Grief Survival Guide Notes

Topics: grief, loss, death of a loved one

One of the first things someone told me (I don’t remember who) was I should start writing things down—grief brain is…different. Processing is slow. Thinking is blurry. Decision making is hard. What? What’s happening? Cell phone? Where? How do I talk to people? How do I get dressed? How do I not sound like a total b*#&h every moment of every day? How am I supposed to be human?

Solution? Write things down. Read the things when brain short circuits. Repeat. 

I started a list in the notes app on my phone. I’d add to it each time a sane-ish thought ran through my mind. I have to be honest, they aren’t all winners, but I said I’d go there, so I am—unfiltered notes on how to autopilot when thinking, feeling, deciding, and processing were just too much.

How to behave:

• Grief makes you selfish—remember to think of others too

• Don’t compare everything to, ‘Is it worse than my brother being dead?’

• Other people’s happiness might feel insensitive, but it usually isn’t—it’s just bad timing. You don’t need to be happy for them, but you can’t lash out.

• Create intentional space from things that are too painful

• It’s ok to give stupid answers to stupid questions…play stupid games, win silly prizes.

Things that always calm you down:

• Hug B

• Hug your pets

• Play outside with the dogs

• Lover TSwift (skip Soon You’ll Get Better, It’s Nice to Have A Friend, Lover, Cornelia Street)

• Veggie Tales ‘God is Bigger than the Boogeyman’

• Nature documentaries (avoid the ones where the hyenas kill everything)

• Nail painting videos on instagram

• Cookie decorating videos on instagram

• Lake Michigan

• GoodReads Fitzgerald quotes

• Your pocket devotional flash cards

• Apple juice and goldfish crackers

• The key change in “I Will Wait” (Mumford & Sons)

• B’s mac and cheese

• Look at pictures on your phone if you don’t know what to wear. What are you wearing in the pictures? Wear that. (Side note, why can’t mental pictures become real pictures?)

• You can’t fix it. Nobody can.

• You can buy the shoes, but they won’t make you feel better.

• “Right now” thinking. Looking backwards will drive you crazy with stress/regret/sadness. Looking forward can make you feel anxious. There isn't anything you can do about the past or future so tune it out and give your mind a rest. Actively stop thinking about anything that isn’t in your face. Plan with caution. Remember but don’t obsess.

• Always take pictures. More than you think you’ll ever want.

• Thinking weird things is normal. Thinking about acting on the weird things requires intervention. Get help. 

• You don’t need to be ‘OK’. You’re allowed bad days.

• People will move on, that’s expected. But anyone who expects you to move on from a life-altering, insurmountable tragedy in the span of weeks or months is someone you can stop associating with. People who lack compassion aren’t your people in this season of life—Tim* said so. (Tim* = Dr. Tim Duthler, psychologist) 

• Our criminal justice system might be ‘one of the best in the world’ but it’s still really messed up.

• Empty panic—that’s what it feels like. It’s panic in the present over something that happened in the past. The panic is real, your fight or flight response is high-key, but you can’t do anything. It’s all written, signed, sealed, delivered. But the panic…the panic is unrelenting. Grief is fear in reverse. 

• Even a year later, sometimes I still forget you’re gone. 

• The anticipation of the bad days is usually worse than the bad days themselves. 

• Acid rain. It feels like acid rain on your insides.

• God doesn’t require words/sentences to understand prayers. You can just sit in the silence. Or put on music. Or cry. Or groan. All are accepted. 

• You don’t owe people conversation or details (but don’t be rude about it).

• Repeating the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostle’s Creed are worship. God doesn’t ‘ting’ you for being repetitive. 

• Don’t listen to the sad playlists on days you’re already sad—you know your mood can’t bounce back from it. 

• You have to at least try.

• When B puts on TSwift and asks you to dance with him in the kitchen, always say yes

• Your friends love you, they don’t think you’re a burden. It’s ok to text them and ask for encouragement/cat pictures/gossip updates.

• Fuck this shit. 

• You don’t have to have a plan/conflict/reason to decline an invite. Sometimes the reason can simply be ‘not feeling up to it.’ 

• You aren’t the only one who has bad stuff going on. Ask your friends about their lives, too. Commiserate with their hardship, too. 

“You know, I keep thinking it’s going to get easier, but it just doesn’t.”

“No, it doesn’t. It just gets more familiar.”

• Six Feet Under

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

• F. Scott Fitzgerald

“How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”

• Bram Stoker

“To the living we owe respect, to the dead we owe only the truth.”

• Voltaire

“I wake in the night, I pace like a ghost

The room is one fire, invisible smoke 

And all of my heroes die all alone, 

Help me hold on to you.”

• Taylor Swift

"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be." 

• C.S. Lewis

“Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me,' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”

• Anne Lamott

Things that are always ok to wear:

• Ballet bun

• Black ankle pants

• Striped shirt 

• Chambray button down

• Messy ponytail. Add a bow to sell the effort.

• Cami and cardigan (with jeans, flippy skirt and tights, black pants)

• Sundress

• Supergas or Sperrys

• Crew neck sweater

• White button down

• Navy blazer

• Coral, cream, kelly green, navy, bright pink

• Add a necklace and earrings

• If you put on enough mascara and lip gloss, nobody can tell you were crying

Things that will always make you laugh:

• While You Were Sleeping

• John Mulaney stand up

• John Crist videos

• Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer

• NFL bad lip reading on YouTube

• Ew, David.

• The Office ‘burned my foot on a George Foreman grill’ episode

Meals that are easy to make for dinner:

• Baked mac and cheese

• Grill something

• Paninis

• Breakfast for supper

• Soup (chili, chicken noodle, chicken & wild rice, white bean)

• French bread pizza

• Charcuterie 

• Quinoa caesar salads

• Anything in the crock pot (pulled chicken, roast, pulled pork)

• Baked potato bar

If all your coping resources fail, remember the bare minimum mandates in life:

• Act justly

• Love mercy

• Walk humbly

• Love Jesus

• Love others

• That’s it. That’s all. That’s the whole list.