I spoke with an old friend tonight, who lost her husband in a road accident about 5 years ago. His death was a shock and she went through a severe depression resulting in quite a dependency on anti depressants. She really could never imagine life without him and we feared a suicide bid.
She phoned to announce her engagement to a wonderful man who she met at a local grief support group. She never believed that she would be able to love again, yet she has not only found love, but a happiness that is wonderful to see.
I asked her if …read more

Over at google groups someone has posted
“I wonder if anyone here has had experience with the death of a family
member from whom you were totally estranged (by choice)?  My brother
recently died from the cumulative effects of 25 years of unremitting
drug/alcohol abuse.  During that quarter of a century span, he stole
from many people, took advantage of well-meaning relatives who tried
to help him, did time in jail, lied pathologically about everything,
caused untold grief to my parents (sometimes really terrorizing them)
etc etc.  He basically dropped out of sight but by the time that
happened I had long since cut him out of my life. …read more

Kami Huyse talks about the 4 emotional stages of crisis management although this is about public relations the discussion about the psychology can help widows.
Psychologists call the emotional stages of survivors the Four Phases of Disaster:
1. Heroic Phase: This phase usually occurs directly after the disaster, when heroic actions are taken to help people recover from and/or survive a disaster. The media may be just arriving on the scene or not yet arrived at this phase. I definitely went through this stage – I appeared fine, dealing with everything and the friends who came around. For some reason I felt …read more

My heart goes out to the wife of Bob Woolmer – the manager of the Pakistan cricket team who died in his bedroom. The loss of your husband is incredibly hard at the best of times, but imagine if the police were treating it as suspicious, you were miles away on South Africa and every sports channel is mentioning suicide, murder etc
I think the press forget that there is a family in mourning, a family that is coming to terms with a sudden death and a family in grief. This kind of bereavement reminds me of how Prince William and …read more

Anna Nicole Smith was a human being. People may not have agreed with her life but for me a loss of life is sad in any circumstances. We know how depression can take hold, we know how life seems so difficult to cope with….no doubt many of us have even briefly contemplated ending our life. But we battle on and find a way of coping.
It saddens me when some part of the media are almost glad…..I didn’t know her, I didn’t agree with many aspects of her life but I know one thing, a loss of life will always be …read more

When you are depressed the easiest thing is to surround your self with people who sympathise, who agree with all the reasons for your loneliness, your grief, your sadness.
What you really need though, are friends that empathise not sympathise. Friends who will listen attentively and the help you take action to pull yourself out of the depression.
It may feel better speaking to the former, but the latter are the ones that you need, the ones that are there to really help you. I love all my friends but the real “diamonds” are the ones that keep the light burning at …read more

A few years ago I was called by the hospital to say that my friend was asking for me. When I got there she had tried to take her own life – she had been very depressed after losing the love of her life. She wanted no one to know, she said “I had felt it was the only option, it wasn’t a cry for help. I never wanted to be found. I just wanted to go and join him. Just as the sky disappeared I felt enormous fear, before that I had felt calm, serene…happy I was going to …read more