Dear Mindy, (writes a teen whose father has died)

I have heard the words “grief counseling” thrown around a lot and I wonder how it is different from regular therapy. Can you explain?

I have never gone to a LINKS event because I really don’t enjoy talking about my loss or thinking about it. Other than that, I would consider myself to be a happy and well-functioning person. I have a friend who constantly pesters me and tries to coerce me into going saying “It can’t be that you never think about it and think that that is normal”. But it’s true. It’s been 9 years. I was 6 at the time. My mother is fantastic and I literally have 4 surrogate fathers in my warm brothers. I don’t feel the loss regularly (other than one day a year on Yartzeit which I hate). I get the magazines and read them from a more intellectual POV. I never cry over pieces and when I get all emotional it’s because I feel bad for the kid writing it forgetting that I, too, don’t have a parent! Is that as crazy as my friend makes it?

And this one is scary but I’m going to say it: I struggle with food. I am overweight by about 65lbs and need to lose it. I know that. I’ve tried diets. I’ve tried working out. I’ve tried nutritionists. I’ve tried OA. Nothing lasts with me. I lose 10-15 lbs and maintain that for like 3 months and stop there until it climbs back up. My mother is panicking that nobody will want to marry me and my brother who is most similar to me keeps saying “Admit that eating is a way of making yourself happy. You have to find another way.”

It’s not true. I am happy when I control my overeating not when I eat doubles and triples…..And the same friend as above is trying to connect my “grief avoidance” and “overeating”. She uses it as her trump card “If you would go to grief counseling (see #1), and join LINKS events (#2) and talk about your loss like a mentch (#2) then you wouldn’t overeat (#3)…..Are there no overweight girls in LINKS who go for counseling and talk about their loss?! I mean really……

I know you might make fun of me but I’m willing to risk it cuz I really want answers.

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Dear Links Member (because you are part of us even if we never see at our Shabbos),

You email was such a gem that I could not cut even a word of it. And instead of making fun of you (why on earth would you think I would do that?), I would like to address all your questions, not just for your sake, but for many Links girls whose questions are similar to yours.

Very simply, grief counseling is therapy that is specifically geared to helping people deal with grief and mourning in the aftermath of a death or any traumatic life event that triggers similar feelings of grief. A grief therapist or counselor understands the stages of mourning, how culture and individual personalities may impact the mourning process, and what a person may need to move from grief to resolution.

A normal therapist (I would say like me, but there are many people who will disagree with the normal part, so what other word should I use?) can also be a grief counselor if they are trained in grief and bereavement.

Now, if want to know how grief and mourning are different, I will tell you that although they are often used interchangeably, they mean two different things. Grief is the emotional response to loss while mourning is the process of adapting to the changes, to the void left by the death or loss. Although these two may sometimes overlap, they are each two distinct tools that help a person move from pain to healing. Another way to look at grief is that it is the first part of mourning. Grief is usually relatively short in comparison to mourning which can go on for many years. It just doesn't have that acute grief feeling (unless there is complicated grief—which needs therapy because it is compounded by other risk factors and a person is unable to move past the intensity of the grief, stays stuck with it). (Bereavement is the state of loss, if you are interested.)

So grief would look like anger, denial, confusion, shock, isolation; mourning would be the introspection, the wisdom, the growth of needing to stretch oneself to find happiness and meaning in this new world post-loss. And loss may mean more than just a death. Loss is not only the father, but the Friday night Kiddush. It's not only the mother, but her homemade challos too. It may be the loss of a job or a move to a different country. It may be the loss of a room or privacy or loss of a surviving parent's time with you because of a remarriage. The death can bring so many more losses compounded by the original one.

And people can suffer losses that are not someone's death, but feel like almost like their own, bringing the grief and mourning along with it. A divorce, a job, birth of a handicapped child, not getting accepted to a seminary, or obtaining a coveted twelfth grade position.

I still mourn the loss of a Chumash Bereishis, part of a set that my grandfather gave me, that a friend left on a bus somewhere in Israel. And that was a very, very, very long time ago. (Like in the olden days, before I had grandchildren!)

So let's get to the second part of your question. Darling, you may not be experiencing grief, but it's pretty odd that you are not mourning the loss of the father—or as you claim—you never did.

Maybe you don't remember your grief as a six year old, maybe you do not mourn today because you do not even know your loss. But I venture to say that every blind person, even if they were blind from birth, mourns the loss of their eyesight once they realize what they have lost. They are successful. They function admirably. Nobody needs to feel sorry for them, but it would be ridiculous to say that there has been no loss.

It is admirable that you are doing so well, but for a mature, thinking person, there must be a mourning process for any loss or else the value of that loss becomes obliterated. And it is impossible that there was no value in your having a father, that there is no value you particularly note in your children iy”h having a father.

It's not that you necessarily need therapy, because many people who have an early loss have no recollection of their grief, nor do they notice anything missing in their present lives—having lived so long and so well without that limb, that sense of sight or taste or smell or hearing; but nevertheless, the loss exists.

And I venture to say that your adamant refusal to talk about your father, your inviolable conviction that there is nothing to talk about, makes me think about Shakespeare's line, “The lady doth protest too much.”

In plain English, the more you protest about something, the more likely it is that that protestation draws a curtain over exactly the opposite.

A healthy person who has adequately grieved and mourned does not need to avoid Links, avoid talk about the deceased parent, avoid feelings aroused by an article. The avoidance is like knowing you have a splinter in your finger and avoiding certain movement in order to avoid feeling that jab of pain.

“But, Mindy, haven't you read a single thing I wrote?” you are protesting. “I am doing fine!”

Yes, Darling. You are doing fine. Except for that eensy weensy problem of yours of being severely overweight. I notice you didn't mention that overweight runs in your family. That it's a gene thing you got stuck with. Nope. Everyone in your family (including that friend of yours that I simply love and tell her if she needs another friend I am available because she sounds so smart and caring and on target!) feels that your food is a way to stuff your emotions away.

It's hard for me to make a judgment call on that because yep, there are overweight people all over the place and not all obesity is necessarily grief related.

But there's a weird new therapy that I have just learned (I love learning! And thank goodness for all my clients I can experiment on!) and it's called somatic work. And here is what it's all about. Whenever we experience trauma, the body stores the trauma and holds it somewhere in the body. And even if we don't remember the trauma, our body remembers for us. And it's the body's way of saying, “Hey, something hurts! Can you take care of us please?”

I am not saying your overweight will magically cease to be a problem if you recognize your unfinished mourning business, but your new self awareness may help you either to finally use methods other than eating to self soothe; or if you ever decide to do bariatric surgery, you have a greater chance of maintaining it, of doing it successfully using your new tools borne out of this self awareness.

“Okay, Mindy,” you are telling me, tapping your foot impatiently to get me to keep quiet for two minutes (it's hard to do that; ask my kids—or husband for that matter), “l'maaseh, I am doing fine. I have nothing to talk about with a therapist about my father. But I hate being overweight.”

“Go to a grief counselor, Dear.”

There are ways to address your issues other than forcing you to talk about your father.

I would want to know why, other than your weight, are your family members and friend (really, you better tell her how much I love her!), are making you crazy. Because honestly, you sound like you have tons of personality, you are smart, and really doing well in your life. Lucky you for your brothers! And your great mother!

I would begin with your feelings about the Links Shabbos. What feelings being at a Links event or Shabbos arouses in you. I mean, I don't know about you, but I would go to any free Shabbaton where there is good food, great entertainment, and fun people. Even if everyone there has purple hair and under two feet tall (like my grandson when he pours grape juice all over himself....). I would literally focus on the feelings and where you notice it in your body. This is the first step to being aware of how food numbs unpleasant sensations.

It would be combination of talk therapy, somatic work, and techniques like mindfulness and emotional self-regulation.

If you are nearing twelfth grade, this may be a good time to explore these issues. You are not yet pressured with shidduchim and having children, so your work can be unhurried and leisurely. No time bomb ticking to get you in shape in time for life! Because father-loss impacts many areas of a person's life and awareness is the key to minimizing these impacts. And if you are a unique individual (which I am sure you are!) and that you truly have successfully moved through grief and mourning so that what you describe now is the result of that spectacular work, then good for you. You will have proved us all wrong. It's worth those sessions in therapy to stick your tongue out at everyone and say, “See, I told you so!”

So think about it.

NOTE: THIS WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN LINKS MAGAZINE, A PUBLICATION PUT OUT LINKS, AN ORGANIZATION HELPING CHILDREN WHOSE PARENT(S) HAS DIED 

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