Philosophical Question - Dealing with Grief

[NavalGent]

After watching Sweet November with the young-lady-friend, i thought it sucked, yet she thought it was beautiful. After exploring our lines of reasoning, we found that there are different ways of dealing with grief. She, having dealt with more loss than I, goes by the "deal with it head on/cry, and let it all out" philosophy. I, on the other hand, having spent plenty of time around military, ambulance and police folks, took a different stance. In such lines of work, one can expect to see horrible things almost daily (in some cases). To deal with this, humour can be used as a coping mechanism. One PO i met this summer, who had been in East Timor, told us about some of the horrible things he saw there, yet he had probably the best sense of humour out of anyone in St. Jean. He seemed to use humour to keep oneself sane. The same sort of mentality has led to ambulances and hearses being referred to as meat-wagons by some. I feel that to adopt the other attitude would lead to a miserable life. What do you think is a more effective way of dealing with grief or trauma?

 

[I_Drive_Planes]

You mean you actually managed to stay awake through the whole thing? my hat's off to you 

But seriously I'm a volunteer search and rescue guy and we do deal with some fairly ugly stuff, we do body recoveries for the coroner's service, evidence searches for the RCMP, and many of our searches wind up becomming criminal investigations.  A major stressor as well is just the knowledge that you may come upon something ugly.  This is known as critical incident stress and on a search site you will see a lot of black humour, which is a great coping mechanism.  You do have to be careful with it though with family and press running around, sometimes we will bring family members out on a search team to give them something to feel helpful, and to get them out of the hair of the search managers.  It has a real effect on the team, because now you can't use that humour and you have to be completely serious in order to be seen as professionals.  The worst family-member experience I've had was a couple of years back we were looking for a 16 year old who was suspected to have committed suicide about a month before, we had the step-father on our team and I had to make up an explanation as to why we were looking up in the trees as well as on the ground.  As it turned out the kid turned up about a week later in Dawson Creek when he was thrown in the drunk tank.  Black humour is a great coping mechanism, and it's a lot of fun too (you should hear some of the stuiff we come up with on a search) but when things get worse, when you get into dealing with some of the gore, or worse things that we have to deal with is where critical incident stress truly rears it's ugly head and becomes a real issue.  Humour is not enough to really deal with it.  Enter the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing or CISD.  After an operation such as what I've mentioned above you will often find the CISD.  We have specially trained members who perform the debriefing, it's basically a group discussion about what went on that day, and everyone's feelings about it.  As much as it seems like touchy feely BS (that's what I thought about it when I started) it is really good, and getting it out is like lifting a weight off of your shoulders.  You can also talk with the debriefers privately if you need to.  If that isn't enough then we also have access to RCMP victim's services people who are phenomenal.  I don't know how well this applies to your question as I have been very lucky in my life and haven't suffered a whole lot of personal loss.  I can say, however that keeping intense emotions such as grief inside is not a positive thing and will probably affect your long term emotional health.  "Black humour" is great, and it is a coping mechanism but it's really not enough to deal with real emotional stress, and people often use it to mask what they are really feeling.  It would seem to me that if you can get it out then it's done, but if you keep it in then it will always be there and it will make your life miserable. 

 

[bossi]

I stumbled across an interesting TV program this past weekend on the Toronto Fire Department - contained a very good explanation about black humour, etc. - don't know the name of it, and can't remember exactly when it was ... but I'll figure it out eventually.

A propos to the topic of grief, I'm tempted to buy the book after seeing the movie Sunday night "The 5 People You Meet In Heaven (I happened to succumb to the CityTV advertising).

Although I've had more than the average amount of CIS training, I'm one of those who's only too happy to ask for help from the professionals when it comes time to deal with this in real life.
Grief is intense, personal, and intensely personal.
In the military context, good leadership is the key to mitigating the effects of grief.

As is said, "Leaders do the right thing, Managers merely do things the right way ..."

 

[Heatwave]

Ahhh, Yessss...black humour.  It's hard to find a Fire Fighting show/movie without it(or any EMS based show, for that matter).  Bossi, I believe the show you were watching is called Fire Station (1/2 hour show based on the TFD).

Funny thing about black humour, there are still rules.  I know one guy that would laugh at anything you said, as long as it didn't have anything to do with his wife.  To him, this was his one area of "tread lightly, boys."

Much of this was already covered by I_Drive_Planes, so I don't want to take up too much space saying the same thing.  To me, the analogy I like to use is that black humour is more like a Pressure Relief Valve.  Press on the PRV to let a little pressure out, when required, but there is still a bunch of pressure remaining that can blow at any time.

Chimo!

 

[Alex252]

What do you mean by "Black Humor"?

 

[stukirkpatrick]

What do you mean by "Black Humor"?

  Heres one of the many examples of black (or dark) humour that comes to mind...  

Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today?

1.   Writing his memoirs of the Civil War.
2.   Advising the President.
3.   Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.

 

[bossi]

What do you mean by "Black Humor"?

I won't spoil all the fun for you of googling "black humour" for yourself,  but ...

Definition:    [n]   the juxtaposition of morbid and farcical elements (in writing or drama) to give a disturbing effect

black humour
Humour based on the grotesque, morbid, or macabre. It is often an element of satire. A classic example is Irish writer Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' (1729), in which he argues that eating Irish children would help to alleviate Ireland's poverty. 20th-century examples can be found in the works of Samuel Beckett, the routines of the US comic Lenny Bruce, the work of US film-maker Quentin Tarantino, and the drawings of the English caricaturist Gerald Scarfe. It is also an important element of Theatre of the Absurd.

e.g.   (from a Scottish website ... I can't take credit for this myself ... chuckle)

A seven year-old turns up in his classroom one morning to be confronted by his teacher:

Teacher: Morning Tommy, and why weren't you at school yesterday?

Tommy: Well Miss, my Grandad got burnt.

Teacher: Oh Dear, he wasn't too badly hurt I hope?

Tommy: Oh yes Miss, they don't fool around at those crematoriums.

 

[stukirkpatrick]

...   I can't believe you just wrote that...   ;D   heres a couple more...

The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man

-Chesterton
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A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what's left of your unit.

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Warning: Do not drink the battery acid. It doesn't taste good and will hurt you. Also do not bite the tyres, especially while the bike is moving.

Our lawyers made us put these warnings in.

-An Australian motorcycle manual


Humour is a definitely good means of relieving stress, black humour even more so.

 

[bossi]

Humour is a definitely good means of relieving stress, black humour even more so.

It's more than just a good means, it's a natural reflex (as per the textbooks ...).

...   I can't believe you just wrote that...  

Want more?   Click on the link in my previous post, and you'll soon have tears of laughter streaming down your face ...

"You know the oxygen masks on airplanes ? I don't think there's really any oxygen. I think they're just to muffle the screams."
Rita Rudner


"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw


I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face."
I said, "You'll be sorry."
He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?"
I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well."
Emo Philips


"...A life that is clean, a heart that is true, And doing your best, that's success."
Clifford Olson, semifinalist in
the 1995 North American Open Poetry Contest.
Disqualified upon finding that in 1982 he was
convicted of killing eleven chidren.


When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut.


Life is a sexually transmitted disease, and it's 100% fatal.


Smokers are like ordinary people, just not as long.
Graffiti


"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
Somewhere in No Man's Land, BA4