When Death Makes An Appearance

Dealing With Death Of A Loved One

It hits you like a thousand paper cuts. Your emotions cloud your consciousness like a dark summer thunderstorm. Your eyes begin to tear like the flooding of a category V hurricane. Someone has knocked at your door but did not wait for a greeting. It’s death.

You cry before you even hear the name; just the thought of it makes your soul shrivel. The name is announced. You fall down faster than the cataplexy experienced by a narcoleptic. You slowly lose touch with reality. Reality loses touch with you.

Whether or not you attend the funeral, the pain you are experiencing is unbearable. You don’t want to eat, cannot sleep and everyone around you is annoying like a summer bee buzzing in your proximity. You start hating people for no reason; they hate you back but they don’t know why.

A few weeks have gone by and you start to come back down to reality, like a chopper headed for its helipad. Life still feels dull and gloomy but you are at least sane again. You start to apologize to those who you have turned into enemies during the last couple of weeks. They hug you back.

Life goes on but you cannot stop thinking of your family member who passed away. You are in the eye of the storm called bereavement. You start to hallucinate your loved one; you wonder if this is how it feels to be on LSD. You don’t care. The hallucination goes away.

You go back to work but you are not really there; mentally that is. You cannot stop thinking about him or her. Their lack of presence haunts you. You head to the restroom and burst into tears. The tears burst back and tell you to stop crying. You head back to work.

You don’t enjoy life but you remain occupied. Whatever you do is less pleasurable. You are functional but empty inside. Life is hollow and you are floating, feeling numb and detached. You wonder how long this can go on for.

The above scenario is a classic situation that many people experience after the death of a loved one. Many people recover from grief but many also progress to major depressive disorder. It is very important to not allow death to throw you into a cycle of depression.

Understanding that death is part of life and that there is no way of avoiding it, can at least psychologically prepare you for when it arrives. Grief is normal to experience but you must learn how to put an end to it and move on with your life.

Your life does not end when death has taken your loved one!

Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)