Your stories - Lisa and her parents

When Lisa lost her parents, she struggled under the weight of grief, until she found tools to help her with her loss. This is her story. 

When my parents died a decade ago, it was awful, not least as they were two of five bereavements of family and friends I suffered in five years. Plus I’d also just become a Mum for the first time and my husband was made redundant three times during that time too. 

As you might imagine it was a very challenging time emotionally and had it not been for the support of my husband and friends I’d have not been able to carry on.

I remember feeling very low, lost and unsettled as so many people who had been such a big part of my life seemed to be leaving my world. Whilst I kept my thoughts very much to myself, keeping things bottled up wasn’t good for me and eventually decided to take advantage of the counselling services that were offered to help support me. 

Despite these sessions helping me feel better initially, in the longer term I noticed that I felt stuck and unable to shake the emotional distress I’d felt having lost my parents who I’d thought would always be there for me. 

It wasn’t until I discovered something called the Grief Recovery Method, that things changed for me. Having met a specialist, I signed up to do the programme that changed my perception of what grief is and why we suffer from it but also helped me to recover personally. Indeed it worked so well for me that I still use the tools I learnt and it has helped me to become more resilient especially more recently during the pandemic and the challenges of Lockdown.

I now believe that although grief and loss is something that we will all suffer from at some point during our lives, we don’t have to suffer in silence and there is always hope of a better day. in my humble view, there is nothing wrong with asking for help and when we do take positive action, we really can empower ourselves to recover and move forward to create a happier and healthier life. Whilst I will never forget what happened, I do so without the pain of those I’ve loved and lost.    

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