When bereavement occurs among friends and acquaintances, those close to them often do not know how to react, what to say or how to help. It so happens that mourners sometimes feel abandoned in grief and loneliness instead of receiving support. Those who have experienced or are about to experience an imminent loss need the company of friends and acquaintances, not only in the early days, but also for weeks, months or even years.
But it happens that no matter how much you want, you cannot support a loved one in a difficult moment. It is impossible to find words, and what is said seems dry and soulless. All actions come down to useless fuss. Some suggestions, ideas and concrete examples should help reduce helplessness or even fear when dealing with grieving people.
In this article:
Effective and useful principles for supporting the bereaved What clichés and phrases should be avoided when communicating with the bereaved A letter or message of condolences
"How can I help you?"
Nadezhda Kuzmina, AiF.ru: How to help a relative in the first moments when he first learned the diagnosis?
Irina Savenkova: For everyone, without exception, the news of a serious diagnosis, which entails complex and lengthy treatment, is always a shock. It takes weeks, even months, for some to accept this. These days a person wants to hear words of support: “Everything will be fine. I’m close”, “We are together”. A person, like a helpless kitten, does not know where to go or how to act. Take some of the troubles on yourself - look for clinics, find doctors who are knowledgeable about the disease. In other words, pull up all the information available. If a person goes to look for it on the Internet, his condition can only worsen - he will start reading “horror stories”. You can keep a “cool mind” and help you choose the right treatment tactics in the future.
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Difficult diagnosis. What you can and cannot say to a patient
— What should you not say or do to avoid further psychological trauma? How to find words of support without pity?
- There is no need to distance yourself from the person. These are all phrases like: “Hold on,” “Everything will be fine.” They have no basis in reality. How are you holding up? For what? And what does good mean and when will it happen? There is no need to downplay the depth of human suffering. After all, even everyone’s pain threshold is different, and we cannot know how much pain/scary/bad a person really is. It’s better at this moment to simply ask: “How exactly can I help you?” Sometimes simple words are enough - “I sympathize with you” and the simplest actions - drink tea together, help prepare breakfast or dinner, discuss the latest news. There is no need to read morals, offer self-medication recipes overheard from someone or read on the Internet. You just need human communication - invite someone for a cup of coffee in a cafe, give them a gift. Books about people who have suffered serious illnesses and overcome them will provide good support and motivation.
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How to deal with someone experiencing loss
– Unfortunately, loss is an integral part of human life; each of us has to go through the pain of loss. And, of course, everyone has at least once met a person experiencing grief. For a person who has lost his loved one, the people around him are a source of support and help, so necessary in his time of grief. And for us, meeting a grieving person is a kind of test of humanity, a test of the ability to sympathize, show sensitivity and tact. Perhaps this is why many people are at a loss, not knowing how to help a grieving person, what to say, how to behave. We often rely on our gut feeling, but even an expert can make the wrong decision. How to protect yourself from mistakes?
– One of the typical types of incorrect behavior with a grieving person is emotional detachment from him, avoiding talking about the loss and the feelings caused by it, in other words, inaction. Thus, one woman, who had lost her already adult son, complained that many of her friends, having heard from her about the misfortune that had happened, hastily apologized: “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know” - and immediately moved the conversation to another topic, leaving it thus alone with your grief. Most often, this is due to either basic ignorance of how to behave in such a situation, or the action of protective psychological mechanisms, when a person seeks to avoid discomfort and negative emotions when encountering the suffering of others.
“But the wrong words can do just as much harm as silence.” Which phrases should be avoided, and which, on the contrary, will be effective?
– There are many harmful stereotypes and prejudices among people that prevent them and the people around them from truly experiencing loss. Most often they manifest themselves in the form of incorrect or hurtful statements. First of all, these are untimely, inappropriate statements generated by a misunderstanding of the current circumstances or the psychological state of the bereaved person: “You are still young, you will get married again” or “Don’t cry - she wouldn’t like it,” etc.
No less common are the so-called projecting statements, when a person transfers his own feelings, desires, and experiences to the grieving person. Sometimes we really want to say: “I understand your feelings.” But in fact, any loss is individual and is experienced by the grieving person as unique, so such a seemingly harmless phrase can cause rejection. It seems to a person experiencing loss that with these words you seem to devalue his grief. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh tells a story about a young priest who came to the house of a woman who had lost her child and said: “How I understand you!” In response, the woman became furious: “You don’t understand anything! You have never had a child, you have never lost one, and you have never been a mother.” A similar situation arises if a sympathizer says: “You should continue to live your life,” “You need to leave the house more often,” “It’s time to end mourning.” In this way, people simply express their own needs, thinking that it will help someone else.
In general, you should strive to avoid common “killer clichés” associated with loss: “You should have gotten over it by now,” “You need to keep yourself busy,” “Time heals all wounds.” This also includes phrases like “Be strong,” “You need to hold on,” “You shouldn’t give in to tears.” These verbal attitudes drive grief underground and interfere with its healthy living.
– What should you say to prevent tactlessness and help the grieving person?
– First, acknowledge the situation. For example, say: “I heard that (using the name of the deceased) died.” Use the word “died”, and not any allegory (“left”, “left us”, etc.). This will show that you are open to talking about how the person is really feeling. Be sure to express your genuine participation, do not hide your feelings: “I am very upset that this happened.” If you are confused and cannot find the words, simply say: “I don’t know what to say, but I want you to know that I am worried with you.”
Ask how the grieving person is feeling, offer your support, for example: “Tell me what I can do for you.” The emotions experienced by a grieving person are the living engine of grief. On the one hand, you cannot force a person to show his emotions if he is not yet ready for this, on the other hand, it is important to stimulate the expression of feelings whenever possible. Even if a person speaks very restrainedly about his loss, you need to be prepared for a surge of emotions and support their expression. A bereaved person suffers from the resulting emptiness and from what cannot be changed. Therefore, it is first of all important for the person present nearby, whether he is a professional psychologist or a friend, to be close to the grieving person, to empathize with him, and to give him a feeling of support. It is very important to prove yourself to be a good listener. Experiencing the death of a loved one should not be seen as a problem that can be solved, so you should accept any feelings expressed and empathize with the grieving person rather than advising him how to cope with the loss or downplaying the significance of the loss. In no case should the grieving person's refusal to make contact be regarded as a personal attack on you or your relationship with him. Some people want to be helped, others don't. But by rejecting your help, the grieving person does not at all reject your friendship, and this should be remembered.
– Now it’s clear what should not be done towards a person in grief. But another, no less difficult, question arises: what should be done in relation to him, how to help in practical terms?
In order to understand this issue, it makes sense to determine what functions grief performs, what tasks the griever faces from the point of view of experiencing loss.
In its most general form, the ultimate goal of the grief process is acceptance of the loss and subsequent restructuring of life. We can say that the grieving person has to go through the following path:
1) acknowledge the reality of the loss;
2) experience the pain of loss;
3) regulate relations with the environment in which the deceased is no longer present;
4) accept the past and move forward to live in today and tomorrow.
Facilitating and shortening (but not interrupting!) this path is a task faced jointly by the grieving person and the people around him.
How to achieve this? First of all, just being there for the grieving person, even if you don't know what to say, can be very comforting in itself. Offer to help with errands, grocery shopping, housekeeping, meal preparation, or transportation. Sometimes people want to be helped, sometimes they don't. Although they may reject your proposals, remember that they are not rejecting you or your friendship. Support should be offered even after the initial shock has passed, because recovery takes a long time and help may be needed more than once.
If a grieving person begins to abuse alcohol or drugs, does not take care of his health (which causes problems), or talks about suicide, then you or someone close to you should advise him to seek professional help. Don’t forget to look after your own health: emotional, physical and spiritual.
– You said that it is important to provide practical assistance – material, economic. But is it useful to completely protect the bereaved person from everyday worries?
– Indeed, there is no need to remove the grieving person from everyday affairs, especially if he himself expresses his readiness to do something. Some physical activity is simply necessary. After one and a half to two months after the loss, you can more persistently involve the person in performing household and work responsibilities. However, there is another extreme in this matter: some people throw themselves into work to escape from their feelings. In this case, overactivity becomes an obstacle to the normal functioning of grief, and it is important for both the bereaved person and the people around him to know this.
– But what if a person “obsesses” with his grief and even after a long time experiences the loss again and again?
– Normally, grief is a natural process of healing the emotional wound caused by the death of a loved one. It takes time and is deeply personal. It cannot be interfered with and directed into the “standard” direction. Sometimes it may seem like the griever is moving in a vicious circle, but repeatedly experiencing the same feelings can be a manifestation of the work of grief and act as an important step towards recognizing and accepting the loss. Therefore, the sympathizer is required to have patience and trust in the inner wisdom of the interlocutor. It is not enough to listen to a grieving person and help him express his feelings; it is also necessary to accept him entirely, with all his feelings and experiences. Acceptance does not mean approving a person in his thoughts, feelings, behavior towards the deceased, or justifying the mistakes that he may have actually made. Acceptance means refusing to judge and recognizing a person’s right to make mistakes and to the feelings that he is currently experiencing. It is necessary to avoid any kind of assessments and moralizing. This helps the grieving person accept the loss himself and recognize its irreparability. And here it is worth mentioning another important point - accepting the inevitability of suffering, be it the pain of separation or the feeling of guilt before the deceased. It is often necessary (and sometimes this is the only way out) to accept them and find the strength to live with them further.
– Is it always possible to independently help a person overcome a loss or are there cases that require the intervention of professional psychologists?
– Of course, the support and sympathy of others is extremely important for a grieving person. At the same time, communication with him in some cases becomes too difficult and even unfavorable for the one who empathizes with him and tries to help. If a person realizes that he has done everything in his power, but this does not satisfy the grieving person, then he should step aside for a while. Of course, this does not mean that you need to leave a person alone with his grief. Rather, we are talking about limiting the senseless waste of mental strength, which, on the one hand, emotionally exhausts the empathizer, on the other hand, turns out to be useless for the grieving person and even, perhaps, reinforces his painful reaction to the loss.
Most people who have lost their loved ones cope with the loss on their own with the support of family, friends and acquaintances. Helping a grieving person is a delicate task and requires great emotional tact. Basically, it is also accessible to non-specialists, since in most cases its implementation does not require any special methods, but only live human participation. Of particular importance in this case are the personal and spiritual qualities of the person next to the grieving person. However, in some cases, those grieving really need professional psychological help.
There are wonderful words in the New Testament that shared joy is double joy, and shared sorrow is half sorrow. If a person grieving for his loved one opens his soul to others and, moreover, thinks about them, tries to do something good for them, then it is easier for him to survive the loss. Likewise, the participation of other people, their help and support are extremely important for a person suffering after a loss. The rules of conduct that we talked about should not be taken literally as a universal guide to action, since all people and situations are unique in some way. The main guideline should be the interests, characteristics and reactions of a particular person experiencing loss. If he accepts your words, suggestions, actions, then most likely you are on the right track.
Live for a new episode of your favorite movie
— What to do if a person is hysterical, and he says, conditionally: “Everything is bad. I will die"?
- Everyone will die. As the saying goes, “No one gets out of here alive.” We need to help the person switch his attention to the positive aspects of his condition. As the heroine of Porter's book, Pollyanna was glad when she was given children's crutches that she did not need them. It is necessary to help a sick person find the good sides in his condition. To the point of banality - you can see, but some are blind from birth. You can walk, talk, hear. It all depends, of course, on the disease and its degree. But sometimes a person simply does not notice these obvious things.
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Bed rest. Is it possible to fight bedsores in bedridden patients?
The topic of death in modern society is highly taboo. But you can’t escape from it either. This is what awaits everyone in the future. Absolutely. Saying, “You will not die,” is stupid. It is better to try to switch the attention of your loved one to something else, so that he “no longer wants to die.” But this should not be from a series of long-term perspectives like - “What will happen to the parents/children/cats/dogs?” Otherwise, there may be a new round of depression. It’s better if these are short-term tasks with a bit of irony - “If you don’t watch the new episode of your favorite movie,” “If you don’t try my new pie, I’ll be upset.”
Why support is important
Firstly, the sad news of death always pulls the rug from under your feet. A person, being in severe grief, loses his sense of reality and experiences a feeling of great loss and abandonment.
Secondly, the situation is extraordinary, and it does not happen every day. Everyone experiences it differently. Some people want to be left alone with their troubles. Some people cannot be left alone for a minute.
How to support a person during the death of a close relative, how to behave correctly, what to say? After all, relatives, friends, loved ones are also confused, and most of them do not know how to behave.
Therefore, it is important to develop the right strategy, find sincere words that are appropriate for the situation, provide real help and show humanity and delicacy.
Help should not be forced
— Is it necessary to help with household chores or, on the contrary, does it humiliate a person and emphasize his inadequacy?
- Of course, it depends on the person. But I think that before you grab a rag and intensively wash the floors, you should just ask, “Do you need help cleaning the apartment at the moment?” When cleaning, you are invading someone else's personal space, and it is not always pleasant for everyone. Talk to the person more. One client of mine was so depressed that she simply could not eat alone. I couldn’t cook food for myself, because I was used to doing everything for others - children, husband, guests. And at the moment of psychological decline, it turned out that the children were in the camp, the husband was away. All she needed at that moment was simply for someone to come and cook porridge and eat with her. Help should not be imposed, but it should not be withdrawn either.
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Who is guilty?
Events associated with human violence are experienced more difficult than man-made or natural disasters, say Yukhnenko and Yablonskaya. “It is important for us to trust and maintain connections with other people. And in such situations, people turn against us,” notes Svetlana.
Read also
Memory of Beslan
According to Anna Kray, when victims and their loved ones have a clear understanding of the external enemy, the resulting aggression can become a source for updating a person’s internal resource. People can be united by a common idea: to find the truth, to ensure that the perpetrators are punished. The expert cites as an example the association of victims of the “Mothers of Beslan” terrorist attacks. Denis Yukhnenko believes that such initiatives help cope with trauma and lead to social change.
When the image of the guilty person is blurred, computer games, cartoons, anime, Western influence, social networks, youth culture are mixed in - this trauma is difficult to overcome, Yukhnenko emphasizes. Anna notes that it is impossible to fight a blurred image. From a psychological health perspective, this is an additional risk factor.
Here and now
— How can you cope with stress when your loved one is seriously ill?
- In fact, relatives of seriously ill people also suffer and go through the same stages - from shock to denial and aggression. It even happens that a relative is physically ill, and loved ones receive such psychological trauma that the same organs themselves begin to suffer. Therefore, there can only be one piece of advice here - stay in the present, do not fantasize about various options for events and drive away gloomy thoughts. There is no need to bury anyone in advance! After all, at the moment your loved ones are alive, which means you can enjoy communicating with them. Whatever it may be, everyone is alive here and now!
What can be done
The first thing anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one needs is sensitivity and understanding. Believe me, the help offered is not always appropriate; it must correspond to one of the stages of human grief described above.
Only help that is relevant at a given moment is accepted.
Yes, it is necessary to feel the person well, not to rush him in expressing his feelings, to make the help objective, aimed at achieving specific goals. What is more important is not how long grief lasts, but how effectively a person will move through its stages, striving to understand the death of a loved one and try to improve life without him. You must accept any feelings of the mourner , do not distance yourself from empathy, be patient and listen to everything he says.
Empathy and compassion are the main thing in this difficult period
You are strong!
- How he holds up!
- How strong she is!
- You are strong, you endure everything so courageously...
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There are times when people who have experienced the loss of a loved one do not shed tears for him during the funeral procession. On the contrary, he has a reaction opposite to what was expected - he is in a calm state and at the same time keeps a smile on his face. Contrary to the erroneous belief that this is all characteristic of a strong person, it is worth noting that these signs indicate the most severe phase of stress. It will be possible to speak about the end of the first stage of stress only when the person starts screaming and starts crying.
A striking example of this behavior is an excerpt from Sokolov-Mitrich’s report about relatives of the Kursk crew:
“Several young sailors and three people who looked like relatives were traveling with us. Two women and one man. Only one circumstance cast doubt on their involvement in the tragedy: they were smiling. And when we had to push the broken bus, the women even laughed and rejoiced, like collective farmers in Soviet films returning from the battle for the harvest. “Are you from the committee of soldiers’ mothers?” - I asked. “No, we are relatives.”
That evening I met military psychologists from the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. Professor Vyacheslav Shamrey, who worked with the relatives of those killed at Komsomolets, told me that this sincere smile on the face of a grief-stricken person is called “unconscious psychological defense.” On the plane on which the relatives flew to Murmansk, there was an uncle who, upon entering the cabin, rejoiced like a child: “Well, at least I’ll fly on the plane. Otherwise I’ve been sitting all my life in my Serpukhov district, I don’t see the white light!” This means that the uncle was very bad.
“We’re going to Sasha Ruzlev... Senior midshipman... 24 years old, second compartment,” after the word “compartment,” the women began to sob. “And this is his father, he lives here, he’s also a submariner, he’s been sailing all his life.” The name of? Vladimir Nikolayevich. Just don’t ask him anything, please.”
The question of whether there are people who are capable of not succumbing to the harmful effects of surging feelings of loss remains rhetorical. However, we can say that people who “hold on” are not strong-willed individuals, as they initially seem. Perhaps these are the people who have not yet experienced the first stage of stress and who will soon need to be supported.
Stage of acute experiences
After the shock stage, the most acute phase of grief begins, characterized by such signs of the individual’s condition as:
- resentment towards everyone: both those who take a deep part in the family tragedy (“everything is good for them, but everything is bad for me”), and those who seem less touched by the misfortune (“no one cares about me”);
- misunderstanding how this could happen and why it happened to him;
- aggression accompanied by reproaches or denial of the need for outside help;
- often - increased tearfulness, demand for everyone's attention to their problem, and even excessive demonstration of their grief.
How to calm a person who has lost a loved one? The sympathizer is obliged to muffle and in every possible way smooth out his response to the unfair statements of the mourner, even if it is difficult. Any negative return will cause an immediate response in the form of aggression, so if a person does not have such baggage of moral restraint, it is better for him not to constantly be near the lost loved one. What should you say to a person during this period?
As before, despite the denial, the mourner needs understanding, but even more he needs to know that those around him constantly remember his misfortune and experience the bitterness of loss in the same intensity. During this period, there is no need to be afraid to show sympathy and, without fear of seeming banal, say heartfelt phrases: “I understand you so well!”, “How are you coping with all this!”, “How much courage you have!”
It is normal for the acute state of grief to last from 3 to 10 weeks. If this time period lasts for more than 3 months, it is worth thinking about whether the personal tragedy of the mourner has turned into his means of manipulating others?
Awareness phase
The third stage is easily distinguishable from the previous one by the arrival of the so-called mental decline. The mood of the mourner changes less and less until it assumes the position of a stable depressed one, but with all this there is a positive side: the person already stops living in the past and begins to think about how to live further. This period is just ideal to start asking him questions that suggest thoughts about further actions.
What to say to a person who has lost a loved one? First of all, you should find out what type and amount of help he still needs. A widower who has lost his wife may still need help with the housework for a long time, but he is already able to take on some basic tasks of cooking and cleaning.
Almost always, the stage of awareness is characterized for the mourner by a strong desire to speak out, complain, and remember the past. During periods of such talkative protégé, one thing is required of the sympathizer - to express full attention and readiness to agree with everything said, without giving any advice or interrupting the monologue with personal remarks. Usually, after a state of elation, a person again falls into a minor mood, and here the assistant’s tasks change - he needs to become a generator of ideas and not allow his friend to wallow in inaction and melancholy.
For another category of people, any intrusive attention from others in moments of grief causes severe irritation. Therefore, if a person, who in ordinary times was not highly communicative, says that he is tired of everyone and wants to be alone, this should be listened to immediately.
Shock stage
It normally takes the shortest period of time compared to others: from several hours to three days. The clinical picture of a person’s condition is as follows:
- he doesn’t believe what’s happening;
- the external state of the individual can be characterized as calm;
- there is inhibition of reaction;
- hysterical attacks, sudden mood swings from strong excitement to complete indifference are possible;
- in individual cases, a person can persistently deny what is happening and even invent his own story about the forced departure of the deceased or his betrayal (departure) from the family.
The shock stage is dangerous because it can “delay” a person for a long time. Once created, the illusion that the deceased is alive and well, but is in an untimely departure, can linger for many years, and the individual, whose consciousness thus resists reality, is ready to defend his version, regardless of the arguments.
What words of comfort can you say to someone who has lost a loved one? At the first stage of experiencing grief, any condolences or attempts to get the mourner to talk are unnecessary. You cannot get an answer from him about his future intentions, or ask him if he needs anything. Most likely, having shaken off the state of the first shock, a person will not remember at all what he did or said during those terrible hours.
People taking part in the life of the bereaved will have to take care of organizational and everyday issues: correcting the necessary documents, calling the relatives of the deceased, accepting the first wave of condolences, which can only make the loved ones feel worse. Even preparing a simple dinner, washing the dishes or routinely cleaning the house will be a huge help for someone who is not yet able to understand the importance of each of these daily chores.
