Talk to me: Do I need to get help to deal with the grief I feel?

Psychologist Caroline Martin is here to answer your questions on whatever issues you are dealing with in life

There’s plenty to keep me busy, but the grief is never far from the surface.

My father died two years ago aged 89. His death was expected as he had a heart condition. He was always my rock, a sounding board for life’s big decisions.

My mother had mental health issues, so I relied on him from a young age. It took me about a year to accept he was not coming back, but I’m still left with a huge sense of loss. Birthdays and anniversaries are particularly difficult.

I’m married with grown-up children and work full time, so there’s plenty to keep me busy, but the grief is never far from the surface. Do I need to get help?

My sincere condolences on the death of your father.

A loss of a parent can upset our equilibrium and threaten our deepest and oldest emotional bonds. While your grief may not be far from the surface, I wonder if it can even get to the surface? Grief can feel so overwhelming; it can bring us to our knees.

Caroline Martin, psychologist. Picture: Moya Nolan

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt is a beautiful children’s book by Michael Rosen which illustrates the importance of working through a difficult experience rather than trying to sidestep it.

Yet our demanding lives can conspire against our need to process the intensity of our emotions. 

At times it can be tempting to lose ourselves in the busyness of a job and family, and modern society will all too happily facilitate it. 

So much grief has been delayed and made more complex by Covid, and the disruption to our traditions.

While distraction can be a useful tactic, it is wise to pause, reflect, and wonder if distraction has become avoidance.

Our world can be a world of extremes; on one hand pushing Pollyanna positivity and on the other, pathologising human behaviour. Such binary paradigms cannot reflect the nuance and normal range of our emotions.

When we experience a significant loss, it can be quite hard to “land” and we can find ourselves pushed to “move on,” or risk being labelled. We can feel very alone if we feel our experiences and emotional responses are not met with empathy from others.

In fact, it can be the absence of genuine emotional support that inhibits our ability to recover.

I wonder about your inclusion of some of the information in your email; your father’s age, and his ill-health. I wonder if, because of these factors, your grief has caught you off-guard?

There is no timeline or set course to follow. It seems contemporary society minimises the death of our older loved ones.

It’s wholly normal to feel great sadness. It is evident that you enjoyed a wonderfully close relationship with your father. This was possibly heightened as together you navigated your mother’s health difficulties.

You may in fact feel as though you have lost your only parent.

Your father’s death may be bringing up some unresolved grief associated with your mother’s death and life. As a parent, you may be conscious of the grief of your own children for their grandfather.

You have lost someone you loved, and his space in your heart cannot be filled.

In recent days, we have seen beautiful photos from space, courtesy of the James Webb Space Telescope — stunning spectacles of galaxies and dying stars on the backdrop of darkness. We wouldn’t be able to see them were it not for the darkness, no matter how strong the telescope.

Allowing yourself to be sad, to be in the darkness of unknown territory can be disorientating, but it can reveal hidden “stars” and new awareness. 

Grief is messy and we now know it is not simply a set of sequential stages. It is more akin to a web of sorrow, anger, anguish, fear, and hopelessness.

It can also prompt a quest for a greater understanding of purpose, and this can give rise to action and renewed resilience.

You ask an interesting question, that is, “Do I need help?” In a culture steeped in rituals that have guided us in death and dying, I wonder if we have lost our way a bit, and have forgotten the importance of our communities.

As a parent, you may be conscious of the grief of your own children for their grandfather.

The pandemic has played havoc with our traditions and we collectively need help to restore these heartlines. At our core, we seek to connect to others and in times of death, this is no different.

In fact, when connecting to others, we often find a deeper connection to those who have died. We get to hear perspectives of them we might not otherwise have known.

We get to share our stories of our loved ones with others. Perhaps we get a new understanding of our importance in their lives.

We might get clarity about their purpose, their values, and how those have been instilled in us and we can see echoes of them in those around us. We get a greater sense of ourselves.

While some of us will access therapy to work through the complex maze of grief, many will find solace in therapeutic moments they can share with friends and family, in the kindness of strangers, and in the comfort of their spirituality.

Let the sadness surface, let it take up space in the safety and company of others, there might not be a bear after all, there might be stars.

Take good care.