Saturday, November 19, 2022

Empathy Lessons on Survivor Day, November 19, 2022

 

I’ve written before of the gift of a larger-than-life original portrait of my son Noah from our niece and how a glimpse of it can mesmerize me. Sitting in my living room this week gazing into the Zoom meeting screen, I realized my head was in just the right position to block Noah’s head in the portrait on the wall behind me. I appeared, for once, to be looking out at the world from Noah’s place in it. This was startling as it had never quite happened that way in the many Zoom meetings I’d done in that room. Did I suddenly notice the convergence of our two heads because I’d recently been reading and thinking about empathy?

I’m ashamed of how little I was able to understand Noah’s feelings and walk in his shoes when he was struggling. I was too caught up in my own struggle, helpless to help him and to find a way out of our estrangement. My own experience of depression in my 20s was very different than Noah’s and I couldn’t see why it was so disabling for him. I didn’t know that he was having severe anxiety attacks and frequent suicidal thoughts; even if I had, I would not have known how those felt. I knew he was in deep trouble but I was too frantic about it to be able to sit with him in the dark and listen.

It was only after Noah’s death, through suicide prevention training, that I learned how to be present for someone in distress and hear their story. It was only after learning more about suicide and mental health conditions that I could sense the suffering all around me, especially among young people, and try to reach out.

Empathy, I now know, is a response that can be taught, a muscle that can be strengthened. My greatest lessons in empathy have come through walking beside other suicide loss survivors on the long, circuitous path to healing. In the early years, I was stumbling through traumatic grief, hanging on every restorative word of those ahead of me on the journey. I could say anything about how I was feeling and they understood. I could ask how they could bear it and they would tell me, step by step. We were all  banished to a parallel universe, breathing the same thin air of an alien planet, trying to find a way home.

Over the past ten years, I’ve gotten into the habit of reaching out to other loss survivors, especially mourning moms, on this blog, in my book, and in person, both one-on-one and in groups. I encourage survivors not to fear their grief but to sit with it and fully express it. I invite their stories, anticipate their needs, reassure them, as I was reassured in the bleakest time. I try to remember not to assume anything about others’ grief, but to gently ask instead. I remind them to take good care of themselves every day.

Being with my fellow survivors reminds me that there are always more opportunities for empathy—giving it, receiving it. And that the more we practice it, the more it becomes a part of us and of healing the world.

Wishing everyone a heartwarming season of gratitude.

To my fellow survivors: If you want to be with some powerful empathy teachers, check out International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day to see stories of survivors from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Another great resource every day of the year is the articles and community forum at Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors



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