Strength TogetHER 12- Session 4

 

17th July, 2021 'When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure'. Losing someone you love is the hardest thing in the world to deal with.It is a kind of pain that you physically feel all over your body.Grief is synonymous with death.Its suffering of the worst kind. To make things easy and comfortable, Strength togetHER, Cohort 12 themed its session as 'Losing someone you loved- As the flower wither'.We were moderate by Miss Rosy Karna, Psy.D candidate at Stanford University with a specialization in Clinical psychology.   The session started from 12 in the noon with active participants of 15 people through the virtual world of zoom which lasted for more than an hour. We started the session with a warm greetings and began the session with story telling- Our first speaker shared a story of how she lost one of her closest friend.Her friend was unwell since few days but the condition was not complicated.One day, she came to know about his death through a third person. At first, she could not believe and was numb. She went through sleepless nights and cut off her connections for few days.She further shared that, one evening he started having pain so he was on the way to the hospital.He was sitting next to his mother and lost his life on her arm on the way itself.This made her realize that life is so uncertain. Our second speaker was also upset and heartbroken when she came to know that her closest friend has lost her sister.Due to some she was angry with her friend, but later on found that her friend was no more. She felt really sad and the news was really shocking for her.She found it hard to overcome the loss. Our third speaker was also having flashbacks of the time when she lost her aunt.She was quiet young when she had to live with the loss that she had to suffer.Se shared the background of her aunt that she was suffering from heart disease.Initially, she was in a critical condition and the doctors had only 50 percent hope for her survival.Her family member took good care of her and miracle happened that she was recovering from that critical stage.Suddenly later, during midnight she started her aunt started having severe pain and doctors could not save her life.Our speaker was really heartbroken when she shared her story and added that she still have nightmares. After listening to all the stores, our moderator also shared her story of how she lost her grandfather. He was hospitalized since few days in her home country. She was living very far from him, so she asked her sister to show him virtually. Few days after talking to him, she came to know that he was no more. Our moderator felt nothing to this news. She was neither sad nor happy. She could not react anything. After listening to all the stories, our participants were all filled with different emotions and alot of thoughts were running in their mind since the topic of the session was so heavy to handle.  Our moderator discussed few general mechanisms to shock that she could notice in everyone's story- *Freeze- feel no emotions/get numb * Fight- deny the loss/ get angry *Flight - Run away She even stated the stages of grieving- 1) Denial 2) Anger 3) Bargain 4) Sadness/Depression 5) Acceptance Lastly, we discussed different coping mechanism because to cope facing the reality is very important. Here are the few mechanism practiced by the participants in the session- *Doodling *Adopting healthy habit of the one whom we lost *Diverting mind in something else * Talk/share the feeling with friends/family The session was really interactive and full of emotions. It was really calming. We ended the session with a beautiful smile and captured the moment for cherishing memory. In the end we all know that, Behind every loss,there stands a strong soul. Written by: Manaswi Agrawal