A Living Loss: Surviving Separation from a Loved One - Softcover

Rombough M Ed, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1426941137 ISBN 13: 9781426941139

Publisher: Trafford Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

A living loss is different from a loss through death.   Although physical loss of a loved one is painful and distressing, this grief is generally resolved. A living loss is soul wounding and not often shared with others.   Resolution is difficult and deep sorrow often remains untouched.  When grieving a living loss, first the bereaved person needs to understand that they are experiencing grief.  

This book explores the phenomenon of living loss, in a situation where a person becomes estranged (the enforced) from a family member (the enforcer). Simply, we are discussing the experience of a living person, who has no control over the termination of an important relationship with a family member. The enforcer could also be a friend, a co-worker or a partner.

There is not necessarily any explanation for the estrangement, which brings shock, grief, depression, and eventual decline in physical health**. However, even in estrangement, there is hope. Author Barbara Rombough is ready to help you heal. She uses cognitive therapy strategies, relaxation techniques, journalling and so much more to help the grieving person mend a broken heart.  You will emerge a different person, filled with strength, inner peace, and acceptance, whether or not the broken family bonds are ever healed.

About this title

From the Author

When resolving a living loss, the degree of resolution difficulty may depend upon a number of circumstances, such as, depth of the connection with the lost person, gender, age and developmental stage of the grieving person and whether or not the family unit is healthy or unhealthy.  However, certain factors which prevent resolution remain constant.
 

1. Shock is an emergency reaction when grieving the physical loss of a loved one.  It acts as a pillow, a brief stop before accepting the pain of grieving. Once it leaves, the pain comes. With a living loss - shock remains long into the acute stage of grieving.
2. In this grief state, shock is not a short-lived buffer for pain.  It is not a brief support. Conversely, deep anger surfaces. The estranged person lives and is not available to the grieving person!!
3. This anger blocks the resolution of grief.  It is a barrier to healing unresolved grief and includes a high probability of physical illness as well as mental distress. 

 
A 2006 longitudinal study in Finland began with the question, "What is the feeling of helplessness?"  A 2008 meta-analysis of 165 studies, defined the term 'psychosocial stress' which includes loss of a close family member and divorce.  Most notably, feelings of helplessness are among the reactions to these events.  What could be a more helpless feeling than the enforced separation from a loved one and unresolved grief?   In his book, Anti Cancer:  A New Way of Life (2009), Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, notes that Dr. Irvin Yalom's highly respected scientific hypothesis published in the prestigious medical journal,  The Lancet, indicates there is definitive proof between mental state and development of disease.    Dr. Ronald W. Ramsay, author of Living With Loss (1981), can be assured that research evidence states there is a correlation between resolved grief and illness.
 
Pathological bereavement is an almost unavoidable consequence of a living loss when a person is denied rituals of grieving.  In particular, the psychological outlet of talking about the loss is denied (life review).
Initially, when grieving a living loss, feeling a lack of support triggers guilt, shame and denial. These feelings are magnified by the idea that 'blood is thicker than water', a metaphor denoting the never ending bonds of family.  The implication lives on through film, movies, and books as well as socialized family myths and rules.
 
"Blood is thicker than water" indicates that we must not break family bonds regardless of unhealthy family dynamics.  Aldous Huxley contradicted this thinking by saying  "but water is wider, thank the Lord than blood".   In his book, Jonathon Livingstone Sea Gull, David Bach offers a healthy expectation of families when he states "the blood that links your true family is not of blood but of respect and joy in each other's lives". 
 
Lack of support from the family is unfortunate. When it is not available, effective grief work is not done alone.  The pain triggered by the loss of a relationship is magnified when family members often follow an unstated directive from the enforcer who may have previously 'iced' someone. Frequently family members choose not to discuss the situation with the enforced person.  They wish to remain connected with the enforcer.  Thus, the family is often not there emotionally for the enforced person who feels betrayal and lack of trust toward them. The enforced often chooses to isolate from the family.  There seems to be denial as to the depth of the existing estrangement and the painful end of an important relationship with someone in the family. 
 
Relationships are a basic component of our lives.  They are connections that involve every part of our existence. Through relationships we gain our sense of who we are, and how we fit into the world around us. They work to help us know and understand what is authentic and what priority is in our lives. 
 
We become very anxious and insecure when relationships end.  These feelings are magnified when the break has been enforced upon us, when the person is not deceased.  We experience a crisis of connectedness. When we lose the sense of 'who' we are, we feel anxiety and sometimes lose our sense of reality.  We experience a tremendous amount of shock, anger, stress and grief during the loss of this relationship. 

Review

Professional reflection:

• Addresses a subject that is real and not well addressed in the literature
• First book I have seen that addresses this subject directly
• Strength of the book is the addressing of a taboo topic as well as the normalization of this grief which is so real and so painful

Prefessional reflection:

• You describe well the difference between this grief and the grief associated with the death of a person and how on one side people are supported by family members, friends etc..., and on the other side, much too often, how they are not supported, understood, validated, etc....

Professional relection -

• Addresses the sorrow that is grieved alone, not knowing how to deal with it because they do not understand that what they are experiencing is grief
• The way you describe it is very real.
• It made me think of a side of grief that I had not really focused on as much as I should have. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1426941137
• ISBN 13: 9781426941139
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 164