How to Heal Your Heart After the Death of a Child

Nearly six years ago, I joined the worst club in the world when my eldest son Rob committed suicide. He was twenty-eight and suffered from depression, bipolar disorder and alcoholism.

I was a total mess for the first year after Rob’s death, until one night in my grief group I had the epiphany that I wanted to help other parents like us. It felt like a calling and I eventually became a grief counselor and coach. And I’ve put everything I’ve learned about experiencing the worst thing a parent can imagine into my new book. A space in the heart.

A Space in the Heart: A Survival Guide for Grieving Parents

I’d love to tell you that the reason I poured out what was left of my heart was to help other parents who might one day be bereft, but that thought didn’t even cross my mind until I was more than halfway through was documenting my own year of magical thinking. It happened one evening, toward the end of another meeting of my grief group, when one of my fellow distraught parents said, “No one can prepare you for this, but I wish there was a book or manual to help us get through the trouble.” could help. sadness.” Then I decided I would write one for her and for all future members of the club. It is both a memoir and a guide. Here are ten things I learned along the way.

1. Be gentle with yourself

I first heard the words “be gentle with yourself” at the end of the first grief group I ever attended. I had beat myself up with all kinds of excruciating questions: How can I reconcile eating soup dumplings with Rob in the afternoon and him killing himself the next night? How can you love someone with all your heart even if he breaks it again and again? How do you save someone who doesn’t want to be saved? Finally, I let myself go as I asked one last question: How can I be so outraged by what he did when I know it wasn’t him, but his mental illness that made him do it? Mental illness was the only thing that gave meaning to Rob’s death. Rob was sick, and when the sick part took over his life, he finally decided to do something about it and left. When I came to that realization, I stopped punishing myself and never looked back.

2. Go to Memory Lane

Some parents find it too painful to look at old photos of their child. I felt the opposite. Seeing photos of Rob as a child and as an adult kept me connected to him, which was what I needed most in the first few months after his death. If that’s not what you need most, I understand, but I still recommend looking at a few photos every now and then. Looking at old photos is like traveling through time. There’s your child, growing up right before your eyes, until they stop before they should stop. It’s heartbreaking, I know, and the fear can be too much to bear, but if you can somehow hold on to it, a bittersweet joy ultimately emerges from these photographic ashes.

Thanks to Larry Carlat

3. Go ahead and cry

I want to tell you that all my crying felt good, that it was a huge relief, but I don’t remember anything like that. I remember bursting into tears without a thought in my mind. I was all feelings and none of them felt right. Except they were. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now. I know because I have watched parents in my grief group cry for almost two years, and I have witnessed other grieving parents cry in the grief groups I now lead every week. I have seen how their tears have helped them all cope with their loss. I’ve seen people slowly come back to life and transform into better versions of themselves, and it all starts with crying. Crying is the primary soundtrack to the pain of missing your child, the heavy metal of our heavy hearts. It is uncontrollable, unbearable, overwhelming and above all, indispensable. You have to hurt before you heal, and your tears will help restore your soul.

4. And also: shouting

Sometimes you just have to scream really loud.

5. Find your people

I am a group leader for grieving parents at Our House Grief Support Center in Los Angeles. Wherever you live, there is a similar support group, or you can find one online. There is a surprising power in being part of a group. Revealing your deepest thoughts and feelings – no matter how crazy you think they are – to imperfect strangers who truly understand because they feel pretty much the same opens you up like nothing else. Once you realize that this is a safe place, perhaps the only place where you can expose your darkest and most intimate thoughts, an unwavering trust emerges. No one judges you here, except yourself.

6. Keep talking to your child

It doesn’t matter if they can hear you. It doesn’t matter if they respond. What matters is that you express your love for your child. You loved them in life, you loved them in death, you loved them until the end of time. You have to tell them that. Every day. Tell them, tell them, tell them! They are part of you and will always be part of you, and if you are open to them, you can learn a lot from listening to them. They will help you become the different person you are becoming. Your conversations with them – no matter how imaginary they may seem – are one of the best ways to cope with your loss. Talking to your child will teach you everything you need to know. Writing letters also works. Writing to Rob helped me process what happened to him, what happened to us, and what happened to me. I’m sure writing will help you too. It documents your love and loss, and seeing your feelings come to life on the page will connect you to your loved one like nothing else.

7. Don’t forget to do the work of grieving

Working is a full-time job where you start at the minimum wage. It’s dirty, messy and the ultimate heavy lift. It can be a total drag and it certainly hurts, but you have to push through grief. And when the work is done – make sure it is almost done, because the work can take forever – you will realize that you have acquired a wealth of knowledge that no amount of money can buy. Putting in the work leaves no stone unturned. It examines all your questions with a fine-toothed comb. It unfolds your oceanic feelings and allows you to express them with whoever you trust to share them. The more you can unburden yourself, the more you can unravel and reframe your traumatic stories, the more you can begin to accept the things you cannot change, the faster you will get through the grief tunnel.

9. Consider EMDR

EMDR is an abbreviation for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It’s a non-traditional therapeutic treatment used primarily on people who have experienced terribly confusing things, and it should work much faster than the more conventional gabfest. With EMDR, you essentially relive your trauma in small doses while you’re distracted by specific eye movements and something called “bilateral stimulation,” where you tap both sides of your body and stimulate both sides of your brain at the same time. There are several theories about why it is effective. It’s a bit like rewiring your emotions, but without feeling like you’re joining a cult. Despite the knee-jerk skepticism built into every New Yorker, I was open to trying because I was open to anything that could somehow alleviate my pain and sadness. It must have had some positive effects because after about a year my therapist finally kicked me out of the nest. She said enough already; I had done the work and it was time for me to live my life. No therapist has ever said that to me before and I will always love her for that.

10. Finally, let go of your sadness

Your sadness isn’t going anywhere. Little by little you learn to absorb it until you forget that it was once a separate entity that scared you. You’ve been going through it at your own pace while you’ve been working, and at some point you wake up and decide it’s finally time to let go. To reassure you: you are not letting go of your child. You let go of the pain and suffering and fully accept the reality of its loss. Letting go is scary. What if you lose connection with your child and no longer miss him? What if it feels like you’ve let them down? What if you feel guilty because you don’t feel sad? What actually happens is the opposite of everything you feared. Once you are able to let go of the tormenting thoughts you have been clinging to since the day you received the terrible news, you will feel stronger – no, it’s more than that, you will feel better for the first time in your life. feel. for a long time a feeling of freedom and control, which sounds contradictory but no less astonishing. Above all, you feel a different and deeper connection with your child.