July 18 - Stuck in grief mode
Scripture focus: "If you grow a healthy tree, you'll pick healthy fruit. If you grow a diseased tree, you'll pick worm-eaten fruit. The fruit tells you about the tree. You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It's your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation." Matthew 12:33-37 (The Message)
Traumatic circumstances and unexpected losses -- especially when betrayal is an element of the story -- can produce an extreme form of grief. This can mimic the indicators of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Examples include: extreme emotional responses, survivor guilt, depression, thoughts of suicide, intense sensitivity, and compulsive intrusive thoughts. People stuck in extreme grief may experience difficulty talking about the event, obsess over themes of death and loss, have disrupted sleeping and eating patterns, become self-destructive, isolate, have impaired functioning and extremely reactive and irrational responses to normal life events.
This extreme grief response doesn't make us a blight on the orchard. But it does leave us vulnerable. If enough time passes, all these disruptions may stir our feelings of shame. Our pain may cry out to be medicated and soothed in an unhealthy manner.
If you or someone you love is stuck in their grief, it's very important to NOT rush back into normal activities without allowing for normal grief. My happily grieving friend implied that my grief was not normal. I personally didn't find her judgment helpful. But if I do acknowledge that if I find myself slipping into a prolonged state of unremitting grief, I hope that those who love me will take notice and gently encourage me to seek more community support. Extreme grief needs to be addressed and treated. I'm praying for all of us who are suffering, and for those around us who want to help, but sometimes don't know how. May we join together in taking care with how we suffer, and the way in which we comfort others in the midst of suffering.
Recommended reading: Ephesians 1-3
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