Grief, How Do You Deal With It

Chapter 7 The Support Group Meeting I felt like no one understood how I felt. No one could ever know this kind of pain. It was too much to handle. I wasn’t living. My heart was beating and I was breathing, but I wasn’t alive. I died with her and no one knew it.

Why wasn’t this medication helping? Isn’t this what it’s for? Why did I still feel like this?

This is hopeless. I can’t continue with no hope…

The phone rings…it’s the grief counselor from the hospital just calling to check on me.

Finally, someone who is willing to listen and isn’t uncomfortable when I talk! She is allowing me to open up to her and we are connecting. She invites me to a support group meeting that she holds weekly at the hospital. I tell her I will think about going.

I talk to my mom about it. She decides if I will go that she will go with me. This meeting changed my life! It gave me hope and it helped me realize that I wasn’t alone! There were others out there who knew and understood everything that I was experiencing. This meeting saved my marriage! It was here that I learned that men and women grieve differently. Society teaches men that they have to be the strong ones. That they can’t show emotions or they are sissies. Don’t cry no matter what because that is a form of weakness. Men internalize their emotions. They work them out in totally different ways.

Women…well, we have the gift of gab and talking is usually what we need. So, how do you do it if he needs to work things out and you need to talk? You go to a support group meeting so you can talk. Share your feelings and receive help from someone who has