How could this beautiful man change so much and say the things he said and become someone I no longer knew. My life as I knew it was gone and I could not make any sense of any of this. Was it calm, or was it judgment, was it understanding of the excruciating pain I had experienced for over two years? “It would be easier if he were dead” came the calm response of my therapist.
“It would be easier if he were dead” I heard myself say in a half whisper, looking down at the floor, unable to recognise in those words the love for my husband of more than 20 years. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives.The intangibleness of ambiguous loss by Anne-Kirsten Maclachlan Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer’s patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss? We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support.
0 kommentar(er)
