Life After Loss – Sight Loss And The Grieving Process was brought to you by Healthy Lifestyles Living
Over the course of my lifetime I have come to know grief in its many forms. Not just through the deaths of family and friends, but also in the feelings of loss that come with the inevitable life changes we all endure. I know teaching you the grieving process will help you recover and adapt to what has happened.
Looking back at how I reacted emotionally to losing my sight still surprises me.
My vision loss hit me hard.
I was left reeling, and I have no doubts the period that followed, where my health became a huge issue, was due to how down I got because of it.
Of course there’ll be a negative reaction to losing a substantial amount of vision. ‘Seeing’ is something we have taken for granted all our lives.
When it first happens its normal to find yourself at a low end. Being diagnosed with diminishing eyesight that can not be restored is going to impact you in a negative way. Every time from then on that you open your eyes you are praying that a miracle has happened and you can see properly again. The disappointment you feel is unbelievable.
Truth be told I’m very luck. I’m only blind in one eye. The other when with a lens supporting it can see adequately enough. Yet it was still so hard to cope with initially, and even now I still get way to tired if I use my one eye that bit too much.
Losing your vision is life changing. I’ve got to be honest, those that I know who have gone totally blind, are some of the bravest most amazing characters I know. They have adapted to their world going dark and have rebuilt their lives in a meaningful way. So as someone visually impaired I had no excuses that would allow it to keep me down. None of us do.
One of the main reasons that we react so negatively and feel so bad when we first deal with losing vision is because we are dealing with loss. It’s no different to losing a limb, or in fact dealing with the death of a loved one.
You see the emotional roller coaster that you’ve been on is very similar to that which you experience when you lose a loved one. You go through what is called the grieving process.
You see Grief, whether in response to the death of a loved one, the loss of a treasured possession, or to a significant life change, is a universal occurrence that we will go through when we experience any type of loss.
You have to go through it. Grief is a journey that we must all take. It’s how we take the journey that makes all the difference. It is a complex and painful process but is needed to ensure you make it through.
By knowing that this is what you are going through, will enable you to probably get through it faster. The way the process works is that it takes you through a variety of emotions, stage by stage, which I’ll explain in detail shortly, eventually getting you to the point where you accept the loss, adapt to it and start to move yourself forward once again.
You see the grieving process gives you the time to try and make sense of what has happened while learning to live your life without whatever it is you’ve lost. It is a necessary stepping stone towards coming to terms with what has happened and rebuilding your life. It’s the reaction and adjustment needed to adapt to the loss and change.
Alas in my experience health care professionals don’t tell us this and therefore we go through the myriad of negative emotions that wash over us with no understanding of why we feel like we do.
I now want to help you make sense of what’s happened, why you’ve reacted like you have and help you to move on once again and rebuild your life if that’s what’s required.
Of course your initial reaction to losing a substantial amount of your vision is going to be traumatic. It is naturally going to devastate you. Emotionally you’re going to be distressed. You’ve lost this hugely vital part of yourself forever, you’re not going to get it back. Even though as visually impaired its not gone completely, what we now can see is totally different.
After a loss, grief will trigger an array of emotions, they’re going to knock you down. Feelings such as shock, pain, disbelief, disorientation, disconnection, denial, anger, injustice, unfairness fear, abandonment, loneliness, depression and anxiety.
Everything can become so laboured under the emotional bombardment of grief. Confusion is normal. Daydreaming, being unproductive at work, starting something and then forgetting mid action what you were doing, feeling like you’re losing your mind are all common experiences. You’re not losing your marbles. You’re grieving.
The Five Stages Of The Grieving Process
In 1969, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced what became known as the “five stages of grief.” These stages of grief were based on her studies of the feelings of patients facing terminal illness, but they can be applied to other types of negative life changes and losses, such as losing a significant part of our eyesight.
Facing what has happened makes us experience a series of emotional stages which are:
Denial - “This can’t be happening to me.”
Anger - “Why is this happening? Who is to blame?”
Bargaining - “Make this not happen, and in return I will ____.”
Depression - “I’m too sad to do anything.”
Acceptance - “I’m at peace with what happened.”
The process of dealing with grief is similar to the process of recovering from a physical injury. When a physical injury occurs, the body needs time to heal and recover. Dealing with grief is no different. The mind needs time to recover and heal. You need the time to cope, and deal with grief. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself this needed time.
Let me break these down for you.
Denial Stage
A typical first reaction to a diagnosis of vision loss is to feel emotional numbness, shock, disbelief, and deny the reality of the situation. This buffers the immediate shock, allowing time to ease you into your new situation.
Denial is the first of the five stages of grief. It helps us to deal with the loss. In this stage we are in a state of shock and denial. We go numb. It is the only way for us to simply get through each day before we have time to deal with our reality. It helps us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief letting in only as much as we can handle.
Denial is an unconscious defense mechanism used to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts that are consciously unbearable. When I was told my sight loss was unrecoverable, my reaction was one of disbelief, ‘this can’t be happening to me.’ I found it hard to accept, and tried to go on as though nothing had happened. I would still sit in front of the computer and be in shock and surprise I couldn’t read any words on the screen. I simply tried to carry on as if though nothing was different. I simply couldn’t deal with the truth or the consequences so rejected what I had been told.
As I mentioned earlier I would wake up every morning, open my eyes, and be bitterly disappointed that there was just a fog, I could see nothing clearly, just an outline through my supposed good eye.
This really hasn’t happened to me, is your first way of reacting to disaster. This can’t be true is a common phrase we will constantly repeat in our minds. This is called denial, and it is the mind's way of buying time to get used to a new experience. We are protecting ourselves by refusing to accept the facts, denying the reality of the situation we find ourselves in. It should fade over time as you find ways to adjust to your situation.
Anger Stage
As you accept the reality of the loss and start to ask yourself questions, the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.
You begin to believe that you are now visually impaired and experience strong feelings of anger at the loss of your vision, the difficulties you are encountering doing just simple daily activities; anger at family, friends and your greater dependence on them; anger at doctors for the inability to restore your sight. Anger may be aimed at inanimate objects, complete strangers as well as at yourself.
Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the more you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion that for a while takes control. Underneath anger is pain, your pain.
The frustrations of not just having lost my sight in this one eye, but now my inability to type, write, read or doing so many of the things I had done on a regular basis really pushed me to the edge. I was at my wits end, delicate and fragile, like a coiled snake ready to strike out at any moment. When I tried to do something that my vision loss prevented me from doing I just found myself erupting in anger. The stress of it, the feeling of hopelessness just kept boiling up and inside I was just so angry thinking constantly “why has this happened to me, it’s so unfair.”
Many bereaved persons will experience highly intense, time-limited periods (e.g., 20–30 minutes) of distress, variously called grief bursts or pangs.
Anger is a strong feeling of discontent and aggression aroused by a wrong. This stage of grief occurs when the person who is grieving gets mad or angry at what has happened and the loss occurred. Anger is a natural response to unwelcome changes in circumstances. In questioning how the situation happened you’re searching for ways to make things better and get angrier because you can’t find solutions. This anger is also mixed with an overwhelming feeling of fear, sadness and pain. I remember talking with my two children and facing up to a Christmas alone, and I simply broke down and blew up. Anger is a way to shift the problem by blaming someone or something for what you’re going through.
Bargaining Stage
The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control. Bargaining is an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the vision loss. Psychologically, the individual is saying, “I understand I will lose my sight, but if I could just do something to buy more time…
You are willing to do anything if only your loss can be prevented. Bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to helping others. Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our vision restored. We want to go back in time and stop what happened urgently trying to reverse the situation that has beset us. Secretly, we go through a ridiculous process where we try to avoid the unavoidable by making deals internally with God or a higher power in an attempt to reverse this situation. You desperately will try any form of bargaining to make your problems go away.
We convince ourselves that there is a possibility that we can make deals to end the loss or make it go away, or bring back what we’ve lost. All we can think about is bringing things back to the way they were. We find all types of ways in our mind how this situation could of turned out differently. We play them over and over again. We try to imagine that we had done these things differently and hope that we suddenly find we have woken up from our nightmare and everything has gone back to the way it was. But we do very little to find realistic solutions, exploring what is available to help us in our particular situation. Desperate times call for desperate measures is the saying that comes to mind. Your mind will reverberate with thoughts of what you could do to turn this situation back to the way it was. The hopelessness of your situation pushes you to wish you could have your time all over again, because you could have done other things to try and resolve your situation.
We become lost in a maze of “if only . . .” or “What . . .” statements. We want life returned to what it was; we want our loved one restored. We want to go back in time: stop things from happening
Depression Stage
You eventually will wake up to the fact that you can’t even strike a bargain with the devil. What’s done is done and there’s no going back or stopping things that have already happened. Now depression sets in. Depression is defined as a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal, sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason. This is the stage when the person becomes sad and upset most of the time. But they are beginning to wake up to the truth. You’re beating yourself up and now holding yourself responsible for what has happened. You may cry a lot more and may try to shut yourself off from the world around you. I know in my case I did everything I could to hide my true despair from my family. I distanced myself from them so that they wouldn’t see how dreadful I felt. I actually don’t believe they ever realised how much turmoil I went through. Feeling these emotions shows that the person has begun to accept the situation. In this stage, the person accepts the loss but is unable to cope with it. Depressed and demoralized, the person is in despair seeking remedy and has to come to terms with his situation. You have to move on from this stage as quickly as possible. It will hold you down.
After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever. It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss. We withdraw from life, left in a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point in going on alone? Why go on at all?
Grief is a process of healing, and depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.
Acceptance Stage
This is the final stage of the grief process. You have fully accepted your loss and are now coming to terms with what has happened and have reached a place where you can cope with things better.
Acceptance stage projects a ray of hope and you start believing in yourself and the possibilities ahead. Reality and facts of life are accepted and you begin moving forward with your life. You can’t cry over spilt milk, so it’s time to get on with life once more. Acceptance allows completion of the cycle of the grieving process brought on by your vision loss.
Reaching a sense of acceptance takes time, and often there are many starts and stops along the way. Once again, the process is different for everyone.
You begin dealing well with the challenges that come with losing your vision adapting and finding ways to do things. You are coming to terms with things and accept the reality of your situation.
We now accept life has been forever changed and we must readjust. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve. We begin to live again.
Over time, you will experience symptoms less frequently, with briefer duration, or with less intensity. Although there is no clear agreement on any specific time period needed for recovery, statistically there is evidence saying the grieving process can go from 6 months through 2 years post loss.
There is no turning back time. What’s gone is gone. The vision you have lost, I’m afraid is almost certainly gone for ever. Accept this and show a determination, to make life still one worth living.
Be sure to allow yourself time to move through all of the stages of grief, remembering that some stages may overlap and recur and all are a part of processing and learning. Sometimes there is reoccurrence of an earlier stage after going through a later stage.
The reality is that you will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.
There is wonder in the power of grief. We don’t appreciate its healing powers, yet they are extraordinary and wondrous. It is just as amazing as the physical healing that occurs after a car accident or major surgery. Grief transforms the broken, wounded soul, a soul that no longer wants to get up in the morning, a soul that can find no reason for living, a soul that has suffered an unbelievable loss.
You will begin to sense some new beginnings; experience a new dawning of life that slowly replaces the previous despair and desolation and darkness. As hard as you may find this to believe right now, the pain will eventually ease up and allow you to reinvent your life and your identity. You will reinvest in life and find yourself planning for the future with some degree of joy in being alive.
Give yourself the freedom to enjoy life again. Enjoy living today
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