refreshing, so wonderful.  I was in awe that God had finally brought us to a place where we could get help when we asked for it.  A place where we didn’t have to hide any longer.  A place where we would find healing.  

When Emma was about 2 we decided to try for another kid.  Why not?  I thought that maybe it would help our help marriage (yes, funny, I know).  I figured that since it was so easy to get pregnant the last time all my infertility issues were gone and it would be just as easy this time.  Nope.  We tried on and off for 6 years.  It was horrible.  I cried so often because, honestly, in the back of my head I thought that this was just another way that I wasn’t good enough for Chris.  (We were in the midst of our journey through hell at this point.)  I had finally come to a point, after years of trying, where I was done trying to get pregnant and had completely given up.  Our marriage was finally on the right track, we were finally getting the help and support we both needed and we were in an amazing Church body surrounded by people who loved us and people we loved dearly.  That’s when God decided it was time for another baby.  It was funny because when you get pregnant when you already have a 13 year old and a nine year old everyone thinks it was an “oops” baby, but no, he was our miracle baby that we had tried and prayed for for so long for.  

To be continued.......

This is My Story-Part 2

     Soon after we were married I started down the road of fertility testing. I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome when I was 13 and had been told that it would either be really hard or impossible for me to get pregnant. We decided to go ahead and start with the testing early on in our marriage because we knew we wanted to have a family we just didn’t know how long it would take or if it would even be possible. 6 months into fertility testing we were told that it looked like I would never be able to have children. I wasn’t ovulating at all even when I took all the fertility meds. I was devastated. The doctor said we could try it all again for another month but she was sure it would’t work. We decided to wait a month and then try all the meds one last time.  After a month of letting my body rest I went in for the standard pregnancy test you had to take before starting any fertility medication. Can I just tell you how mean it is that you have to take what feels like a million pregnancy tests that all come out negative when you are going through fertility treatment? It’s just not right. It’s very insensitive and mean. Chris and I were getting ready to go my parents house for dinner when the phone rang and I answered it. It was my fertility doctor calling to tell me that the test came back negative and I could start my next round of treatment. Except those weren’t the words out of her mouth. I remember exactly what she said like it was yesterday, “Caroline, I just want you to know that I just went and threw all of my medical books away.  There is no medical explanation for how this happened, but you are pregnant!”.  She was dumbfounded, I was elated! We were having a baby. A baby I thought that we would never have.  A true gift from God. A true example that it truly is God who opens and closes the womb. 

-Me pregnant with Gillian and my dad with his food baby.-

Gillian started off her life a very colicky baby. At night the only way we could get her calm was to “bounce, rock, pat”. We would rock her in the rocking chair while bouncing up and down and patting her back. It was a great workout for the core. During the day she was a genuinely happy baby. At night it was a different story.  This lasted for about 3 months and then she was good at night too. People around us started whispering about Gillian she was about 10 months old.  They could have been whispering before this but the whispers got way louder about this time where we could hear them. She wasn’t crawling yet. She wasn’t talking that much.  She wasn’t hitting any of the milestones that babies are supposed to make. I think I knew in the back of my head that something just wasn’t right, but I was not even close to being ready to admit that. Soon after Gillian’s first birthday we took her to her pediatrician to voice our concerns and he sent us to have her tested. We spent approximately 4 hours with an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, a physical therapist, a social worker, a regional center representative, and an early intervention teacher. They all took their turns playing with and evaluating Gillian and then they would come and talk to us about what they found. We ended that half day being told that Gillian was indeed significantly delayed and she would benefit from immediately starting physical, occupational and speech therapy as well as having a teacher come to our home to work with her a couple of times a week. To say I was overwhelmed by all of this would be a gross understatement. I went into complete shock and denial. I politely declined all of their services and told them that Gillian just needed more time and she would catch up with all of the milestones. 6 months later Gillian was just starting to crawl but she was nowhere near walking and her speech was still significantly delayed and that’s when we started our special needs child journey through therapies and home teachers.  It was a lot.

We waited 4 years before deciding to add to our family.  Thinking infertility would be an issue again, I went into the process very carefully.  We were pregnant with our second daughter, Emma, the first month!  I just love how God works and constantly reminds me that He is the one in control and not me.  Emma was a great baby and is now an amazing young lady with the most amazing servant’s heart. She is just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside. I know God has great things in store for her as He has made her relatable in so many ways because she has had to walk many through many of these journeys with me.

To be continued....

-My beautiful daughters when they were little.-

This is My Story- Part 1

     We all have a story, you know.  It’s made up of the words and emotions that we use to describe our coming into the world, our childhood, our teen years, our twenties, and so on and so forth.  It’s made up of sports we played, activities we were involved in and the friends we had and didn’t have.  It involves our parents, whether they were there or not, our siblings, whether we had many, few or none, and any extended family that might have been around.  Our story is what has made us into the people that we are today.  The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.  Here’s one thing that you might not know about your story....you are not the one who is writing it.  Nope, not you not me.  Fortunately we have the most amazing storyteller and author that there ever was who writes us directly into His story.  His beautiful story of redemption and love.  God is the author of our stories!  Aren’t you glad?!  I sure am, because I could have never written such a beautiful story like the one He wrote for me.  This is my story....

I was born and raised and still live in the same town. My parents became Christians when I was little and because they were new to their faith and felt they didn’t have all the knowledge and tools that they needed to fully give us a solid foundation of faith they sent my sister and I to a private Christian school. I went to this school from preschool all the way through high school. I often said that if they had a college I probably would have went there as well. I have one sister who is two and a half years older then me. We had two dogs and, at most times, two cats. Nothing extraordinary about the basics of our home life. We went to Church on Sunday mornings and on Sunday evenings and we attended every church activity that there was. My sister did gymnastics and I did ballet and was a cheerleader all through junior high and high school. Just your average family of four. We didn’t have a white picket fence around our house, but you get the picture, we were your average, normal, happy family.

-Me and my big sister-

During my Junior High years my parents had a lot on their plates.  I could see the stress that this caused them and decided that I didn’t want to be one of the burdens in their life so I became a wallflower. I chose to keep my problems to myself and just handle everything on my own so that I would never overwhelm my parents whom already had so much that they were dealing with. Those were hard years for me emotionally. I had boyfriend drama and regular friend drama, and life drama but I just kept it all in and dealt with it on my own. Talking out loud about my problems was never an option in my mind. I would just shove my feelings down and keep pressing forward. Now, this wasn’t because they wouldn’t have been there for me or they wouldn’t have provided for whatever I asked for, it was because I wanted to be a people pleaser and not a burdensome person.  In my mind, I saw the toll burdensome people took on them and on others and I did not want to be a part of that club.  I learned to take care of myself when I was sick, work through issues with friends (in a completely unhealthy, let people walk all over you kind of way) and not be a bother.  

My last year of high school I began dating a guy about half way through the year. We became serious quite fast and I realize now that I was looking for someone to take care of me. I was tired of taking care of myself and just wanted to be able to lean on someone else for a change. We got engaged right out of high school when I was only 17 years old. He was my ticket out of my house and into a home where someone else would finally meet all of my needs. He broke off our engagement exactly one month before our wedding.  I was crushed and humiliated and angry.  Five months later, there I was, 18 years old, self-esteem at an all time low, angry at the world, and back to taking care of myself. It sucked. I was working 20-30 hours week plus going to college full time. I had pushed away all of my close friends from high school because I had been so humiliated by my engagement being broken off. I got new friends who didn’t really know that part of my life so we wouldn’t have to talk about it. I could just push my feelings deep down and keep moving forward. Then one Sunday afternoon when I was working at a local restaurant I saw a group of guys sitting at the end of the bar and decided to go chat with them. By the time they had left one of the guys and I had exchanged numbers.   He called me at midnight that night and we talked for a few hours on the phone. The conversation mostly revolved around the fact that he was 24 and had no interest in dating an immature 18 year. I convinced him that I was not immature and he should take the risk.  9 months later I became Mrs. Christian Howard!  

To be continued........