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Loren

TRAUMA, GRIEF AND THE HELP I'M RECEIVING


I've found so much comfort from walking through museums. Here I am three weeks ago at the Art Institute of Chicago.

I'm grateful to have a support network that's beyond amazing. By those in that very tight circle, I'm frequently asked if I'm getting help and, if so, what kind of help I am getting and whether it's effective. My response is, in short, that I am getting professional help and yes it's effective. That said, I'm far from doing well. I have many thoughts on my emotional state. I could choose any number of them to write about here, but I'll pick 23, one for each year since Jenny and I got married in August 2000.


1. My pain from losing Jenny lately has been equaled by the trauma of the accident itself. I relive the accident in my mind multiple times every day and its horrible aftermath. I'm not quite sure if Wellbutrin has helped with the trauma (more on Wellbutrin below). However, what did help with the trauma, at least for a while, was when I experimented with Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) administered by a friend. It brought the pain down from a 9 to about a 6 or 7 for a few weeks.


2. Whenever I close my eyes before sleeping, I can't help but replay the accident in my head. So, when going to bed I try to read until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. Or, I watch a YouTube video until I fall asleep. I do both using my phone. The device has become a crutch.


3. For the first few months, I tried my best to not take any meds for my depression. Nine months in, however, my psychiatrist told me that if left untreated for a year without anti-depressants with no improvement, my depression would make permanent changes to my brain. So, I gave in around the time of the anniversary of the accident and started taking.


4. My psychiatrist offered to prescribe Wellbutrin, Zoloft, Prozac or Lexapro. She let me choose. I selected Wellbutrin because I was told it's one of the lighter-duty drugs of the four. (Prozac, on the other hand, is one of the heavier hitters.) I also selected Wellbutrin based on side effects of the four options.


I wish I could carry your smile in my heart

For times when my life seems so low

It would make me believe what tomorrow could bring

When today doesn't really know

Doesn't really know

I'm all of love, I'm so lost without you

--From "All Out of Love" by Air Supply


5. There's a two-week ramp-up with Wellbutrin. For that period my mind became hyper-aware and the loss of Jenny stared me in the face with a harsh reality. Afterwards, however, the opposite effect happened and a fog descended preventing me from dwelling on my loss or seeing it very clearly.


6. I forgot to take Wellbutrin for two days and, a couple of days later, I sobbed countless times over about a 24-hour span, suggesting a lag effect for missed doses. For that period, it was like there was a break in the clouds that had been shielding me, so my loss hit me with striking clarity.


7. I'm not so certain it's best to sweep the pain of losing my wife underneath a rug (as I suspect Wellbutrin is doing). My mind took a vacation for much of December and all of January. I came back to Earth in early February and the return to reality hit me hard. I was nearly non-functional. I felt like there was a lot of unfinished business that I needed to deal with related to my grief.


8. I've had no side-effects of Wellbutrin that I'm aware of.


9. Broadly speaking, at the time I lost Jenny, there was a much greater demand for therapists than could be provided. Grasping at everything, I took all I could get. As a result, I ended up with three therapists: One from my HMO, Kaiser, a second provided for me by Intel and a third from my dad's hospice. I'm still seeing all three. At the time, no single therapist could see me more than once every three weeks or so because their schedules were so full. These days there's more of a balance between supply and demand and I can get any single therapist with about one week's notice.


10. Lately, I've been feeling very sad about the loss of my dad, which happened two months after Jenny passed away. My grief was initially dominated by Jenny's passing. One of my therapists predicted I would eventually get to Peter. It's happening now.

In early August, Skeeter lay next to our memorial for Jenny in the living room.

11. If I had to rank the effectiveness of tools to help me address my grief and trauma, I'd say it would be 1. My kids, 2. My support network (including those who have also lost spouses), 3. My therapists and 4. Wellbutrin. All four are important and I'm not willing to forgo the help of any of them at the moment.


12. More than just depression, our losing Jenny has also caused me a great deal of anxiety. To one therapist, I used the analogy of two of us co-piloting a plane with the kids in it. Jenny was the captain. One minute she was there in the cockpit with me, the next minute not. Our household is now a plane coasting without a pilot and with none of us knowing how to fly it.


13. One therapist recently said I'm now "sub-clinical" and said I should think about not getting therapy anymore, lest therapy become a dependency.


14. So often, grief has seemed like a wet towel within me, getting heavier with sadness. Eventually, the liquid needs to be squeezed out because it simply can't hold any more moisture. That's when I cry.


And what would you say if I called on you now

And said that I can't hold on?

There's no easy way, it gets harder each day

Please love me or I'll be gone

I'll be gone

I'm all out of love, what am I without you?

-From "All Out of Love" by Air Supply


15. Perhaps my most soothing activities are walking through an art gallery and watching TV while I stretch. Biking around isn't bad, either.


16. Wellbutrin has not helped me at all with my attention span issues. By the way, such problems, I'm told, have more to do with my grief (losing Jenny) than my trauma (the accident).


17. Tyler was in the car with me when the accident happened. To this day, we both won't talk about it. Not even with each other.


18. At one group therapy session that I attended, a widow commented, "The second year is harder than the first because it's during the second year you realize your spouse isn't coming back." For me, her words are so true. I didn't finish the group therapy, by the way, as I found the sessions too depressing.

19. Earlier this year, I took a ten-session class on dealing with trauma delivered by Kaiser. I found it tremendously helpful. The most valuable lecture for me was on self-compassion. Coincidentally, while hanging out in a friend's office in early July, I noticed stacks of wristbands on her shelf. One of them said, "self-compassion". She let me keep it and I've worn it since. Self-compassion is something I constantly need to be reminded of.


20. I still frequently dream of Jenny. Rather than feeling sad when I wake up, I feel grateful because, for a brief moment, I really believed she was with me. It's a marvelous feeling.


21. I still haven't notified the vast majority of commercial entities about the passing of my wife and dad. It's been too hard for me. I often need a kid with me to give me the courage when I do get around to calling, say, a brokerage, a bank, or to close a subscription. If I can do this once every two or three weeks it's a huge victory for me.


22. Our network is taking such good care of us. I will miss so many by attempting to name names, but I offer the following just as examples: One family constantly has us over for dinner and leaves baked goods at our door on important dates. My friend Jeff makes sure I get out of the house to go hiking regularly. Nicky makes it a point to talk to me every week and he made me dinner after taking me fishing up in Folsom Lake earlier this summer. My former Intel colleague Michael double- and triple-texts me to let me know he and his wife Liz are thinking about me. My sister-in-law Christine pulled us out from a place so deep, dark, depressing, cold and desperate.


23. I love the scent of Jenny's clothes. When I'm having a grief episode, I will often go to the walk-in closet, close my eyes, press the sleeves of her jackets and cardigans against my face and take a deep whiff. For a while, at least, I feel better again.

Jenny's clothes in a walk-in closet I still share with her. Her clothes aren't going anywhere.







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