Faith, Feelings, and my F-150, episode 4: Naming Your Losses
NARRATOR: Alex was determined to work through the losses he had faced growing up. Clearly some of that was physical abuse. But there were other forms of loss he experienced as well. The next chapter of Lauren’s audiobook helped him understand different kinds of losses we face.
LAUREN WELLS: What are the blocks?
To put it simply, your Grief Tower consists of anything that has happened during your life that felt particularly difficult. For the purpose of the unstacking process that you’ll walk through in this book, you’ll focus only on the Grief Tower blocks from your developmental years (birth to around 25 years old). The reason we focus on the developmental years is because it is in those years that we are developing narratives about ourselves, others, the world, and spirituality.
However, there is no limit to processing. If there is something significant that happened later in life that you’d like to add to your Grief Tower for processing, you are welcome to do so.
Losses
The first category is broad: losses. Losses can be both obvious and hidden. I like to think of the obvious losses as the first layer. These are the things that people point out as losses, and they are the broadest category. Examples include losing a loved one, moving, changing schools, a friend moving away, parents divorcing. When you’re creating your Grief Tower Timeline in Chapter 13, the obvious losses are what you will put on there as blocks.
Hidden losses could be:
• Loss of being known
• Loss of routine
• Loss of knowing what’s expected of you
• Loss of your status
• Loss of being able to return to a place as you remember it
• Loss of a significant event you thought you’d experience
• Loss of a friendship
• Loss of getting to do something you were looking forward to
• Loss of knowing the rules
• Loss of a place that feels homey
• Loss of independence
• Loss of having someone to invite over when you feel lonely
• Loss of a familiar or comfortable climate
• Loss of closure
Seasons of Prolonged Anxiety/Depression
This could be a season when either you or your parent/caregiver experienced prolonged depression or anxiety. If a parent/caregiver suffered from an unmanaged mental illness and it negatively impacted you, that would be a block on your Grief Tower. An example of this would be a mother who had a season of depression in which she was in bed often and wasn’t meeting her children’s emotional and/or physical needs well.
Alternatively, this could be a period longer than a couple of weeks when you felt depressed and/or very anxious. If this season was not related to another Grief Tower block, then it is a block of its own. However, if it is directly related to another block, you may decide not to put it as a block on its own.
NARRATOR: Alex was quick to point out his father’s offenses. But he was slower to realize that spending years with an alcoholic husband took its toll on his mother, too. This made him deeply sad for his mother. But now he realized that whatever emotional trauma she experienced made her less available as a mother. Her loss was Alex’ loss, too.
LAUREN WELLS: Family Crises
Examples of crises might include a death in the family, a severe illness in the nuclear family, a traumatic event that happened to a family member, or the divorce of parents. Even if the details of the crisis were kept from you at the time, it’s likely you experienced the thick tension, sadness, anger, and other effects within the home that stemmed from that situation or event.
Abuse or Neglect
These may be connected to specific memories, but they might also just be running themes that you remember from your childhood. Perhaps you remember being left alone a lot or never having your emotional needs met by nurturing parents. Maybe you remember being emotionally abused by an angry parent who swore at you and called you names, but you can’t remember an exact incident because they all blur together. Perhaps you were raised in a home where addiction was present. These are still “blocks” on your tower, even if it’s not possible to put them in chronological order.
ABUSE
Physical
Physical abuse happens anytime someone harms a child on purpose. It includes: hitting with hands or objects, slapping, punching, kicking, or other forms of physical harm.
Emotional
Emotional abuse happens when your emotions are used to manipulate, shame, or harm you. According to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), emotional abuse can include:
• Humiliating or constantly criticizing a child
• Threatening, shouting at a child, or calling them names
• Making the child feel stupid or using sarcasm to hurt a child
• Blaming and scapegoating
• Making a child perform degrading acts
• Not recognizing a child’s natural limitations and pushing them too hard
• Exposing a child to upsetting events such as witnessing violence
• Not allowing a child to have friends
• Persistently ignoring the child
• Being physically or mentally absent
• Manipulating a child
• Never saying anything kind, expressing positive feelings, or congratulating a child on success
• Never showing any emotions when interacting with the child
NARRATOR: This section really hit home with Alex. He always knew his father was verbally abusive. But it really helped to hear Lauren list specific things like constant criticism, feeling stupid, watching his mother being abused, the inability to have friends over, and the overall lack of affirmation and encouragement.
LAUREN WELLS: Sexual
Sexual abuse can be as severe as rape, but it can also be sexual harassment or assault. Sexual abuse can also include grooming, exposing oneself to a child, obscene digital interaction, or showing pornographic images to a child. Sexual abuse can occur between an adult and a child, but it can also occur between children, also known as Child on Child Sexual Abuse or COCSA.
NEGLECT
Physical
Physical neglect happens when a parent actively or passively “fails to provide for a child’s basic needs, like food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, or supervision.” It also happens when a child is regularly worried that these physical needs won’t be met.
Emotional
Emotional neglect can be categorized as passive or active. Active emotional neglect is when a parent consciously decides to ignore the emotions of their child. This is most often due to a parent’s mental illness. Passive neglect, on the other hand, is more common. The parent genuinely cares about the child and their needs but simply struggles to meet them. Passive emotional neglect may have looked like:
• Parents not noticing, responding, or comforting you when you experienced difficult emotions (sadness, anger, nervousness, etc)
• Parents implying or saying that their own challenges are more severe than yours
• Parents seeking comfort from you instead of comforting you
• Parents not listening when you talk, particularly when you’re voicing things that feel vulnerable
• Parents being emotionally unavailable to you
• Parents not asking about or validating your preferences, needs, or desires
When this happens to you as a child, you learn:
• That other people’s emotions are more important than yours
• That it is worthy to not have preferences, needs, or desires
• Not to speak up for yourself
• That your difficult emotions are unwanted, invalid, or unimportant
• To either neglect your own emotional needs or find unhealthy ways to get the attention you’re seeking (often through poor behavior)
Divorce
According to the American Psychological Association, 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce. Not only is this a Grief Tower block for the couple experiencing all the grief and loss that comes with divorce, but the impact on the child is also great. The National Library of Medicine says, “Parental divorce/separation is associated with an increased risk for child and adolescent adjustment problems, including academic difficulties (e.g., lower grades and school dropout), disruptive behaviors (e.g., conduct and substance use problems), and depressed mood.”
Substance Abuse
Substance abuse in the home creates an unstable environment for children. Studies show that “the negative impacts of parental Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) on the family include disruption of attachment, rituals, roles, routines, communication, social life, and finances. Families in which there is a parental SUD are characterized by an environment of secrecy, loss, conflict, violence or abuse, emotional chaos, role reversal,
and fear.”
When working with individuals on their Grief Tower, I’m often told about an experience and then asked, “Does that count?” If you’re asking the question, then the answer is yes. When in doubt, put it on the tower. There is no risk to putting a block on the Grief Tower and taking time to process it; it will only be a positive exercise. I often find that people think it’s not significant until they start to process it and realize it is actually a bigger “block” than they realized. So if you are thinking through your blocks and wondering if something “counts,” the answer is yes, it does. Put it on the tower.
NARRATOR: Alex pulled off the highway 694 exit ramp in Fridley as Lauren finished this chapter. This one had a lot of material to take in.
Alex had begun to keep a journal with him in his truck. Lots of times he had great ideas while he was driving, but that wasn’t an appropriate time to write them down. So he did his best to remember those thoughts and write them down when he could. His journal wasn’t orderly and systematic. It had a Bible verse here, a thought there, a quote from Lauren after that. That method fit Alex just fine—it was messy, just like life.
Alex planned later on to sit down with what he had written to get a better sense of all the things that had happened to him growing up. For now, he was content to just get the process started. He knew God was with him, and he was growing. He was on the right path.
