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  • April 8, 2010
    • Our next meeting
      Our next meeting
      Time: 6:30 am
      
      Bereavement Support Group for Parents of Children who have died from SIDS at 6:30 am

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Loosing a child to SIDS is a traumatic event. After nine months of waiting and expectation there is a chance to hold the baby. And then suddenly he or she is gone. Because humans are designed to be attached to one another and the parental bond - if all goes well - can be so strong, to have it broken is often described as a physiological pain.

Trauma experienced in adulthood is different than that experienced earlier. One of the most insidious symptoms of a traumatic event that happened in adulthood is isolation. The person who survives finds a lack of enthusiasm for the things that were formerly compelling including spending time with loved ones. Slowly life looses its meaning, purpose, and joy. As that happens, there is less and less motivation to pursue those things that formerly were fulfilling. While this may look like classic depression, for example, an inability to get out of bed in the morning, it can look like something else as well.

Anger is one place people tend to get stuck. It is sometimes expressed as irritability, sarcasm, or cynicism. It can be directed at workplace situations, distant relatives as well as those people closest to them. Because for many people it feels more energized or empowering to be angry at someone or something – it is compelling to be actively angry, to throw things, curse, stomp. Underlying the anger maybe some sadness and that can be hard to tolerate as it is a much more passive experience. And while it may feel empowering to be angry all the time, it contributes to the isolation by pushing those nearby away.

Everyone grieves differently. It can be jarring for a couple who has endured the same event to experience grief in vastly different ways. If one partner is angry all the time, the other may feel less supported and perplexed by the seeming lack of togetherness.

People do not necessarily grieve within any particular timeframe. For a spouse who has moved through their grief, there may a sense of leaving the other behind, and the converse maybe felt by the other partner, a sense of being left alone with the grief. Oftentimes earlier losses are kicked-up by those in the present day. The only way to the other side of difficult emotions is through.

One way to get through these emotions is to share them in a group setting.

Please join us on the second Monday of the month,

Jennifer

Losing a child is not in the natural order of things, parents are not supposed to out-live their offspring.  Mourning the loss of a child, and especially the loss of an infant, is a relatively uncommon challenge.  Many people experience this kind of bereavement as a journey.  While everyone grieves differently and for varying lengths of time - on a trip through this seemingly uncharted terrain, there are some landmarks.  John Bowlby, the “father” of attachment theory has some observations made from years of observations with families who have experienced a loss.  In A Secure Base (1988) he writes:

“Not only does mourning in mentally healthy adults last far longer than the six months often suggested in those days (the 1950’s), but several component responses widely regarded as pathological were found to be common in healthy mourning.  These include anger, directed at third parties, the self, and sometimes at the person lost, disbelief that the loss has occurred (misleadingly termed denial), and a tendency, often though not always unconscious, to search for the lost person in the hope of reunion.”

In another book, Attachment and Loss, he notes that there are four phases to the sadness that can accompany a loss:

1. Numbing,
2. Yearning/searching,
3. Disorganization and despair,
4. Reorganization.

If you are having some or all of the feelings that Bowlby describes - you are not alone.  Some people feel a need for solitude, quiet reflection, meditation balanced with support from others while processing them.

There is no wrong way to mourn.  However, grief is less likely to be “reorganized” if the feelings are avoided - if the trip is not taken.  It can be an isolating experience when well meaning family and friends who have not gone through a similar experience, offer their support which misses the mark. As facilitator of the group, I hope you will consider joining the SIDS Bereavement Support Group at Greenwich House - however far along you are along the journey.  People who attend support groups oftentimes report finding it helpful to have a broad survey of the lay of the land and some of their feelings previously thought to be unique, shared by others who are going through or who have been through similar territory.  My philosophy in running the group is to allow it to become a compass that helps its members to reorient themselves on the map.

Our next meeting will be Monday, April 12, 2010 at 6:30pm at Greenwich House, 27 Barrow Street in the 2nd floor conference room.  Please join us for group support, information, and guidance.

If you have any questions about the group, please contact Jennifer A. Neely, LMSW by calling her at (212) 946-5052.

Here you will find information on the NYC SIDS Bereavement support group.  The group meets monthly in lower Manhatten.  In addition to group information, you will find Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Resources, Links, Suggested Books, and Articles.

• Supported By

  

  

• Useful Links

  • A Caring Hand, The Billy Esposito Bereavement Center
  • CJ Foundation for SIDS
  • First Candle
  • Greenwich House
  • Jennifer A. Neely, LMSW
  • SIDS Network
  • SIDS Resource Center
  • The March of Dimes
  • Village Parenting and Counseling

• SIDS Books