Monthly Archives: September 2023

Accessibility + Dis/ability, anxiety, grieving, mental illness

How to Be Gentle with Yourself

Twice in the last week I’ve told someone I hope they can be gentle* with themselves. They are both dealing with tough situations beyond their control—one’s mother is slowly dying and they are experiencing the heartbreak of anticipatory grief; the other has significant health challenges and just had a second bout with COVID.

It’s easy for me to identify situations where others should be gentle with themselves. It’s a bit more challenging to figure out when I need to be gentle with myself, but it’s something I’ve been working on and getting better at.

I’ve been struggling with a round of depression and anxiety for about a month now, sleeping much more than usual, feeling constantly fatigued and drained. There are days where I get nothing done beyond walking and feeding the dogs and myself and working out (I learned long ago that working out is a basic daily need for me and I almost never skip it, although I do sometimes allow myself to work out for just a few minutes—see #1 below).

For the first week that I felt crappy, I told myself I was wasting my life. I told myself I couldn’t have dessert or a glass of wine with dinner unless I accomplished certain items on my to do list. I told a friend I was being a loser. I asked myself repeatedly, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror with the derisive, dismissive, contemptuous air of a teenager.

None of this made my depression and anxiety easier to cope with. It did not motivate me to stop sleeping so much or to fly into action, completing tasks on my to do list. It just made a difficult situation worse.

I wish I could tell you that when I stopped being mean to myself, my depression and anxiety magically disappeared. Alas, that is not the case. But when I stopped being mean to myself, I was dealing only with depression and anxiety rather than depression and anxiety and the cruel torment of a bully. Taking away the bullying made the depression and anxiety relatively easier to bare.

Want to be gentler to yourself? Here’s what I do:

  1. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Working out for 5 minutes is better than not working out at all. I’ve been chipping away at writing projects in 15-minute increments, and while I’d like to be putting in more time, I’m not able to right now.

2. When I catch myself saying something to myself that I would never say to another person, like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I take a step back and apologize. I remind myself that I am a kind person and that I am kind to everyone. Even myself.

3. Refrain from bad-mouthing myself to others. My form of self-deprecating humor can get a little out of hand sometimes and I’m trying to reign it in. When I am about to tell a friend I’m a lazy ass, I remind myself I am depressed.

4. Continue allowing myself dessert, wine, and other treats rather than making them contingent of achievements. Everyone deserves pleasure in their life.

5. Remind myself that depression and anxiety are illnesses, and just as I would cut myself slack about sleeping a lot if I had the flu, allow myself to act like a sick person.

6. Accept what is possible under the current conditions. Although I’ve gotten by with 7.5-8 hours of sleep a night for many years, lately I seem to want more like 10 hours of sleep. It’s very inconvenient. I can’t possibly get done what I normally get done with two hours a day less to do things. This is where guideline #1 really comes in handy. And it turns out that a lot of things I normally do in a day don’t need to happen or don’t need to happen every day. What does need to happen every day is me taking care of myself.

7. Hold space for myself to be depressed or anxious. That means no fixing.

Being depressed and anxious still sucks, but at least now I know I have my own back. I don’t look in the mirror with self-loathing—instead, I look with compassion, as I would for anyone else on the planet.

*I no longer tell people to be strong. I think being gentle is both more difficult and more effective.

grieving

Grieving Milestones + Timelines

Grief experts and folks in the widowed community say over and over again that there is no timeline and that each person’s grief experience is different. That was proven to be very true to me in the past couple of weeks, as I interacted with several widowed people and found that each of us is hitting milestones at vastly different times. Even what each of us considers to be a milestone differs widely.

One person has been widowed for nearly a decade but was able to readily find photos on their phone to show me of their late partner. We talked at length about our marriages and the lives we shared with our deceased partners. This person spoke about their late partner in the present tense, as I do. I suspect people who met me after Tom died wonder who “Tom” is and whether he’s alive or dead, given that I talk about him all the time, sometimes in past tense and sometimes in present tense. To me, he is past but also still present.

I am over two years out and I’m still holding on to many of my late husband’s clothing items, but another widowed person who is less than a year out had a donation opportunity come up and donated all of their person’s clothing. Another widowed friend is nearly a decade out and just now going through their partner’s stuff. Did one of us do it wrong? No.

One widowed person I know hosted a social gathering less than a month after their person died. I used to love hosting parties and dinners, but I’ve only hosted one event since Tom died. It went well, and yet, I can’t quite bring myself to host another one. Maybe I am not a person who hosts events anymore . . . but maybe I am. For me, it’s too soon to tell.

Another interesting difference is about dating. I know more than one widowed person who remarried within a year or two of their partner’s death. Others aren’t able to consider dating for several years, and of course, some never do date. I am dating, but my husband is a tough act to follow, as a couple of people I’ve gone out with have observed.

In my pre-widow days, I thought one or two years was about how long it should take to “move on,” but when I ask myself now what did I mean back then when I thought of “moving on,” I am stymied. I didn’t know what widowed people experienced, so how could I possibly know how long it might take? I knew that historically, widows wore black for one year, so I imagine that’s where the one year marker came from.

The pre-widow me would be astonished that I am still crying myself to sleep some nights (not as many now as a year ago), that I still say good night every night to my dead husband, and that I still take a vial of Tom with me whenever I travel somewhere new to leave some of him there. My pre-widowed self thought all that happened in a flurry of activity soon after the death. My widowed self wasn’t capable of any flurries of activity for many months.

Every widowed person has their own timeline. Every widow I’ve described here is “normal” in their trajectory.

I’m 27 months out, and I’ve accomplished some important-for-me milestones since my husband died:

  • I’ve traveled alone (about 9 months after he died)
  • I’ve enjoyed traveling without him, sort of, in that I’ve been able to take pleasure in being where I am without thinking constantly about how much Tom would enjoy it (two years after he died)
  • I’ve made new friends since he died, people who never knew me when I was “Tom’s wife” (about a year after he died)

And yet, I still feel like grief is very active for me. For example, a few days ago, completely unbidden, a wave of grief hit me while I was walking one of the dogs. By the time I got home, I was bawling and breathless. It was a rare-for-me wave of angry grief. I wanted to argue with Tom, point out to him the dysfunctions in our relationship, the things he was wrong about, but with him not around to give my wrath a target, it turned inward and I was left just breathless and sad.

I remember being that angry after my mom died when I was 12—almost 13, and as many people told me at the time, old enough that I needed to take care of my younger sister and my father. Well, I was completely unequipped to take care of myself, let alone another child and an adult, so I floundered horribly. I remember vacillating between pride in how well I was “taking care of them” (to his credit, my father never suggested I put less onion in the tuna sandwiches I sent for his lunches, although I am scandalized now to think perhaps he didn’t date for a long time because of them) and blind fury that my mother had left us to fend for ourselves.

That anger festered for decades. The anger I feel now comes in a wave, white hot and astonishing, but now I can name it and once I do, it immediately softens. “Hello, Anger, I see you,” I say. “I know you. It’s ok. I know you’re helplessness in disguise. You’re vulnerability, you’re fear. It’s ok. You’re welcome here.” And then my anger stretches out like a dog, yawning and almost smiling, shakes itself vigorously, and I pet its soft lamby ears. We are friends now.

The grief is active, but I’m not afraid of it anymore. That’s another big milestone.

grieving, life skills, normalizing what should be normal

How + Why to Hold Space

The loved one I mentioned last week who was dying passed away and their memorial celebration was over the weekend. It was gut wrenching to see another person go through the experience of being widowed. The death was expected but as I’ve said before, that doesn’t make it any easier for those left behind. My loved one’s widow had the same shocked, glazed look I probably had after my husband died.

Experiencing the death of another loved one and witnessing his wife become a widow has brought on fresh waves of grief for my husband. At the memorial event, for example, I felt like I knew exactly what my husband would do and say—I could nearly hear him and see him. I swear I felt his arm around me and his voice in my ear. Sometimes I miss my husband so much I think I can’t stand it. I think I will just explode or dissolve right there.

I’m still having mood swings, feeling exhausted, and being on the verge of tears around the clock. Some nights I feel like I slept hard but I’m exhausted all day. Other nights I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.

I know all this will pass and that it is normal.

At the memorial event, I talked to other grievers and learned about how they had shown up for my loved one while he was dying or how they had supported his wife. One person sent a photo every morning of a beautiful nature scene or awe-inspiring animal from their morning walk. Another made arrangements to show up after my loved one had died with groceries to make a fresh cooked meal for his widow and sit in quiet company.

Someone at the gathering who knew I’d been widowed fairly recently asked very directly, “Is being here hard for you?” I so appreciated the elephant in the room being addressed explicitly. It was hard for me and I was relieved to have someone acknowledge that and invite me to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I was grateful for the invitation.

I have seen so many people hold space for me, my loved one, his widow, and others experiencing grief in the last two weeks.

If you’re not familiar with the term “holding space,” it may sound like psycho-babble, but it simply means listening and offering support without judgment, without trying to fix the problem or situation. I don’t think it’s something that necessarily comes naturally or easily to a lot of us. I know I often find myself trying to fix things, so when someone says they are tired, my automatic response is to start trying to identify what is keeping them from sleeping better. That is not holding space.

Holding space in the example of someone who says they are very tired might be expressing sympathy by saying something like, “I’m sorry to hear you aren’t feeling rested,” and then perhaps remaining quiet for a beat or two to allow them to say more about how they feel or what they need.

Remaining quiet for a beat or two is something I’m working on building into my conversational skills. I grew up on the East coast where conversation tends to be fast paced and people often speak over each other. Overlapping voices, regular backchannel affirmations (like “mmm” and “uh huh”), and spirited interjections are all hallmarks of East coasters’ conversations, and when there’s a pause, everyone gets uncomfortable and rushes to fill the silence. I’ve had to work hard to become comfortable with silence and learn other conversational strategies.

A beat for me translates to a complete breath—breath in, breath out—at a normal pace. After someone speaks, I take a complete breath before speaking myself. If I’m holding space, often the person I’m holding space for speaks again while I’m taking my breath. If they don’t, I usually follow up with a neutral response to what they said—something like, “That sounds like a lot” or “I’m sorry to hear that.” Any response that sounds like it ends with an exclamation point is not neutral. “Oh my god!” or anything like it is not holding space.

Then I might ask a question about how they feel or what they need. “What would you like from me?” is a question I like to ask. Sometimes people don’t know what they want, so I might make some suggestions. “I can sit here with you quietly, if you’d like” or “I’m happy to listen if you want to talk” are two suggestions I make often.

Questions that begin with “have you tried . . .” are geared toward fixing and are not holding space. No matter how pure your intentions are, fixing is just not holding space. Fixing is fixing. Fixing is fine but it ain’t holding space!

Holding space is essentially about slowing down an interaction. Instead of rapid-fire questions and answers, think of a leisurely unfolding. It acknowledges the pain or confusion or other difficult emotions a person is feeling without minimizing them or rushing to get rid of them (which is what fixing does). And it normalizes those difficult emotions.

The tricky part is that the situations in which we need to hold space are the same ones that feel stressful to us. When we feel stressed out, are brains can go into fight or flight mode, which often produces a feeling of urgency in us. Urgency equates to speed in our lizard brains and we may want to speed up these conversations.

That’s why I make myself take a breath. It helps me slow down the interaction and a deep breath also signals to my brain that I’m safe and it can relax.  

caregiving, grieving

How to Be with a Dying Person

Because we don’t tend to talk about death and dying in our culture, most people are afraid to be with a dying person, unsure of what to do or what to talk about.

I was with my husband when he died. During the two days between him not waking up after surgery and discontinuing life support, I was with him for 12 hours a day. COVID restrictions at the time limited guests to two at a time and no one was allowed to spend the night. Sitting with a dying person for 12 hours may sound grueling, but I found that I became so absorbed in the present that the time flowed.

More recently, a loved one made the decision to begin receiving hospice care, which means they are no longer receiving medical intervention for infections and conditions and only taking medicine for pain. Typically when a person begins receiving hospice care, it means they are ready to die, but it may take months or longer for that to happen. In the case of my loved one, they are progressing quickly toward death.

I have spent the last few evenings with my loved one and their partner.

My thoughts on how to be with a dying person are shaped by these two experiences and also my own near-death experience after I had a stroke in 1997.

Here’s my advice:

If they are able to talk, they may be hard to understand. Be patient. There is no urgency. Give them time to stumble over their words. Follow their lead about what to talk about. They may want to talk about dying or the weather or their mother or something else. Whatever they want to talk about is ok. You don’t have to try to steer them toward or away from certain topics.

If they are responsive but not able to talk, you can hold their hand. You can talk to them about memories, you can read to them, or you can be quiet. Sometimes sitting in silence with someone is more comforting and profound than filling the space with words.

It’s ok to bring a book or play a game on your phone. You might scroll through pictures on your phone and show them to your loved one, if their eyes are open, or describe the photos to them if their eyes are closed. When my husband was dying, I chanted his favorite Buddhist chant.

If they are not responsive, talk to them. The point isn’t to wake them up but to help them understand what is happening around them. I don’t know what a person who is dying and appears to be sleeping understands, but I choose to believe that they can hear us talking and feel us holding their hand or touching them gently.

When I enter the room of a dying person, I announce my arrival to the person and give a description of what I’m doing. I might say, “Hi, Loved One. It’s Liz. I’m here to say hello and tell you I love you. I’m going to sit down on your right and hold your hand.” I also announce when I’m leaving.

When I visited my loved one today, I noticed several vases of beautiful flowers in the room that others had brought. I described them in detail to my loved one so they could picture them if they wanted to. I told my loved one how good it was to see them looking peaceful.

When I was in a drug-induced coma after my stroke, I did hear people’s voices. I don’t know if I captured everything that was said around me, but I was certainly aware of who was in the room with me and the broad strokes of the conversation.

It’s ok to cry. It’s ok to not cry.

You don’t need to entertain them, but it’s ok to laugh. Death may feel like serious business, but I think my husband enjoyed hearing his loved ones laughing around him as he died.

If the person is at home, it can be nice to bring some food for their family, if they live with others. At my loved one’s home, people have brought cheese and crackers, brownies, fruit, salad, and other easy-to-eat food, along with many bottles of wine.

Take care of yourself: take breaks, stay hydrated. I have had to set alarms to remind myself to go for a walk, have a drink, and eat a snack every few hours.  

It can be exhausting emotionally, which may leave you feeling tired, irritable, or disoriented. You may feel calm when with the person and then weepy and anxious later. Or vice versa. I find that I feel completely calm and open while with a dying person and then I’m very anxious and sad after. The anxious sadness can last for days.

It can help to remind yourself that being with a dying person is an honor that not many people get to experience.