Complicated Grief Study, Part the Second

It's been awhile since my first blog post about the Complicated Grief study I've been part of, which I put together back in early November of last year. At the time, we'd gotten into doing some exposure/systematic desensitization work to help make difficult/uncomfortable tasks more approachable. It's been some time since then, and there's been more that's gone on...and come up.

One of the biggest things was something we started doing a few weeks ago. It's called the “Imaginal Conversation,” where we work with one of the group therapists. It starts out with the group therapist taking the role of the deceased loved one, and we're supposed to talk to them as if they're really there, as if this was a miraculous chance for a last conversation with them. The therapist doesn't really respond, and serves more as a placeholder and someone to focus on, which I'm guessing is in part to help make it more vivid and more real. They might ask about a couple of the things we've brought up that were important, but that'd be about it. When we're done with that, we switch. We then take on the role of the deceased while the therapist switches into our place. And the next part of the task is for us to pretend to be the deceased responding to what we'd just said. Again, the therapist isn't really saying anything, with the possible exception of a brief comment about something that might be important to us. The third and final phase of it is switching back to the original arrangement, where we're again ourselves and the therapist is in the place of the deceased. This is a last chance for us to respond to what we thought the deceased might've said in response to us.

If it feels a little confusing keeping track of the switches and responses, you're in good company.

We got them done over two weeks. The first week, two of the women in the group went through it. I was very glad that I didn't have to, for two reasons. The first and lesser reason was that I had a presentation to do the next morning. I figured going through that exercise would stir up a bunch of things for me, and likely result in sleeping/resting quite poorly. The second reason, the one that was a lot stronger, was that when they first announced what we were going to be working on, my initial response internally was panic, followed quickly by anger bordering on rage. It made it hard to focus on and pay attention to what else was happening in the group. I think I did OK at that and at least offered some support and validation and encouragement to the two who went first. But I was very, very seriously afraid that if they'd gotten me up there on that first night, I'd have erupted in front of the group....and that would NOT have been pretty.

It was my turn the week later. At least by then most of the anger had subsided. The thoughts were still around, but the intensity of the emotion had dropped a lot. I was still exceptionally anxious about it. I recall talking with one of the older women in the group beforehand, with both of us stating we weren't sure we'd be able to handle it. To make a long story short, I went first that night...and I handled it. I had a token/talisman (story for another time) that I held on to and ran my fingers over the whole time. There wasn't the anger I'd been afraid of when I did my turn. Actually, the comment that's stuck with me and still bounces around in my head since then was about how much love and tenderness they saw, both when I was speaking as myself and when I was speaking as me late darlin' wife.

That's been the hardest thing to deal with, to come to grips with. I'm still not sure why. Is it that I'd wanted it so desperately at the end, and it had become so scarce? That I'd blocked that out as a way to get through? That I've been afraid of the vulnerability that goes along with that kind of tenderness and love? That it's been easier to cover that over with anger (either vengeance or cold disdain)? That there's been some guilt for having cared and invested so much in someone who ended up doing something that hurt me so badly? I don't know. I'm still trying to sort it out.

What I can say is that the last week we met, we went through telling the story once more about what happened to them. And this time there was more of the tenderness in how I told the story. How I felt while telling it. What I remembered and what I shared. And that, with the anniversary of her death coming up, I feel the sadness more pervasively but less intensely than I have before.

The only other thing to mention at this point from the group has to do with the Memory Forms we've filled out. The first two were things we recalled about the deceased, good things about them and good times we shared. This latest one, though, is entitled “Some Difficult Times.” It asks about times that were hard and qualities of the deceased that we didn't like. And even of possible ways that life is now easier that they're not here anymore. I'm not sure why that's being done now, at the end. But I'm trusting they know what they're doing. It's worked out well so far.

Two more weeks to go.