Below, I take some of the notes I jotted down from Option B and compare them against my own recent experience.
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Three "P's" stunt recovery from setbacks: personalization, pervasiveness, and permanence. This is not my fault, this will not last forever, and this does not need to affect all aspects of my life.TOA: I thought compartmentalization as a response to the ‘pervasiveness’ concept was a very useful short-term approach. In the weeks after my mom died, I went to work, hung out with friends, and just went through my basic routine almost entirely separated from how I was feeling. It was effective in the sense of preserving my ability to get on with needed things.
After some time, I noticed the strategy’s effectiveness wearing off. I was present in my life but not really there. Most of my life’s (few) successes started with fusing the otherwise separated aspects of my knowledge, experience, or understanding together. If I wanted to recover from this setback, I needed to bring my full self with me at all times instead of changing uniforms every time I transitioned from one part of my day to the next.
I’m not sure this is true of everyone but I suspect most people feel better when they are able to be themselves all the time. When you numb the pain, you numb the joy, too.
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Bereavement support often pays off in the long-term for companies through better loyalty and a faster return to regular performance.TOA: This feels about right. My boss treated me very well in the months following my loss and I thought the four months before I got laid off were easily the most productive of my tenure.
I think the real challenge for most companies is learning to think long-term rather than improving their bereavement support.
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It is pretty common for people to avoid asking about difficult topics. Often, this comes from poorly executing on good intent. So, don't take it personally if some people want to talk about helmet football the next time you see them.
Since addressing the elephant in the room seems an unnatural skill, practice! Carry extra bags of peanuts around if you must...TOA: What I noticed as life slowly returned to normal was not how others failed to address the elephant in my room but how often I'd failed to address the elephants in theirs. Why should I expect others to succeed where all I have ever done is fail?
I’m reminded of a quote I recently took down: 'be who you needed when you were younger'.
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Many survivors of trauma or those still suffering are willing to talk about their experiences and try to teach others about what they've learned.
Nostalgia is a painful emotion yet many find their moods elevated after experiencing it.
Death sometimes has a funny way of erasing the past. The widowed are rarely asked how they met their deceased spouses, for example.TOA: I thought these three went together. The expression ‘moving on’ implies a forward-looking mentality but perhaps risks losing sight of the past we wish to hang onto. Perhaps ‘climbing up’ works better, symbolically speaking, because climbing acknowledges the foundations built by what came before.
I’m reminded of how I responded to questions about how I was doing when my mom was sick. I used to tell people I was doing fine. This was not always true but I did believe it was the best answer whenever I said so. In order to conceal my lie, I usually said this with an extra smile and some mustered up good cheer.
The strange thing was, the more I said it, the more I believed it. As I came to believe it, I started to actually feel better. It would be like announcing 'I'm rich!' and suddenly remembering where I left the twenty bucks I'd lost the night before.
After people stopped asking me how I was doing, I made fewer such lies. After my mom died, I also was more open about how I actually felt. The combination meant I said I was feeling better very infrequently (unless it was true). It was strange to miss my small little lies but the less often I said I was feeling better, the less often I actually felt better.
There is probably no way to avoid dealing with reality at some point. But I do think it is OK to occasionally try and convince others you are doing fine. This is perhaps like the nostalgia effect cited above in the way people feel better after acknowledging a painful emotion (even if by lying about it).
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People often offer 'to do anything' or 'just talk' but it is often more helpful to simply do or say something to show your understanding. To ask if there is anything possible to do is a tricky question for many suffering to respond to.TOA: This is the flip side to the above two comments. The ‘do anything’ offer is very generous but from my experience felt like too much to ask of anyone. The thing I needed after my mom died was some help figuring out how to get to and from a wedding I'd basically forgotten about. Were those who offered to do anything able to help? Maybe they were, or not, but I wasn't giving anyone a chance to let me down.
There are probably people in everyone’s life who could offer to ‘do anything’ and get taken up on it. I suspect for most people this is a very, very small circle. I do not remember exactly how it played out for me but I eventually drove my dad's car to the hotel room my brother helped me get for free. I suppose these two fine gentlemen offered to 'do anything' and I responded...
It is probably better to ask altered versions of regular questions. Instead of asking ‘how are you?’, ask ‘how are you doing today?’ just to acknowledge another’s current emotional situation.
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To help someone feeling lonely or isolated in a difficult situation, simply acknowledge your inability to know the future but provide assurances of your presence along the entire way.TOA: There are an endless number of ways to foster connection and I’m sure this is as good as any. However, though this reads well in print I admit it did not work so well on me.
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Lacking in self-confidence leads to risk aversion, a focus on flaws, and a general malaise or hesitancy to take new opportunities. Trauma often leads to self-doubt in many areas unrelated to the incident.TOA: This was definitely the most surprising thing for me. For a long time, I thought phone calls from unknown numbers were hospitals bearing bad news. I remember going on a trip and knowing I was going to miss the flight, not get picked up, get food poisoning, etc. When I lost my job, it took about five months just to start looking for another one because I was convinced I was never going to get hired by anyone worthwhile (I suppose I might be right about this, but still).
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Once a situation becomes unchangeable, the remaining option is to change ourselves.TOA: Clever but useless (editor's note: just like this blog). I’d rather see people give up less easily. But in the question of dealing with loss in the most direct way, I suppose the alternatives are very limited.
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Joy is an act of defiance against the negative pull of tragedy. Meaning without joy is still a depressing life.
Happiness is frequency, not intensity, of positive experiences. Always do the small things that bring you joy.TOA: I like this pair because in hindsight I did not really seek out joy yet understand now how it could have helped. I think I made life harder than it needed to be for about a year and a half as a result.
Joy doesn't have to be complicated. It can be watching soccer, ordering takeout food, or kicking an acorn towards a squirrel. It can be starting a tiny little blog to write about watching soccer, ordering takeout food, or kicking an acorn towards a squirrel.
Forget size or quality when it comes to joy. The more frequent, the better.
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Children with four core beliefs tend to bounce back from difficulties. These are a sense of control, the ability to learn from failure, a sense of importance as a human being, and an understanding of their own strengths.TOA: I sometimes wonder if the line between children and adults is too firmly drawn. A lot of ‘adult learning’ is really just undoing the defense mechanisms and scar tissues concealing the child within.
Each of these 'core beliefs' is vital in recovery, from anything, and the universal truth applies to people of any age dealing with setbacks of any kind.
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Writing is a good way to deal with things…TOA: Thanks for reading today.
