Dr. Ellen's Article on the 14th Amendment for Law Day 2017

Thanks to our own Concord Law School, retrieved from https://www.concordlawschool.edu/student-life/law-day/s

Coping with Loss by Thelma McGranahan, CM 107

How do you cope with the loss of a loved one or the loss of a job for that matter? There are many different ways, but at the same time, there are also different stages of it. I know this from personal experience all too well. When I was five months pregnant with my son, my mother passed away from lung cancer. A month later, my cousin that was honestly more like a brother, was beaten to death. Four days after my four year old son was born, tragedy struck again when my 36 year old sister passed away. Unfortunately, I have not taken the time to grieve or learned to cope. 

             I do know along with coping difficulty comes depression. In my experience I fell in a deep depression. With the depression came changes in weight: weight loss, weight gain, appetite increase, appetite loss. Sleeping hours came too few and far in between. It was horrible. Coping with loss does not necessarily mean the loss of a loved one. It can be loss of a job, loss of house, financial change, just anything drastic. Either way, it is not an easy process to go through. As I mentioned earlier, I have not taken the time really to grieve any of the loss; this oversight is actually common. They call this detachment or Cognitive Disorder.

            Most people just mourn and accept the fact of the loss. Well, with this disorder, it is more like just pretending that you have accepted the fact and moved on. Me, for example, with my mother I was 5 months pregnant and still in my senior year of high school. I cried of course, more like bawled like a child just wanting their mother to hold them. I went back to school and pushed through it. It hurt so badly to face everyone, but I did it for my baby. Still being in high school when he was born was not an option for me. That was my distraction. Four days after I graduated I had Damian. Still, I did not grieve. I was a mommy; I did not have time to think about me. I started working taking and care of my sister just to stay busy. ReNae had cancer just like mommy. In 2012, I had my second child, Caden. Four days after he was born, she passed away. Just like before, I cried but I never took time to really grieve. I had two now, work, and just whatever else I could find to keep my mind off of them. I would call my sister every day, just like before, just to find they had shut off her phone. I would still catch myself talking about my mother and sister like they were still here. Now I have accepted that they are gone, but I will not allow myself to grieve.

            . You may be asking what is grieving. Well grieving is learning to live without something. Everyone is different. There is no correct or incorrect way to go about it. Just actually doing it. I hope that this reaches somebody and lets them know it is okay to deal with loss. Just do not let it over take you. Do not let it just bottle up for years and let it eat at you. It has been almost 8 years for my mother and 5 for my sister, and I didn’t take time then. Now I suffer from insomnia at times, severe depression, and certain things trigger all of that. Songs that we would sing together are now nothing but tears falling. Pictures just let me think they are still here. Videos are unbearable. Please don’t let this become you. Not saying every now and then you can just let it out, but for me it is daily.

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