By Jennifer Peepas — 2020
I put a lot of time and energy in therapy into grieving/accepting that I never got a mom and never would, and I didn’t expect this to hit me so hard.
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CLEAR ALL
This is what it looks like when you grieve the death of an estranged parent. It’s this surreal thing, where everyone expects you to feel something—yet you don’t. For me, it didn’t feel like I lost a parent, or a loved one, or even a close friend. It felt like I’d lost what could have been.
Sorrow, relief and guilt are just a few emotions that may come up when your estranged parent dies.
Normal bereavement and major depression share many of the same symptoms. And because of those similarities, psychiatrists have historically carved out what is known as a "bereavement exclusion." Its purpose was to reduce the likelihood that normal grief would be diagnosed as clinical depression.
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I believe that social workers need to focus on that which we are trained to do: extend civic love and compassion to the client, staring where he or she is. We are not wed to the medical model; social work is ecological, psychosocial, and systems oriented.
Joanne Cacciatore of Sedona started the nonprofit MISS Foundation in 1996 to provide counseling, advocacy, research and education services to families who have endured the death of a child.
Part of being human means that we do experience the natural ebb and flow of life. This brings sadness and joy, despair and happiness, pain and beauty, loss and love. These aspects of the human experience are normal.
Most of you know her as Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, founder of the MISS Foundation and professor and researcher at Arizona State University. Her expertise is helping those affected by traumatic death.
Throughout his profound spiritual awakening, the great Tibetan yogi Shabkar experienced immense loss resulting in grief marked by raw pain, a sense of disorientation, sadness, and tears.
"But now we’re asked — and sometimes forced — to carry grief as a solitary burden. And the psyche knows we are not capable of handling grief in isolation." - Francis Weller
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Instead of the routine, "Your mother’s fine; we’re calling to inform you about…” this time the nurse said, “Your mother has stopped eating. - Sabina Nawaz