Mental health
fromPsychology Today
1 day agoThe Grief of Family Rejection
Family rejection leads to ambiguous loss, causing isolation and grief for survivors, necessitating recognition and support for healing.
My husband has just been let go from his fourth job in five years. The first time it happened was during Covid when he was laid off, but it seemed to start a pattern.
Research indicates that LGBTQ+ teens entering high school experience significantly higher anxiety symptoms compared to their cisgender heterosexual peers, highlighting the unique challenges they face during this transition.
The concept album is a response to the brutal murder of Breedlove's father and stepmother at the hands of his stepbrother. The frame—the first song and the last—of the album is about the murders and their aftermath. But this is not a true crime record.
Today I saw images of students leaving their school with their hands raised in the air, hours after cowering in fear and terror in barricaded classrooms. Nine dead and twenty-seven wounded in the tiny Rocky Mountain town of Tumbler Ridge. The mayor, Darryl Krakowka, said, "I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims." And this in Canada, which often seems to us Americans like a bastion of sanity and normalcy in comparison with our madness.
When we think of rituals, we tend to think of face masks and wellness trends. But there are actually ways to use rituals to help heal grief and deal with stressful times. On this episode, Lucy Lopez, Elizabeth Newcamp, and Zak Rosen are joined by ritual expert Betty Ray to talk about creative ways to help children process grief and big emotions, how to use ritual to create safety and expression, and much more.
Living with family as an adult is often framed as a "failure to launch," but navigating grief at home with my mom and younger sister helped me rethink growth. Living at home in my 20s wasn't easy at first, but after my dad died, living together became a lifeline that transformed my understanding of what adulthood truly means.
'They're dead.' In disbelief, my response was unfiltered. 'What?' Followed by the F word. A wave of emotion rushed through me. My chest tightened. My body went cold. I could not immediately find the words to offer condolences, not because I did not feel them deeply, but because inside, my many parts were experiencing a collective shock. When you live with dissociative identity disorder (DID), news like this does not land in one place. It ricochets across all parts within.
I am lying in bed listening to the radio at my boarding school as my roommate is getting dressed. As she walks out of the door she says, See you at breakfast don't be late. I'm about to get up when the early morning news comes on the radio, and I hear the announcer saying my parents' names. By the time my roommate arrives at breakfast, everyone has heard.
February 20 is National Caregivers Day, celebrating caregivers everywhere, whether they are friends, professional caregivers, or family members, for the hard physical and emotional work they do that often goes unseen. Caregivers also include surviving parents trying to navigate their grief after the death of their spouse, while also supporting children who are trying to navigate their grief from the death of their parent.