FDNY UNITS / CSU / Literature / the LINK

Trauma and Grief

W hen someone close to you dies, it’s normal to grieve and feel the pain, sadness, anger, and loneliness of separation. Grief is said to be a process of adjustment and acceptance to this separation—a psychological bridge from knowing your loved one is alive to knowing that this person has died. When grief is working, it is a way of honoring your love and attachment, and at the same time releasing you to continue your life apart from the person who died. However, when your loved one is killed in a sudden, violent manner, an extra layer of trauma is added to your grief, which can make your adjustment to this loss more difficult.

Psychology research is recently paying more attention to violent death and the impact it has on surviving family members. The academic literature has labeled this concept “traumatic grief” or “complicated bereavement” as it seeks to explain some of the ongoing intensity of many feelings and reactions. Empirical evidence confirms that when trauma and grief occur together, subsequent reactions are more prolonged and distressing. For those of you who lost a loved one, trauma doesn’t get discussed as much as grief, and you might not even realize that what you are experiencing is symptomatic of trauma.

All of you whose loved one was killed in the line of duty have been exposed to a traumatic loss, and may be at risk of experiencing traumatic grief. One marker of trauma is threat to self, which many of you did experience on 9/11, particularly those who were on the job and who responded during the attacks or immediately thereafter. Another marker of trauma for some is closeness of the relationship to the person lost in a disaster. Some studies show that this predicts equal if not higher levels of distress than those who experienced the event firsthand. And, when the death is violent, as it was on 9/11 and can be in other line of duty losses, bereavement has been found to be more complicated in terms of its symptoms. Violent death, where there is human intent to do harm, interrupts our inherent beliefs about the goodness of people and the natural order of events. People grieving a violent death may find themselves obsessively assigning blame and responsibility, searching for reasons, and dwelling on the missing details in an attempt to have the senseless loss make sense.

Katherine Shear, M.D., a psychiatrist who has done some pioneering work on traumatic grief and has worked with 9/11 family members, says: “What seems to happen with traumatic grief is the bereaved person seems to be ‘stuck’ in the grieving process, a signal that grief isn’t working, that something is blocking the acceptance and adjustment to the loss.” This “something” may be trauma. Shear notes that the symptoms of traumatic grief are unique to each person, but there are some general and notable similarities.

Here are some clues that you might be experiencing traumatic grief:

Is your sleep disturbed?
Do you experience an exaggerated startle response?
Do you feel phobic?
Are you experiencing anxiety?
Do you feel shame?
Do you feel rage? Horror?
Do you feel guilt?
Do you feel excessively anger, bitter, or irritable in relation to the death?
Do you find that you are ruminating about the event and the death of your loved one?
Do you feel purposeless or futile about the future?
Do you feel empty or meaningless?
Do you feel like part of you has died?
Do you feel like your sense of security, trust, and control has been shattered?
Do you have intrusive thoughts about your loved one and the death?
Have you experienced memory impairment?
Do you feel like your emotional reactions are particularly intense?
Are these reactions interfering with your daily functioning?

Family members have said that their traumatic grief has manifested in an inability to complete paperwork, difficulty getting through a book, and broken sleep night after night.

So the question becomes, once you’ve identified traumatic grief, how do you start feeling better? Maybe all of things you’ve tried– therapy, support groups, social interaction - have brought some relief, but you still feel like you’re suffering.

Your world is different now, and you’ll have to make meaning of that new world for yourself. The trauma of a violent death does not fit the commonly shared beliefs about how the world operates. Coming to terms with the fact that the world isn’t always safe is a large, but important task. You also need to come to terms with the fact that you are different – you may have a changed sense of self, and you may have a different perception about the world around you.

Accepting these changes is part of the process. Many people find that faith and spirituality are helpful in working through this. Building community is also critical, as many of you have found throughout the years, whether it be your support group, your firehouse, LOD Family Connections events, or your local community, research has consistently shown that traumatized people fare best when they have community support. Many of you have said that people on the outside don’t get it, that they expect you to be over it. Don’t let this hinder you from seeking support. If you don’t have community supports that you can trust, your task might be figuring out how to create a trusting community for yourself, whether it be through a weekly lunch outing with a group of caring friends, reaching out to other family members who understand what it’s like to walk in your shoes, or finding support in a community that is totally unrelated to the fire department but that is nurturing for you personally. Scheduling in some enjoyable activities that are not related to the Fire Department can be quite helpful as well. In your own families it is very important to make open communication a priority, and give voice to emotionally charged feelings and issues that might have stayed silent in the past. By trying to control trauma and keep everything under the surface you will repress it and make the reactions less conscious, but there nonetheless.

This brings us to another critical task, which is facing the trauma that you have experienced. The tricky thing about trauma and grief occurring together is that they can set each other off and keep a cycle going where neither gets properly worked through or addressed. Trauma reactions, which can be triggered by anything from an unexpected mention of 9/11 on TV to an anniversary, can interrupt the normal grieving process. Similarly, thinking about the loss of your loved one through normal grieving may trigger trauma reactions thinking about how he was killed. With FDNY line of duty deaths and 9/11, the public intrusion on your grief can perpetuate this cycle, as you have no control over how and when it gets mentioned in the media. Talking about your trauma, while probably painful to even contemplate, is what is going to ultimately bring relief. Seeking the help of a therapist to go over the details of the traumatic death can ultimately give you a sense of mastery over the event, instead of feeling like the event is controlling you. Identifying what triggers your trauma reactions is also important, so you can avoid the triggers you can control, and be emotionally aware when you get triggered and it is out of your control. Relaxation strategies, stress management techniques, physical activity, and creative arts therapies may help you self-soothe, easing the trauma so you can process your grief, and making you feel safe, in your bodies, and in control. For starters, you can try the simple breathing exercise in the adjoining box when you are feeling like you need to get grounded and calm.

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

Back to Top

NEED SOMEONE TO TALK TO? OUR COUNSELORS ARE ON CALL AT (212) 570-1693 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK

theCalendar

Meeting are 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. except where noted. For info, call the CSU at (212) 570-1693.

Family Members

Mondays:
Greenbush Presbyterian Church,
Blauvelt, NY.
For info, call (212) 570-1693

Tuesdays:
Staten Island CSU,
1688 Victory Blvd.,
Staten Island.
For info, call Mary Cole at
(718) 815-4111.

Spouses * New Day & Time

Wednesdays:
9:30 a.m.
Orange County CSU,
2279 Goshen Tpke.,
Middletown.
For info, call (845) 695-1029,

Thursdays:
Freeport Fire Dept. Headquarters,
15 Broadway, 2nd Floor,
Freeport.
For info, call Dr. Dianne Kane
(212) 570-1693

Back to Top

Spouses Without Children.

Mondays:
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.,
FDNY CSU
594 Broadway,
Manhattan,
For info, call Elena Coronges
(212) 570-1693.

Parents

Thursdays:
Our Lady Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church Convent,
1314 East 29th St. (by Ave. M),
Brooklyn

Thursdays:
Freeport Fire Dept. Headquarters (See above.)



Fiancees & Significant Others

Mondays:
6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., CSU,
251 Lafayette St., 3rd Floor,
Manhattan

Wednesdays:
Fort Totten FDNY Family Crisis Center,
Bldg. 413 A,
Bayside (photo ID required).

Siblings

Wednesdays:
7:00 p.m.
Center Cottage, Suffolk Community College
Crooked Hill Road, Brentwood.
For info, call Ray brown at (631) 851-6888.

New group in Fort Totten

Every other Thursday, 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
For info, call Lynne or Kristen (718) 352-2140.

Back to Top