Counselling

I think its for just bereaved parents though, deb?

By the way its free!

appygran I'm so sorry for your loss. I had some counselling organised by my work during the time my daughter was terminally ill but I was only allowed a few sessions and then their contract ended. Since my daughter passed I have seen my work chaplain. I am not religious at all but she was a friendly ear and very supportive but she also put me on to a group called Compassionate Friends. You can google it and you will be able to find a meet in your area I hope. They are just a friendly group of bereaved people that will listen. They don't necessarily offer advice but they are very supportive. It is not a religious group. Gransnet is brilliant, but sometimes its nice to talk to people in person. We try to help each other and we are all in the same boat so to speak.

appy having seen my daughter go through a similar issue (though a different problem) I'm reluctantly inclined to agree with mollie, that some counsellor's/therapists just want to keep you paying. My DD stopped and has become much more settled and happy since.

One of the counsellors I saw I just didn't click with and it wasn't a 'good' experience for me. I hung in there thinking it would get better, but actually it got in the way of being able to work through my emotions.

The last two therapists I saw were just brilliant and it might sound strange, but I will always think fondly of them.

Going to a group can be a good experience too. Listening to others can help understand your own feelings.

appygran it does depend on the counsellor. I was referred to our local team and it took months to actually get an appointment then it was a CBT person who decided I needed counselling and then a counsellor who said I wasn't ready for counselling (and had a silly patronising voice). I gave up but then received a letter from them saying I had declined counselling and it made me cross so I complained. Eventually I had the standard 8 sessions with a very sensible, inciteful woman which have just ended. I don't know if it did me any good but I was able to ramble on and on and on and cry as much as I liked. I haven't wanted to do that to family and try to put on a brave face for them so it probably did me good.

I am thinking about joining a Compassionate Friends group soon to see if that helps me. Maybe you could contact Cruse as already suggested up thread? A different approach might give you a different perspective. I think there may be more widows around to talk to than there will be mothers who have lost an adult child.

Thank you, appy. It really is good to 'talk' isn't it? And if you've lost the person you'd usually talk to, its difficult to work things through in your head. I'm so glad you made this thread. please let us know how you fare.

Thank you everyone for your generous and knowledgeable replies, you have given me a lot to think about.

I was offered counselling before my husbands death but chose not to as at the time I felt I needed to focus all my energies on caring for him. I said I would request counselling in the future if I felt I needed it, never thinking I would. I feel that grief is a natural part of life , something we all encounter in one form or another during our lives and learn to live with the loss. Therefore I was surprised to find myself not coping, not just normal grief, if there is such a thing, but having intrusive thoughts and flashbacks and high levels of anxiety. Not wanting to take the medical route I thought counselling would help, and it has. Anxiety levels are less and I am coping. However my grief has thrown up previous traumas for which I had therapy many years ago.

I have spoken to my counsellor about ending the process and returning if these past traumas don't settle. She thinks I need to continue. I had a three week break over Christmas and have recently returned and had two more sessions. While everything appeared to settle over Christmas I am now finding myself in turmoil again, hence the question is this helping anymore? I have spoken to my counsellor again and have decided to take a months break to see how things go. It gives me the option to return if necessary.

My analogy of grief is that at the moment it feels like being in a little rowing boat, without oars, all at sea. Not knowing what todays weather will bring, ranging from heavy showers to light sunshine. It feels okay to stay here for a while but I know in the distance there is dry land and a life to live, but how do I get there without oars. Perhaps I just need to learn to swim.

Thank you for reading this it has helped just to write it down.

Warm((((((( hugs)))))) to anyone else in a similar situation.

On the strength of this thread, I have just phoned the local hospice, which offers services up until 6 months after bereavement. The letter was mostly about drop in groups, and coffee and chat mornings, but it did say that if you felt you needed one to one counselling they could help.
They're going to phone me back next week (hopefully!) to arrange for me to go and have an assessment.
Its in an out of the way place for me as a non driver, but I feel a bit more positive now.

Apologies for rambling. I find it difficult to express my thoughts on this.

With all my heart I hope you all find the support you need on this journey.

Bereavement counselling should help you with the feelings you experience after the loss. Those feelings of loss after a bereavement so individual and counselling gives you time to sit down with those feelings with someone who can guide you through coping with what can be an overwhelming amount of different emotions.

If anyone thinks it may be of help I suggest you contact Cruse, your local hospice and Mind. Your GP practice may have its own counsellors. You may have a local IAPT service. All offer bereavement counselling and other support services. All of these are free, but even other local charity counselling services which make a charge will take clients who can't pay or can only make a small donation.

Your GP reception should have a list of counselling services available in your local area or be able to give you the details of the local psychological therapies service.

Another alternative is online forums and sometimes just reading the experiences of others can help with your own feelings. One of the biggest is Bereavement UK.

There's a lot of help out there and you don't have to go through things alone and remember, you don't have to tell anyone else what you're doing. Also, sometimes it can be about finding out what's not helpful for you.

For me, counselling was a time and place separate from my everyday life where I could sit down with my feelings and have help from the counsellor to try to make sense of them. It helped me to cope better when I left that place to go back to my everyday life.

I would recommend Cruse for bereavement counselling as an ex Cruse counsellor and trainer myself. I don't think CBT is terribly helpful as it is very solution focused and the one solution you would like and can't have is to have your loved one back. I think the best help comes if you really like your counsellor and you trust them. After 4 months you seem confused about where you are and whether it is helping or not. As a counsellor myself I think the counsellor needs to take some responsibility but can you let them know how you are feeling and I would hope they would look at any changes that could make it a better experience for you. Grief is really individual don't think you are doing it wrong, society is very unforgiving of grief and puts in place unrealistic expectations of the griever. It's good to let out your different feelings but it may be you have done enough of that for now and it would help more to look at how you can manage in the future but be kind to yourself it is not a race. Take care and I send you my sympathy and good wishes.

appygran and trueblue, condolences on the sad loss of your DHs. Eight months is no time at all so you are bound to have difficult days with or without counselling.

Personally, when my DH was diagnosed with terminal cancer, almost four years ago, I fell apart. I couldn’t imagine how it would be possible to function on my own after 36 years together.

My doctor sent a counsellor from the Hospice to visit me at home. At first I was not very keen to be telling my feelings to a total stranger, but she was a lovely lady and listened patiently as I poured out my tale of woe. At the same time DH was diagnosed, my sister and two of his sisters were also suffering from terminal cancer, and I had already lost my other sister to it, so it felt like a family curse.

So, in answer to your question, I think conselling did help me, although I had it before , rather than after his death. He and his sisters died within eight months of each other, my darling sister made it until just over a year after my DH died.

I still have very tough days when all the counselling on earth wouldn’t help, but I try to cope as best I can.

I wish you, and all suffering from bereavement, the ability to get through one day at a time and appreciate the little steps forward, and be gentle wth yourselves when it all gets too much.

By the way, one thing the counsellor is looking at with me is how I might feel if OH dies - I am finding it very helpful to have that out in the open and in a sense be making preparations for the inevitable.

Eglantine- beautiful analogy. I was once furious to be asked by a busybody 'friend' whether I was grieving properly! Actually the anger that made me feel was a nice change but I swiftly dumped such a useless 'friend'. There's no right and wrong here. Only feeling. Working out the best way to do that is such and individual thing.

It might help if you spelt out your thoughts about how the counselling is going with the counsellor. He/she could then change direction if that is what is needed.

I go for counselling - used to be once a week, but now once a month - because I was sinking under all the ramifications of my OH's PD - he was having lots of mental symptoms which were bringing me down, paranoid delusional accusations etc. I did not want to discuss these and their effects in any detail with my family or friends, as it feels disloyal to him and embarrassing for him, so the opportunity to offload in a safe and confidential place has been very helpful.

In the course of the meetings we have at times veered off topic and she has helped me to see that I am really quite hard on myself - expecting too much - and that my outward confidence may not be as secure as it seems.

One thing that bereavement counselling might help with at a simple level, is having the chance to say how angry/sad/ overwhelmed etc. you feel to someone who is outside the situation and not themselves distressed by the loss. But I do understand that going over this again and again ceases to be productive at some point. Perhaps you could tell her this and ask her to focus more on the future.

I am sorry for your loss and send all warm wishes.

Good analogy Eglantine it describes my feelings exactly!

Appygran, your grief is understandable. I think that a proper counsellor will not help you to overcome your grief but will respect your grief as an honourable part of you. Grief is part of love . I respect your grief.
Moreover the hard emotional work of caring for a dying loved one means that you need time and rest to recover from that alone. As for the grief, do you really want to stop grieving altogether?

I thought it was like being on the seashore Maw. Sometimes you were ok paddling in the shallows and then a great big wave would come and knock you off your feet. But always, always in the sea, not on land like you were before, if you see what I mean.
All I can say is that the big waves come much less often now.

I too have wondered whether counselling would be any help and have thought about asking those who have trodden this path before but recognise that we are all different. Many years ago I was a Sam and when my father died a Sam colleague would ring me once a week just to help me talk things through. Perversely, it didn’t have the desired effect and I became more introspective and depressed. What worked for me then was “parking”my grief or mentally putting it in a safe place and just getting on with my life. I was 16 years younger, still teaching and had plenty going on in my life.
This is different and losing ones life partner is not something to be “got through” is it? It is a whole life change and involves so many more layers of emotion apart from grief or loneliness, not to mention the practical issues.
I wonder if a counsellor could do any more than provide a crutch along the way and suspect that those who have lost their partners years ago would say you never “get over” it, just get used to it. People ask us how we are coping, don’t they? The fact that we can get out of bed says we are -after a fashion. What IS coping anyway?
All I would say is, go with your gut reaction, nobody can tell you how to feel.
Giving up the counselling may be another loss or it may be that you are ready to throw the crutch away and walk unaided.
Personally I never know how I will be feeling, it is not a continuum or upward progress. Some may expect me to be as fragile as I was just 10 weeks ago when paw died, others expect me to be “getting over” the early stages of grieving, but in my experience it is not a predictable path. Good days, bad days does not come close!
Good luck anyway!

I suppose that 'counselling' is only as good as the individual 'counsellor'. Although the approach may be standardised the person can't be.
Maybe you've gone as far as you can with this person? I agree that it would be well worth your while contacting CRUSE. They will have direct experience of helping people through all the various stages of painful grief and beyond. Remember that there is a beyond! Good luck.

What type of counselling? Bereavement counselling or proper therapy type counselling (sorry, layman’s terms). The former (I used to be a bereavement counsellor) is an opportunity to talk and be guided through the grief process, the other sort deals with knotty problems. In my opinion grief is a natural process and shouldn’t be mixed up with other life issues. Of course some people do need that extra sort of help if the nature of the death throws up other problems.

On the other hand, being contentious and having worked with a variety of therapists over the years, some just like to keep the client coming back. If it isn’t working for you, stop and look for other help. Sometimes a good friend is just as helpful and with no axe to grind.

I don't agree with the "you'll feel worse before you feel better approach". Sometimes it can take a few sessions to get to the root of the problem, but if you can be honest with your counsellor then they can help very quickly.

I have had counselling twice. Once when my husband was very ill and I had hit rock bottom. She made all the difference in about twenty minutes. Just picked up my little crashed train and put it back on the rails.
The second time was after he died and that was a couple of sessions to enable me to acknowledge where the unshiftable pain actually lay.

If you feel you have had enough, the counselling has probably done all it can for the moment. No amount of counselling can take away the grief and pain of bereavement. I do sometimes think it's dished out as if it will.

I had counselling after cancer treatment, it was helpful at first but after 3 sessions I'd said enough and felt like I was just repeating myself and I felt worse so I stopped going. I explained my feelings to the counsellor though.
appygran best wishes to you .
Also for MissAdventure trueblue22 and everyone bereaved.

Hi, I have no experience or knowledge but I didn't want to read and run so I'm sending you a hug. And for anyone else in need.