{"id":6331,"date":"2021-03-02T19:47:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T19:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/griefjourney.com\/?p=6331"},"modified":"2021-03-02T19:47:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T19:47:16","slug":"its-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/griefjourney.com\/its-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Complicated!"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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It's Complicated!<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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To say, with 2020 vision, that the last 12 months of pandemic has been \u201cchallenging\u201d is probably the understatement of the century. The year we hoped would be defined by joy was increasingly documented by grief.<\/p>

In the year 2021, we will face new challenges, including mass immunization, economic recovery, and rebuilding of suspended community services due to the priority of COVID. But equally challenging will be dealing with the inevitable grief that will confront the entire population over all we have lost. And I fear there may be a \u201cdelayed reaction\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>

Admittedly we are seeing issues here and now. In a recent conversation with a medical friend, he exclaimed, \u201cThere are so many mental health issues, depression and despair out there \u2026 and I can\u2019t get a psychiatrist to make an appointment for patients for 6 \u2013 9 months.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

But as often happens in any crisis, people don\u2019t always feel the impact of all that has happened immediately, and it is later that the real reaction hits home.\u00a0<\/p>

Queen Victoria reigned from 1837 until her death in 1901. She and her husband, Prince Albert had nine children before he died of typhoid in 1861 at age 42. Recently, on the 200th anniversary of Albert\u2019s birth, the Royal Collection Trust published Victoria\u2019s handwritten diary offering a firsthand account of her overwhelming grief. It took 10 years until Victoria could bring herself to write about the day the love of her life died. “I have never had the courage to attempt to describe this dreadful day,” she records.<\/p>

The Queen turned mourning into the chief concern of her existence in the years that followed Albert\u2019s passing. For the rest of her reign, she wore only black. The Prince’s dressing room was maintained exactly as before, and her servants were instructed to bring his shaving gear and hot water every day as they had when he was alive. After the first year, her mourning came to be viewed by many in Britain as obsessive and public unease arose about the Queen’s state of mind.\u00a0<\/p>

Certainly, losing a loved one is one of the most distressing and, unfortunately, common experiences human beings face. Normally, people have a period of sorrow, with an overwhelming emotional response. But gradually over time these feelings ease, and it becomes possible to come to terms with our loss and begin to move forward.<\/p>

But for some, in particular situations, their feelings of loss are debilitating and don’t improve even after a considerable period of time passes, if ever. Today, Queen Victoria might be diagnosed with complicated grief, sometimes called persistent, complex or chronic bereavement disorder. Complicated grief is like being in an ongoing, heightened state of mourning causing prolonged acute grief. In simple terms, for whatever reason, the person gets \u201cstuck\u201d in their acute grief, unable to move into, far less through, the integration process.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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