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Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

bessstillman.substack.com

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Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#121

Post by squigz »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #102

I came across this when I was going through the death of a parent. It helped me process and manage grief, I hope it helps others, and feel it is relevant to share in this thread. "Alright, here goes. I'm old. What that means is that I've survived (so far) and a lot of people I've known and loved did not. I've lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, stude…

Hey, I was going to post this!

But yeah, I read this when it was initially posted and it has stuck with me ever since. It's a really great expression of the struggle with grief.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#122

Post by paddleon »

roughly wrote: post #51

I say this with respect and love to the author: it does not sound like you’re handling this just fine. I think you’re right that there’s no way to handle this just fine, and you’re right that you’ve got a very good reason for not being just fine, and it’s in fact very normal and expected for you to not be handling this just fine, but it is also the case that you’re not handling this just fine. I think we tend to reac…

the reason to NOT have a DSM-recognized diagnosis on your medical record is it can be used to disqualify you for things later in life.

And we cannot predict all of these future changes, either in our interests and/or the law.

"We don't want pilots with depression or anxiety, because duh obvious reasons" and there goes a career option for you. (something very like this happened to my cousin)

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#123

Post by Rooster61 »

righthand wrote: post #46
Rooster61 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I often wonder how dealing with death compares to the east where ancestors are commonly remembered, contemplated, and revered. In what way is this not western as well? Implying that western culture does not remember, contemplate, and revere those that have gone before us is a bad take.

In the way that most people don’t have a routine of that contemplation and remembrance and that individual self, ego, and your future is placed as more important in the day-to-day.

That's moving the goalposts. Implying that people do not go through that remembrance vs implying that they do not do so on a set routine are not the same thing.

Not to mention that such a routine might very well be part of the medical therapy that we are talking about here.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#124

Post by KittenInABox »

entropicdrifter wrote: post #83
aeturnum wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is a big problem [edit: for the people who get sucked into it] and, to me, is kind of the "other side" of the overmedicalization issue that this blog is complaining about. One way medicalization harms is is when people are forced into conditions they don't agree with (as the author feels they have been). The other way is when people who aren't medical professionals (and wouldn't be in a positio…

>Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus. I was with you up until this point. My wife has C-PTSD, Bipolar type 2 and ADHD, along with what her psychologist describes as "Social OCD". I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to other pe…

I would posit your issue is not in co-option of terminology but in that ableism is still rampant and these are people who wouldn't take your wife seriously even if you described her symptoms. I have conditions that people do not uwu cutesy about on tiktok and people still illegitimate me when it inconveniences them slightly like canceling plans. People playing down disabilities the disabilities of others is extremely common. Being able to be flexible and accommodating to any degree I can to someone's disability has nothing to do with whether or not I think it is legitimate, and gating my flexibility to whether or not I personally judge someone's disability as legitimate is ableism plain and simple.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#125

Post by spyckie2 »

roughly wrote: post #96
spyckie2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to take away from the article, in the comments she states that her world is filled with the joy of new things with her new baby. She is doing as well as one can be for how much she loved Jake and how much she misses him. The author is extremely talented at isolating certain feelings and making you feel them with her. I wouldn't use this article as a diagnosis of anything but her writing talent.

> She is doing as well as one can be for how much she loved Jake and how much she misses him. Again, my point is that that statement is absolutely true and also does not preclude the notion that additional professional help may be warranted. I went on Prozac earlier this year after a conversation with my doctor that went, roughly: “I think you’ve got anxiety” “well yeah, look at the fucking world!” “…right.” Just bec…

Usually I would agree with your points, especially that wounds on the soul should be treated like wounds on the body - objectively, and with the best practice medical support for proper healing to minimize adverse effects.

But as she so eloquently puts it, the grief is not just a wound, its a lifestyle change. Its the repetition of existing expectations and systems that have to be retrained and rewired.

Professional help can help numb feelings but when it comes to retraining your entire life, as she also implies, professional help is only medically necessary if you are completely debilitated and unable to do the retraining yourself.

Professional help is only as helpful as it can do it better than she can. And I think because it involves lots of instances of processing her own feelings, that kind of help is difficult to provide medically.

Support groups I can understand helping her situation though.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#126

Post by cindyllm »

ashtakeaway wrote: post #103
Aurornis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of medicalizing something is to draw a line between situations where it would be too soon for medical professionals to step in The problem is that medical diagnoses and therapy speak have spilled over into common language where they’re so diluted that they’re not accurate any more. For many there is no line drawn anywhere because they are self-diagnosing based on flawed understandings as soon as any feeli…

Those folks are the ones who refuse to acknowledge and accept the fact that they were abused by family members while growing up, where those personality 'symptoms' are common. It is very well known that ADD and ADHD comes from abusive households. Nobody except psychologists and anyone in the mental health field would ever admit such failures in life. They will not accept the fact, and exaggeration and deflection of c…

[dead]

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#127

Post by chucksmash »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #98
mnky9800n wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very american trend in my experience. Americans are quite happy to tell you their long list of diagnoses, how that some how gives them some kind of exception to the rule, and how this is some how part of their identity. This kind of oversharing is common across topics from Americans but in particular oversharing of and obsession with psychological conditions seem to be a common modern stereotype of american…

I mean, I have no data for this, but I think it's a combination of two factors: - Access to mental healthcare here is HEAVILY gate-kept by a combination of it often costing quite a lot of money, generally having longer waits than most healthcare services, heavy variability in availability by location, and insurance coverage runs the gamut between great or utterly absent, sometimes even in the same policy depending on…

Everybody wants to be the one who overcame the odds or struggled bravely on. Everybody wants their story to be special because of how hard it was for them compared to everyone else.

I think some of it comes from the value the culture places on underdog stories and some of it comes from the oversaturation of everything in modern life.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#128

Post by entropicdrifter »

KittenInABox wrote: post #124
entropicdrifter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Basically if you like using a medical term to describe your experience ("I'm being really OCD today") I don't think there's much harm in it and you may find coping mechanisms for people with ODC helpful as a bonus. I was with you up until this point. My wife has C-PTSD, Bipolar type 2 and ADHD, along with what her psychologist describes as "Social OCD". I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to other pe…

I would posit your issue is not in co-option of terminology but in that ableism is still rampant and these are people who wouldn't take your wife seriously even if you described her symptoms. I have conditions that people do not uwu cutesy about on tiktok and people still illegitimate me when it inconveniences them slightly like canceling plans. People playing down disabilities the disabilities of others is extremely…

I upvoted your comment because this is also a huge issue. I just find that the co-opted terminology does worsen the quality of dialogues about the co-opted terms. People need to have the symptoms fully described for them in detail and sometimes don't believe me or think I'm exaggerating because it doesn't match their preconceived notions of what those words mean.

I'm not saying that the problem isn't ableism, it absolutely is, just that the co-opting of the terms is still harmful in that it uses up spoons and makes it harder to communicate clearly, especially with those who are stuck on the pop-culture meanings instead of actual medical meanings.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#129

Post by sctb »

KurSix wrote: post #89
donatj wrote: post #47

One of my best friends died 12 years ago in our late 20s. I know he is dead, and yet a couple times a month I think, "Oh, I haven't talked to him in a while, I should text him!" before my logical brain kicks in and lets me know the deal. There is a dumb part of me that wants to believe, "Oh, he probably faked his death to get out of debt." He was such a schemer, if anyone would, he would. It was an open casket funera…

It’s love with nowhere to go

I love to miss people. I think missing is a complete and beautiful expression of love, just as much as having.

Re: Grief gets an expiration date, just like us

#130

Post by xyzelement »

squigz wrote: post #104
xyzelement wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't believe that. I valued children just as much when I was an atheist as when I became religion. What's significant though is the PREVALENT opinion. 100% of my religious friends want and have kids, while the majority of my secular friends do not. I work in FAANG and previously in finance, so my peers are people who can certainly afford kids and are positioned to take care of them - and yet literally most are…

Putting aside the question of whether your own experiences hold for the general population, you must consider why these opinions are so prevalent, either way. One might argue that religion doesn't teach 'values' so much as 'roles', and so people feel they must do these things, not for any significance or with little thought to possible negative repercussions, but simply because... well, that's just what you do, right…

I probably agree with most of what you wrote, but at the end of the day, the difference between 'values' and 'roles' seems insignificant to quibble about in the face of the result we're talking about here.
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