“Call It Deep Grief”

Dear Nicholas, I’ve learned that sadness and loss can make a person temporarily “stupid.” Not just for hours but for much longer. I thought I was the only one and that I was being weird to react this way. This time I have discovered that “stupid”  happens to lots of people who are mourning. I’ve called the mistakes I’ve made in this time “incompetence.” My retired psychologist husband, Bob Dick, suggested that instead I call them deep grief.

It does feel better to think of this experience as deep grief.

A Curious Reaction

A few weeks ago a dear friend of forty-plus years, Laurel Goldman, died. It was not a surprise. She had been sick for a long time.

But it is a big, big loss.

I immediately began making lots of mistakes, the kind that can be high-impact, dangerous and expensive.

Two Examples

I lost my phone in a grocery store parking lot. It was in my lap when I got out of the car and I didn’t notice it clunking to the pavement. I was lucky; someone found it and turned it in.

Much scarier, I decided to tidy up ailing husband Bob’s bottles of medication. The next day, I discovered I had poured into one container two different dosages of one prescription and another entirely different kind, all of which were small and white.  If I hadn’t figured out the problem and sorted them, he would have missed important meds.  I was shaken by what I’d done. (His health is also playing a big part in my current state of mind or no-mind.)

Not The First Time

A few days after my father, Harry Payne, died many years ago, I drove my car over a small wall. It was in a parking lot and I thought it was a speed bump. The car got halfway over and stopped, like a beached ship, had to be hoisted off the wall by a rescue truck. It was my third big screw-up of that day.

Not Just Me

This time, I complained to friends. Novelist Angela Davis-Gardner told me she’d heard that grief can “make people stupid.” Psychologist Joe Burgo said, “It makes sense. It’s dissociation.”

Madame Google pointed out with lots of websites that lots of people react this way, that it’s essentially disconnecting from the present painful moment.

Okay, now I understand. And I want it to stop before someone gets hurt.

Three Tactics

“The Savvy Psychologist” Jade Wu suggests three kinds of activity that can help.

1. concentrate on the breath (Bob feels strongly that this helps with almost everything)

2. focus on a sensory experience in the moment, a sight, smell, sensation…

3. keep a small object handy that’s a reminder to stay in the present

What Didn’t Work

I had tried repeating in my mind the word “mindful”, like a mantra. Zoned me out even more. Won’t do that again.

And Now…

I mean to try out Number Two: telling myself what I’m seeing or hearing in the moment. Being zoned out no doubt feels better than sharp pain. But it likely just delays grief. Also I don’t want to drive into any more walls.

Peggy

 

 

 

 

 

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Tags: Angela Davis-Gardner, Bob Dick, disconnecting from the present, dissociation, grief can make people stupid, jade wu, Joe Burgo, making lots of mistakes, people who are mourning, reminder to stay in the present, sadness and loss, savvy psychologist