'Bereavement: it's OK to have angry as well as loving feelings'

By Noelle Blackman, Assistant Director at Respond, Community Living, Vol. 18, 2 (2004)

Sarah wanted to have only happy thoughts about her parents but found that angry feelings kept getting in the way. Sharing these feelings with a Respond therapist helped her to understand they were a normal part of grieving, as Noelle Blackman explains.

Maureen, the manager of a residential home for people with learning difficulties, recently called the Respond helpline, worried about one of the residents. Sarah seemed very unhappy and staff did not know how to support her. She had been a lively woman before her mother's death but now seemed not to want to do anything and just kept saying she wished her mother was still alive.

I listened to Maureen's concerns and made some suggestions, such as offering Sarah time to share memories about her Mum and to look at photos of times they spent together, all of which she had already tried. So I suggested that she encourage Sarah to telephone the helpline and talk to us directly.

With Maureen's support Sarah phoned us the following week. Asked how she was feeling she said she was very sad and that she missed her Mum. I asked her to tell me a little bit about her mother. She began to tell me about the beautiful garden her mother kept and how when she visited her they used to work in it together. After a while Sarah said she wanted to stop talking. I asked how she was feeling and she said she had enjoyed talking about Mum. I invited her to call again next week at the same time.

When she phoned this time she told me how much she loved animals and how she misses not having any animals in her life now. Asked if she had animals when she lived at home with her family, she said they had a dog and several cats. She also began to remember how, when her dad was alive, the three of them used to go on long country walks together and how they enjoyed naming the different birds and flowers. We began to think about how quite easily some of these things could still be a part of her life now even though sadly she still would not have her Mum and Dad. I supported her to ask Maureen if she could have a cat in her residential home and she also asked Maureen to help her to join a bird watching group that met once a month in her area.

When someone is grieving after the death of someone close to them it is helpful to find out what else they are missing as well as the person who is no longer here. Sometimes it helps to feel closer to the person who has died if they can still enjoy doing the things they used to do with that person. The third time Sarah phoned I said that if she still had some very difficult feelings about missing her Mum she might want to come here and talk to one of our therapists more regularly. She said she would see how she felt next week.

Maureen helped Sarah to get funding from social services to come to Respond and see a therapist every week. The sessions began three months later.

In her sessions Sarah talked about her Mum and Dad. She did some drawings of their house and garden. She was able to tell her therapist some of the things she felt cross about with her parents when they were alive, things she had never told anyone before.

Sarah had been worried before she came to Respond that it was bad to have cross feelings about her parents. Her therapist helped her to know that most people have loving feelings and cross feelings towards people they know really well and that this was part of normal healthy relationships.

After a year of regular visits to her therapist, Sarah began to feel much better. She noticed she felt like doing things again and that she enjoyed taking part in some of the groups she had stopped going to when she had been feeling so sad.

Lots of people like Sarah feel very lonely when they are grieving and it can be hard to know what feelings are normal at such a time. Sarah wanted to have only happy thoughts about her parents but she found that angry feelings kept getting in the way of all her other thoughts. Once she started to share her feelings with her therapist she began to feel better and to have happy memories of her parents as well.