The grieving person asks, "Am I normal?" This question arises with some urgency when we experience an ongoing relationship with our deceased loved one. I have yet to meet a bereaved person who does not report some element of an ongoing relationship with the deceased loved one. Psychologists who study such ongoing connections refer to this phenomenon as "Continuing Bonds" (CB). Nigel P. Field summarizes the work in this area in an article called "Whether to Relinquish or Maintain a Bond with the Deceased." That article is chapter 6 in the 2008 edition of the Handbook of Bereavement Research and Practice.
"There is increasing recognition in the bereavement literature," Field begins, "that the bereaved often maintain their attachment with the deceased and that this is an integral part of successful adaptation to the death of a loved one" (Page 113, my emphasis).
All of us who have lost a significant loved one feel some ongoing connection in the first several months after the death. We might be unable to part with clothes or memorabilia of our loved one. We might be unwilling to change the bedroom or move the furniture. We might hear our loved one speaking to us or see signs of our loved one's presence or activity in our daily experience. We might keep some beloved and meaningful items stored away for the rest of our own lives.
Is this normal? Am I normal when I have such feelings and experiences? Contemporary research tells us that such feelings and experiences are the statistical norm and thus quite common. We have been led to believe that such connections are pathological because of the dominant Freudian paradigm that used to inform much of bereavement counseling and therapy. In that paradigm, the goal was to relinquish the connection to the loved as soon as possible. Such therapies would often force the issue with the client in painful ways. Continuing bonds were seen as neurotic attempts to deny the reality of the death.
More recent theory and study give a more complex, nuanced and realistic view of our experiences. Field suggests, "the goal of grief work from an object relationship and attachment perspective does not involve detachment per se; rather, the goal involves a reorganization of the relationship with the deceased that accommodates the reality of the ending of the physical relationship" (Page 115, my italics).
In other words, healthy grieving does not require a termination of continuing bonds. Instead, healthy grieving involves choices about how to adapt to a new relationship with the loved one who is no longer physically available to me.
The question is not about whether I should have such a relationship. Instead, the task is to choose a relationship with my deceased loved one that allows me to do two things. First, that ongoing relationship must allow me to acknowledge and accept the fact that my loved one has died. Second, that ongoing relationship must not interfere with my ability and willingness to move forward with my own life as it is now. The technical terms for these two inter-related processes are "deconstruction" and "reconstruction" (See pages 117-118).
These processes are not immediate realities. Each takes time to unfold and develop. The sense of an ongoing physical relationship with a loved who dies fades slowly and shouldn't be rushed. I felt Anne's presence and even heard her thoughts and voice many times as I took long and solitary road trips in those first months after she died. At moments those experiences brought me to the paralysis of tears. But at other times I found those experiences deeply comforting and full of guidance.
We can debate the nature of those experiences--Anne still speaking to me from heaven (my view), my subconscious processes using her memories to get my attention (perhaps the view of secular psychologists), or pain-induced hallucinations (hardly anyone's view these days). However, we do not need to surrender to the old paradigm that such experiences are uniformly signs of pathology.
For most bereaved folks, the experience of continuing bonds is very intense in the first months of bereavement. That experience then decreases in intensity as the time passes and a new life is constructed. Keeping everything just as it used to be is all right for a while. If, however, we establish a permanent "exhibit" of our loved ones life and that "exhibit" interferes with our needs to move forward in life, then the continuing bonds become a problem.
How can we know?
The people around us are often not a very good gauge for this. Our family and friends typically try to impose two conflicting expectations. On the one hand, they often expect us to be sadder and more debilitated than we feel. Then they wonder if we're "in denial" when in fact we might just be pretty resilient. On the other hand, they are taken aback when we seek to move forward and let go of parts of our loved one's life. Then we can be accused of not having had deep enough feelings for our loved one. So don't rely on those closest to you for the best advice on this.
If after a year, the ongoing relationship with your deceased loved one is more of a burden than a gift, perhaps something is not quite right. But that is a very loose rule of thumb. Each of us has different processes and needs. All we can really do is check our experiences with people we trust and reach for the life and healing that God wants to give us every day.
Are you normal? I don't know. What I have really found is that "normal" is not as great as it's cracked up to be. I can be sure that I'm me. And that will do, thank you.
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