Replaying Their Death

Whether you were there and watched someone die or not, the brain can do a pretty good job of creating all sorts of visuals. It will fill in the gaps of scenes you may have missed, and can convince you of many different realities. It can also make you think of 100s of different scenarios where it all works out differently, where if one tiny thing had just been different, they’d still be here, they’d still be alive today.

The ‘what ifs.’ The more questions than answers. The emotional and physical pain…

Why do we do this? It feels like mental torture! There are actually several reasons we do this, and I likely won’t cover everyone’s experience in this one little blog, especially if the relationship was complicated to begin with. But, we’ll give it a go and see what resonates for you.

Wiring of the Brain

The brain simply does not understand. If you think about brain development, we grow all sorts of wiring and over time prune away things that don’t seem important, or haven’t been repeatedly practiced enough to retain memory around it. When someone, like a parent, has been a part of our lives for so long, there is simply no knowing life without them. The body reacts to the news of death with shock, shaking, shutting down, uncontrollably sobbing ~ and the mind is on the sidelines, thinking “Wait…What?” It does not make sense. Repetition of visuals of someone you love dying can feed into the brain understanding the permanency of it all. The brain may play out different scenarios to try and save them, but ultimately some repetition is needed to really understand what happened is real.

Trauma

The rumination, the constant replay, the intrusive thoughts…these can often signal signs of trauma when they start to go on for too long. While replaying a death may be common amongst grievers, suffering with these images so much so that they’re causing disruption to your life years after a death doesn’t have to be something you suffer through alone. People often think these thoughts will never stop. I cannot predict anyone’s journey throughout their grieving process, but I think when we move away from expecting these things to go away 100% ~ to a space where we focus on lessening the intensity, we give ourselves permission to move forward at our own pace.

Guilt

Oof, this is a really tricky one. Some people have true guilt. For some, maybe there was a role they played, but often I find that guilt comes from a place of wishing they had been more available, or done something differently - even though there is no evidence whatsoever that would have kept their person alive. “Just one decision could have changed it all.” Ah, the magical thinking once we have all the information after someone has died. We suddenly know the cure, what would have worked, or any relationship issues suddenly become nonexistent and we expect ourselves to have shown up as an entirely different person. This is often where logic and emotion can collide. They both can leave out a lot of context, forget that they often don’t have the full picture until it’s too late, or that there were existing problems in a relationship that lead to not being available as much. There becomes too many gaps in the story and the default is guilt, self blame, and/or regret. These are tough truths to dig into when grief is so fresh. It often takes quite a while to have enough opening to explore these things. This little paragraph barely taps into the iceberg that lies underneath.

Connection

Replaying someone’s death is another way to stay connected to your person. I often find that people have a fear of forgetting or not remembering them if they stop having these intrusive thoughts. They don’t want their person to feel like they’ve ever been forgotten. If I can just replay it enough, if I can just figure out how to change the ending, if I can just…then I never have to move into a place of them truly being dead. I can hold on, so I don’t have to let go. This is often just a part of someone who feels this way, and it’s largely driven by fear of what it means to “let go.” As you move through your grief, you’ll discover there are ways to loosen your grip, to move towards acceptance that they are physically gone, but in no way will they ever be forgotten. How could you ever forget them? Your relationship carries on until the end of your time, and maybe beyond. It just looks different now, but when love remains, so does the relationship in moving forward. They are a part of you now, how could they not be?

Acceptance

Intrusive thoughts tend to ease up with intensity, or dissipate, when we have fully integrated the reality of loss into our lives. It’s just so damn hard making our way to this place of acceptance. You’re confused, you’re numb, you live large chunks of time in shock, you’re mad, you’re inconsolable at times, and you’re utterly drained and exhausted. It takes time, community, a lot of support, a lot of introspective down time, a slowness in life, and a desire to move towards healing and connection. Anything that stands in the way of these things create barriers to moving into acceptance. Many people have different ideas around grief, but here’s what resonates most with me: Our grief does not shrink over time, but our capacity to grow life around our grief expands. We move forward, with our grief, forever changed, and we will mourn this many times over. When we stop trying to go back to our old lives, our old selves, we give ourselves permission to trust that our bodies were designed to handle this grief. It will require much of you, but accepting their death allows you to access more nostalgia, more sharing, more connection with your person, to slow down, and the desire to keep your heart open to love.

No matter where you’re at in your grief journey, I do wish you peace, I do wish that you’ll keep going. If these feelings have been so intense for you that you’ve been struggling to take care of yourself or impacting your overall well being, please reach out to someone who can support you and understands the complexities of grief. Therapy, community, friendships, religion, spirituality, support groups…our tribes come in all shapes and sizes. I hope you find yours. We were never meant to grieve alone.