Donna in hospice with Ruggle’s her teddy
The New York Times article “What Happens to Our Body During Grief” written by Ann Finkbeiner just shouted out to me. I thought I'd share some thoughts and experiences.
Finkbeiner revisits the loss of her son in 1987 and relates that experience of profound loss and grief to our current state of being with over 3 million COVID deaths worldwide. The most telling and perhaps most powerful data she shares is more than 565,000 people who've died from COVID in the US each has left more than 9 people grieving. Stop and do the math. Crushing numbers of people in an active grief crisis. Those of us active in the grief community are here for them.
More than the minds response to loss is the bodies reaction to it may kill us.
Finkbeiner shares this "During those first weeks, people have increased heart rates, higher blood pressure and may be more likely to have heart attacks."
"Within the first three months, research on bereaved parents and spouses shows that they are nearly two times more likely to die than those not bereaved, and after a year, they are 10 percent more likely to die."
Rightly so Finkbeiner notes that about 10% of people suffer from complicated grief. Defined as those who have not begun to function better. They are caught in the endless suffocating loop of loss.
I'll admit that I'm functioning, some days. Other days I have to force myself to function when I consider my loss and isolation. I have to keep moving like s shark or I will go very very dark. As Finkbeiner points out the brain on grief and loss releases stress hormones and other signals to the cardiovascular and immune systems. I've posted on complicated grief here, here, and here.
Some clinical studies have been done. One by Chris Fagundes a psychologies at Rice University here. The data shows that those who experienced higher levels of grief and depression had higher levels of markers for inflammation which is harmful to our bodies especially when chronic. Another study by Fagundes here had lower heart rate variability that may contribute to a higher risk for cardiovascular disease.
If that is not enough to convince those of us grieving that grief sucks not just in and of itself, it sucks the life out us. Producing stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine which over time in a chronic state increases the risk of diabetes, cancer, autoimmune conditions and depression and anxiety. Hopf et.al completed a systemic review which is here.
"Grief, biological and psychological, is of course the result of another hard-to-study state, human attachment or love. “Humans are predisposed to form loving bonds,” Dr. O’Connor said, “and as soon as you do, your body is loaded and cocked for what happens when that person is gone. So all systems that functioned well now must accommodate the person’s absence.” For most people, the systems adjust: “Our bodies are amazingly resilient,” she said."
In the end Finkbeiner captures what I see as the truth about our grief. We may and likely will never be 'comfortable’ with our loss/grief. We become less spun-up by it daily but, it is there. Always there.
I know for me me as I continue and write about Donna, my loss, our love, and my grief. It has taken on the form of wound. A wound that lets light and knowledge in. That wound is where I learn and am filled with gratitude for all that Donna gave me. She loved me into being. I have that knowledge to use and share with others in my grief community on their grief journey and work. My ideation can be out of control at times and be ever so present. Yet I live with that until Donna and I are together again.