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Meditations on the Word ‘Still’

Posted on August 15, 2010 - by Nina Bennett

“But after tempest . . . /There came a day as still as heaven” (Tennyson) Still. An ordinary word, brief, easy to pronounce. When my sons were toddlers, I often told them to hold still while I was brushing their hair, changing their clothes, bundling them into snow suits. I would ask them to please sit still when they squirmed at the dinner table. In restaurants, wait staff offer a choice of sparkling or still water. This simple word took on a never-ending depth of meaning in 2003, when my granddaughter was stillborn. Born, yet still. Silent. Motionless. Dead, yet […]

How to Reclaim Power After a Loss

Posted on August 14, 2010 - by Harriet Hodgson

The other day, I came across a rerun of Oprah Winfrey’s television show. Interior designer Nate Berkus was one of her guests. He was there to talk about recovering from loss, something Berkus knows all too well. Five years ago, his life partner was killed in the tsunami that wreaked havoc on Thailand. When the date appeared on the calendar, Berkus would have an anniversary reaction and mourn again. In time, however, he came to think of the date as just a number. “I took back the power,” he explained. I understand his explanation because I lost four loved ones, […]

Bereaved Dad Defines ‘Courage’

Posted on August 13, 2010 - by Kelly Farley

Courage. It’s a word that paints many different images in our minds. Each one of us has a different picture of what courage looks and feels like. This may change for each one of us based on events we have experienced throughout our life. I want to tell you a little bit about my recent experience and how I, a bereaved dad, views courage. I was recently a guest workshop presenter for the Bereaved Parents of the USA organizations National Gathering in Little Rock, Arkansas. This was my first presentation on the subject of child loss and how it impacts […]

Medical Intervention for Pathological Grief?

Posted on August 12, 2010 - by K. Paul Stoller

If the information I have been writing about were in a text book, or taught in medical school, I would not be writing these articles for the Open To Hope Foundation website. But this information is not available, and I am one of the few physicians using oxytocin to treat grief . Thus, I feel compelled to get this information out to the public even though the public will need to involve their health-care providers to cooperate in following through on the suggestions I make. In my first article for Open to Hope, I wrote about my first-hand experience in […]

Using Music When Grieving Divorce

Posted on August 11, 2010 - by Tony Falzano

When we hear someone is grieving, we tend to think it is the result of loss brought on by the death of a loved one. But there are other losses that cause people to suffer grief. There is loss of health that can paralyze one’s independence and quality of life. There is the loss of employment that can not only drain one’s financial stability but tear apart the fabric of the family life. And then there’s the loss of a relationship brought on by permanent separation and divorce. With approximately half the marriages ending in divorce, we tend to think […]

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 […]