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Coping With Impending Death
(continued)
Can't Rush Grief and Mourning
Grief comes in stages, says William Beaumont Hospital's Shiener. "We initially react with disbelief or denial and then we get angry because we see how inevitable death is and how helpless we are and then we start trying to accept it piece by piece," he says. "We get a sense of sadness when we see the magnitude of what we are facing and then comes a degree of acceptance."
And everyone has his or her own schedule of how long it takes to go through these phases, says. Shiener.
"Emotions are not light switches that we can turn on and off, agrees Temple's Baron.
Let People in
"There's a lot you can do to prepare for an inevitable death, but there are a lot of obstacles to people doing it," points out the Rev. Janet Frystak, a chaplain with the Palliative Care and Home Hospice Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
When someone is dying, there is an incredible range of emotions -- anger, shock, denial, numbness, intense sadness, guilt, anticipatory grief -- and the family goes through a lot of these emotions as well, she says. "A lot of times, the pain is so overwhelming that people shut down and engage in coping mechanisms such as displacing their anger onto the medical community and/or getting lost in the medical minutiae."
Often the family will need outside help to deal with their emotions, she says.
"Outsiders come in and can offer a more objective perspective," she says. "There is the belief that to speak of death brings it about faster and indicates the loss of hope, and that is just irrational. If you can overcome the avoidance of the subject, ask your mom, dad, brother, sister, or spouse what has been most meaningful in their life and what are their greatest joys and greatest sorrows," she says, calling this exercise "a life review."
Next Page: Talking About Tough Death Decisions
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