RSS Feed
  1. Overcoming Grief

    April 13, 2012 by JayWegner

    Overcoming GriefLife is not all happiness, triumph or good things. Life is a mix of good and bad, sadness and happiness, victory and defeat. No man has ever lived on this earth without experiencing the ups and downs of life. Regardless of the circumstances, as human beings, we are made to feel these different emotions. This in fact separates us from all the other forms of life on earth. Humans have emotions. Others don’t.

    One such emotion which is kind of difficult to handle is grief. People feel this as a natural reaction to losing a loved one. Losing people we love and care about suddenly and unexpectedly bring forth this unpleasant feeling.

    People grieve over terrible and unimaginable situations like death of a pet, loss of a job, loss of lives and properties to disasters and natural calamities (fire, earthquake, flood, tsunami, terrorist acts, etc.). In situations like these, no amount of emotional and psychological strength could prepare us to accept the circumstances as calmly as we could. Even the strongest of man is not free from this overwhelming emotion.

    HOW DO WE HANDLE GRIEF?

    Just very recently I came across a story about an old lady whose husband is suffering from brain cancer. For some reasons the husband got lost one day. The old lady took to the streets asking around if anybody had seen her husband. She even stuck a paper with her husband’s photo on it, on her dress as she walked around. It took her over a week until some good-hearted people who saw her picture in the news contacted her to inform that her husband has been located. The old lady couldn’t be happier when she finally reunited with her husband. But the happiness was short lived because a couple of days later her husband was brought to the hospital and not long after succumbed to cancer.

    The old lady’s grief was just too much that a few weeks after her husband’s death, she fell ill and did not recover. She joined her husband soon enough.

    This story gets you to think about the reality of losing a loved one and how such loss triggers one’s coping mechanism on grief. Apparently the old lady was not able to cope with grief over losing her husband and yielded in the overwhelming sadness she felt.

    This could happen to anyone especially those with very low emotional stability. Grief manifests in so many different levels and degree. Some people will manage to get over it, some will not recover. No one knows for sure how long you can endure the pain and sadness. But some helpful ways to cope up will be worth a try.

    • Acceptance – a person’s acceptance of the situation he or she is into will help a lot in overcoming grief. Any form of denial will just aggravate and bottle up the emotions felt over losing someone or something. The faster the person accepts the situation the faster he/she will feel better
    • Grieve – people sometimes see grieving as a weakness that they deny themselves the chance to feel grief and sadness. Allow yourself to feel the emotion that naturally goes with any situation and you will realize that the emotions improve over time.
    • Time – it heals all wounds. Give yourself time and space to drown in sadness. This is okay but only for a short period. A prolonged period of grieving could mean more serious emotional problem. If this happens, you should seek professional help to be able to handle your grief better.

    As the degree of grief varies from one person to another depending on the causes of such grief everyone must believe that you will wake up one day feeling a whole lot better.

    photo by: Mgoncalles

  2. Overcoming Phobia

    April 12, 2012 by JayWegner

    Overcoming PhobiaKathleen, my third year high school niece has swimming class in school. Since her early years in school, swimming has always been included in her weekly schedule. That’s when she started to love swimming so much. She grabs every chance she gets to dip into the pool and enjoy every minute of it.

    Not until that one morning when they were asked to compete in groups during swimming class. Kathleen’s mom who is a doctor received a call from the school nurse asking her to pick up her daughter right away as she (Kathleen) was very scared due to a minor accident that happened in swimming class. That kind of call will definitely cause someone to speed away and find out what happened. Her mom first thought that she might have had eye infections as she recently had an eye surgery.

    It turned out that Kathleen almost drowned as she tried to complete the hurdle in the pool. She said she was fine in the beginning but during the last lap she felt a sudden surge of fear creeping through her when it was her turn to swim. She felt herself froze and could not move her legs and arms. She gasped for air and pushed her last ounce of strength to get to the surface. Luckily, she managed to climbed out of the pool before she felt weak again,

    PANIC ATTACK

    After the incident, we found out that Kathleen got so anxious during the last lap because she was the last member in the team and if she failed to finish the lap, her team would lose. That thought caused tightness in her chest and had breathing problems even before she got down the pool. Her mom explained she experienced panic attack which caused her brain to send signals to her body to become weak. Thus, she thought she was almost fainting when she hit the water.

    The good thing is, hers was a mild panic attack and did not cause her to fear water or swimming after the incident. For other people, the onset of such panic attack would have triggered the emergence of a phobia.

    Phobia is a disorder manifesting extreme or severe fear of something. It could be anything from cat, dog, water, heights, elevator, crowd, etc. Once you feel this unreasonable and inexplicable fear or anxiety, you totally lose control to instruct your brain to treat the feeling as normal fear – it will attack but then it will also pass just as quickly as it came.

    On the other hand, fear for phobic persons can badly affect not just the physical condition but more so one’s emotional and psychological as well. Phobia can be overwhelmingly devastating. No matter what the fear triggers are (animals, conditions, place, etc.) one needs to recognize it in order to fight and overcome it.

    HOW TO OVERCOME FEAR / PHOBIA

    When the fear trigger is identified, one can start conditioning the mind to control the fear being felt. It wouldn’t be easy of course, but once your mind is properly set to fighting the fear, the rest would come easy.

    For Kathleen, the immediate remedy her mom gave her was to bring her to a swimming pool a few days after the incident and asked her to swim again. She hesitated at first but then got over the fear and took a dip. She faced her fear and triumphed over it.

    But for some who have severe cases of phobia, facing the fear will not be easy. A phobic person will squirm on the idea of seeing a snake for example and it would take a lot of prodding or encouragement from people around her before she could actually look at the snake.

    This exercise might not work, however, to extremely phobic people. They would need a more complex therapy, relaxation exercises and skills recommended by professional therapists. The important thing is to recognize and accept the fear and be ready to fight it in order to get back to close to a normal life.

    photo by: spannar00ni

  3. Overcoming Depression

    March 30, 2012 by JayWegner

    Overcoming DepressionA friend of mine shares the story about her 14 year old son Patrick. He was busy with filing the paperwork for a divorce. He is a fine young boy with an infectious smile. He is active and bustling, running around their home every time I visit them. He is so full of energy and life!

    But everything suddenly changed one afternoon when he came from school feeling as he said, “odd”. Thinking that it was just one of his normal mood swings, my friend did not bother much. She brushed the worries away and went with her normal routine. The week passed the usual way. Patrick’s gloomy aura did not seem disturbing at that time.

    My friend started to get worried when her son refused to go to school the following week making up ordinary excuses like they have no teacher or that there are activities in school and he did not have to be there, etc. At first, my friend believed her son. But when the excuses became highly suspicious, my friend decided to check with school authorities. And she was so shocked to discover that her son had not been attending his classes for 2 weeks and she did not understand that because Patrick only stayed home for 2-3 days, not 2 weeks!

    And that’s how my friend got to know ‘D’ or depression. It was a painful experience. She never suspected Patrick to be afflicted with this disorder. No mother would want her child to go through this very unfamiliar and inexplicable sadness.

    So how exactly do we figure out if depression has set in? Well, the first step is to try to get to know everything about the illness or disorder. Recalling what my friend told me about Patrick’s behavior and comparing them with the information I gathered I came up with the simplified, easy-to-understand list of ’watch-out for’ behavior or actions from anyone you know or suspect to be afflicted with depression.

    TELL-TALE and GIVE-AWAY SIGNS and SYMPTOMS

    What my friend failed to notice or observe is the big difference between ‘normal unhappiness’ and unusual melancholy. Patrick seemed lonely and unhappy for days and my friend thought it was normal behavior.

    If we read articles about depression, we would know that the prolonged loneliness displayed by Patrick is the first sign of depression. He never got out of his sadness. My friend’s failure to detect this first sign led to more serious problems for Patrick. He started doing things uncontrollably like hurting himself when he gets angry or emotional. He even burned his arms with lighted cigarettes. It became hard for him to cope with school work and he just wanted to stay home all the time. He became withdrawn and isolated. He got easily irritated and agitated that my friend found him difficult to deal with. With all these happening to Patrick, my friend finally admitted to herself that her son needs professional help. There is nothing more she can do to help Patrick.

    HELPFUL WAYS TO OVERCOME DEPRESSION

    One of the painful lessons my friend about this unpleasant situation is the power of acceptance. One she decided to accept the condition of her son, it became easier for her to do what was necessary to help Patrick. She never wanted for her son to suffer like that. And she couldn’t blame anyone for that either. Soon enough she came to understand that the best support her son needs is from his family. And that she owes to her son.

    Apart from the professional therapy and medication her son had to undergo, my friend recognizes and accepts her role in all these. She should be strong for Patrick. Her son should all the more feel loved and accepted despite the affliction. My friend even learned some calming exercises or relaxation activities which she uses every time Patrick shows signs of agitation.

    Although the progress is slow, my friend couldn’t be happier with the behavioral improvement manifested by Patrick after months of therapy and medication. Although she did not recognize the disorder right away, she is happy just the same because Patrick’s chances of improving and eventually getting cured are high. And she couldn’t ask for more at this time. Better yet, he is about to go for a cruise vacation; hopefully to resolve issues with his wife.

    photo by: kevin dooley