Most readers already know this, but to officially update everyone, following my previous post on dealing with difficult times, it is with deep sadness that I inform you that my beloved mother passed away from acute respiratory failure, sepsis and pneumonia at the end of June.
The unusual thing to me is that I found it somewhat easy to give the doctor’s the go-ahead to take my mother off all life-prolonging medication so she could pass on. But I suppose if you saw how much pain she was in you might have easily made the same decision. Sepsis is horrific and when it gets to your brain (as it did with my mother), the person you love is already gone. The woman who gave birth to me didn’t recognize me anymore and couldn’t communicate with me; she only felt suffering and pain. Her brain was lost to encephalopathy. So my brother and I said our goodbyes and let our mother go in peace and with dignity.
Shockingly that was the easy part.
The aftermath of our mother’s death has been pretty difficult. I mean how do you replace unconditional love from your mother? I’ve thought about getting a dog (this is what I did when my father passed away) and I’ve thought about going to therapy. But neither of them seems to have the desired effect that I am looking for. I always feel judged when I go to therapy and while I would love a dog right now, the responsibility of one seems overwhelming. What I’m looking for is peace of mind and for the world to make sense again. What I’m coming to realize is that the world will never be the same again – not for me and not for my brother. I have to adjust.
What heals me the most right now is just talking to my brother about how great our mom was. Because he understands just as much as I do that we were so loved by our mother. She lived her life with one purpose – her children. Every decision she made was for the benefit of her children. And what she would want most for us right now is to be happy and live a full life. She loved to live vicariously through her children and I’m sure this has not changed! As she said to me before she passed away, she’ll be watching from afar. And I’m sure she will!
And that’s the thing about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), only you know what’s best for you to heal. In fact, I don’t even like to acknowledge that PTSD is a disorder, because it’s not. It’s normal. People should be devastated after the death of a loved one, I don’t have a disorder, I have feelings. When my father died, I was put on antidepressants, which just made things worse. Grieving is a natural process and it has to be felt in order to move on, eventually.
PTSD is a deeply personal experience. What you experience will disturb your very soul, show you what hell looks like and then return you to a place where everyone else around you seems to handle life’s little tasks with complete ease, while you can’t even manage a trip to the market without a breakdown. That’s because your brain needs time to process what just happened and I like to think of PTSD as a transitional period, rather than a disorder. This transition can be a very beautiful experience when you’re ready for it. The moments before this transition happens will be your darkest moments and for some, they may never get out of their dark moments.
When you have PTSD, you feel alienated. You feel like no one can possibly understand what you are going through. While that may be true, in my experience, people really want to help. And when you open your heart to the people around you, you will be amazed at what can happen. This is when the beauty starts to come in, as you find a restored sense of humanity.
So how have I gotten through my transition? Well, for one, I find comfort in talking to my brother lately because we have the shared experience of having her as a mother and we shared the experience of her death. So that’s helped in the healing process, and the next step is to figure out how to get back to a functional life.
To accomplish my transition back into a normal/functional life, I took a page from my health coaching advice journal. When I counsel my clients in holistic nutrition, I give them one to two new things to incorporate or change in their daily routine/life. Because I’ve learned from experience that if you give people too much change, it is overwhelming and stressful.
So that is what I’m doing now. Every week I add one more piece of responsibility back into my life. When I tried to go back to work after my mom died, it was too much stress and I literally had a meltdown in my boss’s office! Obviously my boss understood and said she fully supports my decision to leave the company to focus on healing and recovering from such a traumatic event.
The last thing I’ve done to help my transition back into normal life is visualize what my future will look like in five years. Having hope gives your brain something else to focus on besides pain.
As time continues to march on, the sweet memories of my mother that currently make me cry will be slowly replaced with a big smile. Because time heals, if you let love back into your heart. Forget the bitterness, the anger and unfairness of the situation. How we heal from life’s difficult moments are what make us stronger, happier and more successful.
In the unfortunate circumstance that you find yourself or a friend dealing with the aftermath of death and/or PTSD, I hope the following tips can help:
R.I.P. Renae Minshall, you were the best mother anyone could have asked for. And as I say my final goodbye to you, please know that I will always cherish our memories together and your kindness. Your unconditional love for your children and your family was selfless and admirable. I am one of Earth’s grateful souls to know such a tremendous amount of love. You taught me how to love through your undying love. But now it’s time to let you go and as painful and scary as that is, you also taught me to be strong. Thank you for giving me life and thank you for showing me how beautiful life can be. I love you and I always will.
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The unusual thing to me is that I found it somewhat easy to give the doctor’s the go-ahead to take my mother off all life-prolonging medication so she could pass on. But I suppose if you saw how much pain she was in you might have easily made the same decision. Sepsis is horrific and when it gets to your brain (as it did with my mother), the person you love is already gone. The woman who gave birth to me didn’t recognize me anymore and couldn’t communicate with me; she only felt suffering and pain. Her brain was lost to encephalopathy. So my brother and I said our goodbyes and let our mother go in peace and with dignity.
Shockingly that was the easy part.
The aftermath of our mother’s death has been pretty difficult. I mean how do you replace unconditional love from your mother? I’ve thought about getting a dog (this is what I did when my father passed away) and I’ve thought about going to therapy. But neither of them seems to have the desired effect that I am looking for. I always feel judged when I go to therapy and while I would love a dog right now, the responsibility of one seems overwhelming. What I’m looking for is peace of mind and for the world to make sense again. What I’m coming to realize is that the world will never be the same again – not for me and not for my brother. I have to adjust.
What heals me the most right now is just talking to my brother about how great our mom was. Because he understands just as much as I do that we were so loved by our mother. She lived her life with one purpose – her children. Every decision she made was for the benefit of her children. And what she would want most for us right now is to be happy and live a full life. She loved to live vicariously through her children and I’m sure this has not changed! As she said to me before she passed away, she’ll be watching from afar. And I’m sure she will!
And that’s the thing about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), only you know what’s best for you to heal. In fact, I don’t even like to acknowledge that PTSD is a disorder, because it’s not. It’s normal. People should be devastated after the death of a loved one, I don’t have a disorder, I have feelings. When my father died, I was put on antidepressants, which just made things worse. Grieving is a natural process and it has to be felt in order to move on, eventually.
PTSD is a deeply personal experience. What you experience will disturb your very soul, show you what hell looks like and then return you to a place where everyone else around you seems to handle life’s little tasks with complete ease, while you can’t even manage a trip to the market without a breakdown. That’s because your brain needs time to process what just happened and I like to think of PTSD as a transitional period, rather than a disorder. This transition can be a very beautiful experience when you’re ready for it. The moments before this transition happens will be your darkest moments and for some, they may never get out of their dark moments.
When you have PTSD, you feel alienated. You feel like no one can possibly understand what you are going through. While that may be true, in my experience, people really want to help. And when you open your heart to the people around you, you will be amazed at what can happen. This is when the beauty starts to come in, as you find a restored sense of humanity.
So how have I gotten through my transition? Well, for one, I find comfort in talking to my brother lately because we have the shared experience of having her as a mother and we shared the experience of her death. So that’s helped in the healing process, and the next step is to figure out how to get back to a functional life.
To accomplish my transition back into a normal/functional life, I took a page from my health coaching advice journal. When I counsel my clients in holistic nutrition, I give them one to two new things to incorporate or change in their daily routine/life. Because I’ve learned from experience that if you give people too much change, it is overwhelming and stressful.
So that is what I’m doing now. Every week I add one more piece of responsibility back into my life. When I tried to go back to work after my mom died, it was too much stress and I literally had a meltdown in my boss’s office! Obviously my boss understood and said she fully supports my decision to leave the company to focus on healing and recovering from such a traumatic event.
The last thing I’ve done to help my transition back into normal life is visualize what my future will look like in five years. Having hope gives your brain something else to focus on besides pain.
As time continues to march on, the sweet memories of my mother that currently make me cry will be slowly replaced with a big smile. Because time heals, if you let love back into your heart. Forget the bitterness, the anger and unfairness of the situation. How we heal from life’s difficult moments are what make us stronger, happier and more successful.
In the unfortunate circumstance that you find yourself or a friend dealing with the aftermath of death and/or PTSD, I hope the following tips can help:
- Find comfort in someone or a group that shares a similar experience of what lead to your PTSD. It can be very healing to talk about what happened and/or share the memories you have for a loved one who passed. It helps the heart realize that the sweet memories you have for your loved one won’t fade. If it helps keep a journal and write to them.
- Understand there will be good days and there will be bad days for a while. Feeling/getting better doesn’t just happen one day. It takes time. You’ll have a great day and think that everything is all right again, but tomorrow knocks you down again. Its okay. Have your day, dust yourself off, and try again tomorrow.
- Take your fish oil and get some good ‘ol sunshine! Getting enough omega-3’s will help feed your brain and can even lift the fog of depression. It also helps to get outside and get back in touch with nature. Go on a hike, go camping, even if you just go on a walk around your block, the fresh air and exercise will help clear your head.
- Avoid excessive alcohol because it is a depressant and can worsen PTSD symptoms. Also avoid excessive sugar (especially processed sugar) because it can cause further inflammation in your body, something the stress of PTSD has already put you at high risk for. I’ll talk more about chronic stress/inflammation in my next post.
- There should be no expectation that life will go back to the exact same way it used to be. Life has changed because this traumatic event has changed how you see the world. How you move on is what’s important.
- Let go. This is the hardest part. But you realize at some point, that you have to move on and the only way to do that is to let go of the past and start your new chapter in life.
R.I.P. Renae Minshall, you were the best mother anyone could have asked for. And as I say my final goodbye to you, please know that I will always cherish our memories together and your kindness. Your unconditional love for your children and your family was selfless and admirable. I am one of Earth’s grateful souls to know such a tremendous amount of love. You taught me how to love through your undying love. But now it’s time to let you go and as painful and scary as that is, you also taught me to be strong. Thank you for giving me life and thank you for showing me how beautiful life can be. I love you and I always will.
Related articles
- What Works for PTSD (23andme.com)
- Some soldiers confront reality where PTSD is part of their identity (pri.org)
- The War Within: PTSD (projecteve.com)
- Help for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (everydayhealth.com)