Help in My Grief Journey

Over a week ago I wrote about my own grief and loss journey.  In that post I wrote that I had discovered I am dealing with and coping with cumulative grief.  This is an intense form of grief which occurs when a person has had multiple losses over a short period of time.  Due to the fact that one loss comes right after another, the person experiences “grief overload” and does not have time to deal thoroughly with each loss in order to experience healing from the individual losses.

Shortly after the post regarding my journey, three friends of mine experienced losses of family members — two of the friends each lost their mother and one friend lost his wife.  In order to support these friends and provide them with information, I have been doing a series of re-posts on grief and loss.  I will continue the re-posts for another day or two, but then I plan to pick up where I left off and discuss cumulative grief, or grief overload.

Since my “revelation” regarding cumulative grief, I find I am more overwhelmed than before the revelation.  I feel as if I have opened the proverbial “can of worms” for myself, and I’m not quite sure what to do with all of it.  Do I start at the beginning and take each loss one at a time, grieve it and deal with it, and experience some healing regarding that one loss?  Based upon some reading I have done on this type of grief, that is indeed what I need to do in order to experience healing.  In my case, this could take some time, partially due to the fact that some of the losses continue to this very day, such as a loss of health and inability to return to a “normal” job.

The task before me appears as a giant mountain; and I am left not knowing how to slowly start the climb;  right now it seems frightening and impossible.  Yet, I know that God will be with me as I begin the slow climb upward.

Today I am writing this post not only to update you, but to ask my friends and readers for a bit of help.

I’d like to know if you have experienced this type of grief, in which multiple losses (not necessarily deaths, but any significant loss) have occurred within a short time period?

If this has been your experience, how did you deal with each loss, cope with each one, and finally experience healing?

Also, for those of you who are willing to pray, I ask for your prayers for the courage, willingness, and strength to face the mountain head-on and begin my ascent toward healing.

Please leave comments in the box below this post or feel free to write to me privately on Facebook or send an email to:  tweetymcc@yahoo.com — I look forward to hearing from you!

We are all in this journey together; no one is immune.  I thank you for walking with me in my journey!  God bless you!