http://www.care2.com/greenliving/prolonged-grief-nine-symptoms.html
Prolonged Grief? Nine Symptoms
by Paula Spencer, Caring.com
Say it’s been two years since your father died and your mom still won’t socialize or quit talking about wanting to join him. Or you can’t shake a sense of meaninglessness to your life as the anniversary approaches of the death of someone close to you. Sounds like prolonged grief disorder, psychiatrists might say.
Prolonged grief disorder (PGD)–previously called complicated grief–may soon be a recognized mental disorder. Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston developed and tested standard criteria for identifying the condition, based on the input of a team of experts in bereavement and mood/anxiety disorders. That’s a major hurdle on the way to inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMV-5), the psychiatric care bible for diagnosing problems. The research was done with widows and widowers but is thought to be applicable to the general population.
None of this is to say that grieving is unhealthy or unnatural. To the contrary: Mourning is a necessary process that also happens to be hard and horrible, and takes many different shapes, depending on the individuals and their relationship. But with prolonged grief disorder, the grief reaction is so prolonged and causes such psychological distress as to create substantial disability. Laypeople tend to say someone is “paralyzed with grief” or “unable to move on.”
Wait, you may be thinking. Is this just medicalizing grief? The psychiatrists make a persuasive case that the answer is no. For one thing, along with poorer quality of life, the health risks associated with prolonged grief disorder include increased rates of suicide, cancer, immunological dysfunction, hypertension, heart problems, and other adverse health behaviors.
And the good news: Talk therapy geared to this prolonged grief can successfully treat it. (Not a new “instant-fix” pill.) Not to make the griever “get over” the loved one, but to allow him or her to be able to cope with the loss in functional, healthful ways. That’s why diagnosis is so important. It can steer those in need to the right kind of support.
What to Watch Out For
Warning signs of prolonged grief disorder include yearning to be reunited to the extent that it causes physical or emotional suffering, as well as at least five of the nine following symptoms still being experienced six or more months after the loss:
- Emotional numbness
- A stunned, dazed, or shocked feeling
- A feeling that life is meaningless
- Bitterness or anger over the loss
- Mistrust of others
- Difficulty accepting the loss
- Avoidance of reminders of the deceased
- Difficulty moving on with life
- A feeling that part of oneself has died
Some people don’t begin to have symptoms until six months after the loss; they have higher incidence of thinking about suicide and lower quality of life. Others experience acute symptoms immediately that continue for a year or more; they also tend to experience major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety. People in both situations have a 10-times higher risk for a depressive disorder than those whose grief runs a more conventional course or who are treated.
Final Food for Thought
Is our current “way of death” contributing to an uptick in prolonged grief disorder? There’s no data (because this isn’t yet a recognized disorder). But that’s what Canadian doctor Stephen Workman theorizes in a related commentary in the journal Public Library of Science. He notes that the modern emphasis at the end of life on hope, survival, and high-tech “fighting” to prolong life, even in final-stage disease where the prognosis is clear, may leave families all the more unprepared for eventual death.
Workman writes: “I remember a middle-aged man whose father was dying; each day shorter of breath and one day closer to death. His son was continually requesting treatments his father did not want or need. “How long do you hope for your father to live?” I asked.
“I don’t ever want my father to die,” [the man said].
Therein lies a rough road.
Caring.com was created to help you care for your aging parents, grandparents, and other loved ones. As the leading destination for eldercare resources on the Internet, our mission is to give you the information and services you need to make better decisions, save time, and feel more supported. Caring.com provides the practical information, personal support, expert advice, and easy-to-use tools you need during this challenging time.
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24 comments
add your comment »I'm very sorry, Frank, for what you're going through. It must be as if someone else is living in your wife's body. We don't know for sure, though, how much people with dementia do understand, so please rest assured that your wife is still in there somewhere. Many blessings to you.
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What is it when you have someone dead and not dead? I mean spouse who cannot remember a word to ask for anything? I am talking about Alzheimer. She is in nursing home thank goodness. How can one say empty space is there
when space is nothing?
Instead of wandering wife has learned to walk outside holding on to me.
A very fine friend got me a black and white tomcat. Just watching him is much better than television.
The house has a good fence around it and sometime I take off all my clothes and shoes at night and walk around the grass when it is 40 degrees or so.
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A Scapecoat is a coat that details in painting, writing, and with all manner of things pinned and stitched to it all the name-calling a woman has endured in her life, all the insults, all the slulrs, all the traumas, all the wounds, all the scars. It is her statement of her experience of being scape-goated. Sometimes it takes only a day or 2 to make such a coat, other times it takes months. It is exceedingly helpful in detailing all the hurts and slams and slashes of a woman's life...the nastier and gorier the better. Sometimes we call them battlecoats, for they are proof of the endurance, the failures,..victories of individual women and their kinswomen...also good idea to count their ages, not by years, but by battle scars...If you are asked your nationality...Say, "Scar Clan."Clarissa Estes, Ph.D.
I am of the scar clan, I am stronger than steel, harder than a diamond more beautiful than a dove. I stand upon the shoulders of every ancestor that ever stood. You can try to scar me but it will only make my coat that much more awesome to behold. I am a woman, I am something to be reckoned with and I don't like people who try to hurt women and children.
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William, I am sorry about your loss. I have no family. My mother used to say "hurt things lash out." I suppose that is what's going on. Who specifically said "sick people to be hidden away?" Specifically whose scientific methods are questionable at best? That may be your opinion that you are entitled to but I took your comment about my loathing discompassionate people, and my name is Janine, and wondered (as Bart Simpson would say) what the hell you meant by that. This is not a pissing match, a shame and blame game and I wonder why you would say such a thing. You don't know my life story which, actually is filled with compassion for others at a great loss to my life goals. Do I have compassion for people who beat me up? I forgive them, but then I use my head and stay away from them. Do I have compassion for those who let me lose my home? I forgive them but stay away from them. Do I have compassion for people who speak to me like I'm a piece of dirt? I forgive them and then stay away from them. Do I have compassion for people who put me in terrible positions, because of their stealing, lying, their addictions and their lies that cause me and a small child harm? William, have you walked in my shoes, seen my truth, have you moved 17 times for work and survival? Have you? Something tells me you probably moved 5 times in your life. Something tells me that your experiences have nothing to do with mine. Something tells me that the nature of a woman is best left to a woman. Peace2
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I am a clinical social worker. My wife died suddenly six years ago. I will grieve her to some extent until I die. It is a natural process which can also change us in a positive way. It is perhaps the best education you can get if you let it happen and have support for that.
I also am quite tired of those who turn difficult and natural life experiences into pathology. Their "scientific" methods are at best questionable. Their support for the current overwhelming trend to deny death and grief and to see those who are openly dying -- as we all are -- or grieving as "sick," people to be hidden away.
I also hope the person who wrote that they "loathed people who were not compassionate" learns from their words at least what they really said.
Peace...
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I spent all of last week at the hospital with my daughter. I came out of the experience with a cold. Germs are everywhere!
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Took the zinc and oj. Ow.
See what happened to me by going to yoga classes outside of the house? Rogue germs! I may turn into a germ-a-phobe...NOT!
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I'm not a doctor, Janine, and I don't even play one on TV, but I have found the combination of zinc, echinacea, Coenzyme Q-10, and orange juice when I first notice the symptoms of a cold generally cut the cold's length and severity dramatically.
Feel better.
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"But I am so tired of our humaness being turned into a pathology to be added to the DSM."
"I don't understand my comment reflects lack of compassion."
Ok, I can only know you by your words. Sorry I misunderstood your words. Namaste
ps Hope you got my beautiful note Kimberly, it took me hours to write while I am sick in bed with a headcold. Love to all, Peace and Harmony
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That's a terrific line. Thanks.
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