Open to Hope Articles

Articles Home

Using Antidepressant Medication in Grief

Posted on August 9, 2010 - by Marty Tousley

Question from a Reader: About four weeks ago, I came off an antidepressant which allowed the unresolved grief issues over my brother’s death to surface. I believe that the antidepressant kept me from fully grieving his loss, which I am in the process of doing now. A colleague, therapist, and good friend who has known me over the years knows exactly where I am and says perhaps just a small dosage of an antidepressant (not the one that I was on) could be beneficial until resolution and integration is accomplished. I see my M.D. on Monday to explain what has […]

Exploring Positive Emotions In Loss and Grief

Posted on August 8, 2010 - by Tabitha Jayne

Loss throws us into a world of unknown emotions, some of which we may never have experienced before. Understanding these emotions can be a key factor in transforming through loss. Yet it can be hard to accept some feelings. It requires us to be brutally honest with ourselves and acknowledge that there are no right or wrong emotions. If we do not acknowledge those emotions, however, they stay forever locked within us, becoming a burden that limits our ability to truly live. The common emotions usually listed are: disbelief, guilt, fear, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Yet I want to […]

The Bereaved Deserve to Follow Their Dreams

Posted on August 7, 2010 - by Mary Jane Hurley Brant

It was 1992. Four years had lapsed since my daughter Katie’s diagnosis of a brain tumor. She was now healthy and back working in New York City. Because my maternal stress levels were greatly relaxed, my professional dreams began to reemerge. It was time to think about making them come true. Both my dreams and my interests had become undeniably centered on the concepts developed by psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung because I realized, in hindsight, I had been living an archetypal experience during the trauma of Katie’s illness. I realized also that while I was not the first mother to […]

When We Remember Our Loved One, We Become Stronger

Posted on August 6, 2010 - by Christine Thiele

Sometimes remembering comes at a cost. Since my husband died, remembering is the hardest thing for me. Most days, I can go about my business and not think that this is my real life. Some days, I can just pretend I had a bad dream, a dream that I will awaken from and he will still be here with me. A dream that will end with me waking up and looking at the empty side of the bed and it’s not empty any more, there he is! He didn’t abandon me. He didn’t die. Remembering always comes with pain. It […]

Oxytocin Treatment May Help ‘Pathological Grief’

Posted on August 5, 2010 - by K. Paul Stoller

It has been two years and seven months since I had the misfortune to discover how effective the hormone oxytocin is in helping one cope with pathological grief. That was the same month I gave a little research presentation at the MIND Institute at UC Davis about hyperbaric oxygen in treating children with autism. It was through my work with children on the autism spectrum that I became adept at using oxytocin for treating fear and anxiety, but it took me over three weeks after my son passed from a train accident until I realized it might help me. Oxytocin […]

The Power of Showing and Telling Your Grief

Posted on August 4, 2010 - by Kim Go

Ancient wisdom and modern science both encourage us to be expressive when we are grieving. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) research reveals that the brain’s blood flow changes with emotional stress. Blood flows away from the left side – the logic, detail and language center. It flows toward the right side, where feeling, symbols and imagination reside. Perhaps the body needs more than logic and language during stressful events. There is a story about the children who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and their residual terror of the ocean. For months, nothing counselors did could pierce the children’s fears of […]

Nine Years Later, She Savors Visits to ‘The Missing Place’

Posted on August 3, 2010 - by Tambre Leighn

There are days and times and moments in between the larger slices of my life I find myself in the missing place. I have made incredible strides recreating myself after the death of my husband Gary. I learned to stand on my own two feet and have done so now for nearly a decade. I enjoy my independence and my freedom. I am accountable to no one but me. I choose every step in my path and every moment in my day. Yet there are the quiet times when a memory surfaces and I cannot help but go to that […]

Retail Therapy: How Widows Might Pull Us Out of the Recession

Posted on August 2, 2010 - by Catherine Tidd

Let’s face it. We start spending the moment our loved one take his last breath. Wait a minute–we really start spending way before that. Most of us are the reason why our own personal physicians drive such nice cars. But if you think about it–our contribution to the healthcare industry is just the beginning. Once everything is done, we have the funeral to deal with. I’ve been to small funerals and elaborate ones, but, even on the small side, we usually spend at least a couple thousand dollars. You’ve got a casket or a seriously overpriced urn. You’ve got flowers […]

Woman’s Story is One of Loss and Hope

Posted on August 1, 2010 - by Kathryn Williams Raths

Naomi Cole of Wayne, Mich., can still close her eyes and hear her mother’s reaction the moment her parents were notified that her brother had been killed. He was the same brother who returned after being a prisoner of war in World War II. Naomi remembered, “Oh my gosh, I can still hear her sobbing. Dad got ahold of her hand and said, ‘Come with me.’ They went into their bedroom. I have no doubt they were on their knees praying. It was like she had a mental breakdown but she got through it!” Naomi, who was 12 at the […]

Where Is My Child and Is He Okay?

Posted on July 31, 2010 - by Sheri Perl

From the moment you become a parent there are two questions that become foremost in your mind: Where is my child and is he or she okay? Even when you are dealing with an infant who seldom leaves your side, you still get those moments. I can remember watching my babies when they were in deep sleeps to make sure that they were still breathing. Whenever I left them with a babysitter or at nursery school, throughout the time that I was separated from them, I would wonder where they were and if they were okay. I simply had to […]