By Lori Gottlieb — 2020
In the months before my father died, I asked him a version of that question: How will I live without you?
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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.
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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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.
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
The mismatch between the knowledge and the longing is perhaps the most anguishing of all human experiences.
Losing a parent is among the most emotionally difficult and universal of human experiences. Most people will experience the loss of their mother or father in their lifetime.
Delayed grief is sometimes triggered by an event later in life, experts say.
The five stages of coping with dying (DABDA), were first described by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her classic book, "On Death and Dying," in 1969.