Posted on 06/03/2005 6:34:39 PM PDT by blam
You could lay on the couch a while.
I believe that short-term grief counseling can be worthwhile. When it gets to be prolonged, I think it's counter-productive.
I have the same view of counseling on the whole. If something can be worked out, it can be worked out in a short period, say six months or so. If it goes beyond this, then the psychologist becomes the crutch and a dependency develops.
Perhaps it's just my flawed opinion, but I do not think long-term therapy lasting years or even in excess of a decade is productive.
I am amazed at how many women think psychology is the highest calling. Men can generally take it or leave it.
Some of the most screwed up people I've known have been psychologists or conselors. Their own lives in a shambles, they strive to 'fix' other peoople's lives.
Generally, no thanks. I did benefit from short term counceling around the time of my divorce, but the major benefit was related to just having someone not involved in the family, to unload on. I wouldn't have wanted to be that guy. He was great BTW.
"this makes me so sad I don't know what to do"
Recently, Prozac overtook Zoloft in sales.
The people on Zoloft were sad at this development...
Then they were happy about it...
Then they were sad...
Then....
I think the people who like to talk might benefit from this if there is nobody else they can talk to - older people often have lost a lot of their relatives and friends already. Also, sometimes while you are working out something painful (whether death, divorce or other), your family and friends don't want to listen over and over and over but you can keep regurgitating your thoughts in a support group or to a counselor. Now, having said all that, there are numerous others who may not need to verbalize or they can verbalize minimally and they are just as happy. Everyone is individual in their needs and coping mechanisms. I'm verbal and my husband is not so we'd handle it in totally different ways.
Does anyone have any wisdom on how to cope with the hell that is my life now?
Never having lost a child I am not qualified to advise you but I am qualified to pray for you and your family and that's what I'll do.
I also think that there are an awful lot of people who would rather talk about their problems than actually take responsibility and fix them.
Psychoanalysts are couch potato farmers.
My brother died in January. I believe God's promises in Christ, enumerated in the Scriptures. I have hope in eternal life and that our family will once again be reunited - forever.
This is sooo true. I have a niece who has major issues and she wants to become a psychologist. Right now, psychology is the #1 major in colleges. All these kids are screwed up and are trying to figure out what's wrong with them. Regarding psychiatrists judging sanity, my dad always said "it takes one to know one." You ever notice how many times these "mental health professionals" give the psychos a clean slate and let them out only for them to do something crazy again? There are also numerous instances of people being kept in mental institutions while nothing was wrong with them. And we could spend a long time on all the prescribing done to people, mostly women, because they don't want to get to the bottom of the problem. Example, I have a friend whose husband is a lazybones. He's had 11 or 12 jobs in their 14 years of marriage. He doesn't help her around the house and does little of the traditional "guy" things either. He also doesn't help with the kids. They struggle financially because of his job problems. Meanwhile, she's depressed and is on anti-depressants. Why doesn't the shrink just tell her she's fine but to get ol' lazybutt to work and she'd perk right up. That's why these people ANNOY me. They never look at the CAUSE - they just put a band-aid on the symptoms.
All I can say is, watching them cope with life, find new hope and go on, has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. I admire them deeply for everything they have faced and survived. The experience has taught me more about what is truly important and inherently good about this world than I could ever imagine.
I will pray for you. And for courage.
I have no wisdom. My heart aches for you. I would think that the loss of a child leaves a place in a parent that can't be filled. I am so sorry for your terrible loss.
Every time I head that some drunken teenager has beheaded himself in a terribly tragic auto accident, and that his high school has released a hoarde of grief counselors into the hallways to help students, I wonder how we coped back in the 1960s without grief counselors?
Ah well, another unscientific Freudian falsehood debunked.
Believe me, it does but you learn to deal with it. I am so thankful that after Jan died, I had so many people on this site praying for us. I have had so many dreams about her since that awful 1/15/04 date. One that I have really wondered about is that I dreamed that we were all together and she kept telling everyone that her name had been changed. Anyone have any ideas? Yesterday was her birthday and it was hard but we made it through it. We just take one day at a time.
God bless you and may the Lord keep your daughter close.
My brother died in February, but that is a whole 'nuther thing from losing a child. I can only pray that God will do for you what needs to be done day by day.
I think our Creator devised time in just that manner so events of life would be somehow easier to bear. A life truly is lived moment by moment - good or bad - but never indifferent.
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