Cancer Support Group Notes-June 22, 2017
Sister Larretta opened the meeting with prayer at 7:00.
The guest speaker for the night was Joanne Parcell, she leads the Healing Companions: Grief Support Group at St. Leo’s. A summary of her speech follows.
Joanne gave a personal story which taught her empathy.
There are many kinds of loss. Loss covers many things, such as sickness, job loss, etc. Loss could be anything that changes our lives.
Stages of grief are very real. Grief is not restricted to deaths. Grief also applies to caregivers. Common stages of grief include shock, denial, pain, guilt, and depression. The stages do not come in any particular order. In handling grief, we have a huge task ahead of us. We have to break it down into little pieces then process the whole thing, and put it back together.
Some things we may feel are not acceptable (illness, etc). We have to deal with it and accept it as it is. We need to find a support person or group. Find someone to talk to, discuss, and let our feelings out.
We should understand that God accepts how we feel and can tolerate any feelings that we have.
We are all going to experience loss. Losing our sense of control is a big loss. We have high expectations of ourselves, but we must come to accept what we are.
For caregivers, the best thing is to be there. Be the steady person. In bereavement, it is hard to support someone close to you. Families find it hard to support each other because they are all experiencing the same loss.
The pain of grief is unbearable and it manifests itself in various ways. Accepting a new normal is difficult. Bereavement is a part of loving. Love comes with a cost. If one has a capacity to love, then one will have a capacity to mourn. Mourning is honoring the loved one. Mourning is not a logical process. It cannot be avoided.
There is not a lot of written material on grief, death, illness, etc. We avoid those subjects. Society does not let us take time to grieve. People are expected to ‘carry-on’ fairly quickly.
People experiencing grief do not want platitudes. On the other hand, people do not know what to say to the grieving person. Joanne suggested that an appropriate question is “how are you doing today?” Grieving people should share their feelings.
Everyone’s grief is different, but there are some commonalities. One will not ‘get over it’ but will get to a point that they can bear it and be reconciled to it. Joanne suggested there are three (3) B’s to bereavement:
Getting By
Getting Better
Getting Beyond (the reconcilement stage)
People that will stick and stay with the grieving person will help them get to reconcilement.
For the support person, their presence is more important; words are less important.
As an individual, one doesn’t have to make another person better. One cannot make another person better. One just needs to be supportive. Do not just tell someone you will give them a call, call them.
In an answer to a question, Joanne said that teenagers may have a harder time overcoming grief because they have fewer life experiences and may be less willing to share their feelings.
After Joanne’s presentation, the group broke into smaller discussion groups.