Grief and Loss Circle

अनल शाह के जवान बेटे को अचानक बुखार हुआ और कुछ ही दिन में उसकी मृत्यु मल्टीऑर्गन फेलियर के कारण हो गयी – इस शोक और अत्यधिक पीड़ा को सहना और उस से उभरना अनल शाह के लिए बहुत ही कठिन रहा है। लेकिन अब, बेटे को खोने के लगभग पांच साल बाद लगता है उन्हें कुछ शान्ति मिल पाई है। किसी भी माँ-बाप के लिए अपने बच्चे की मृत्यु सबसे अधिक सबसे शोकपूर्ण घटना है!  मैंने अपनी माँ, कुछ कसिन, दादा-दादी, दोस्तों की मृत्यु देखी है, लेकिन मेरा बच्चा – जिसे मैंने 9 महीने तक गर्भ में पाला था – उस बच्चे को खोने के…

अनल शाह का बेटा 15 साल का था  जब उसे अचानक बुखार हो गया और निदान और उपचार पाने के लिए 20 दिनों के संघर्ष के बावजूद, 27 जून 2017 को, मल्टी-ऑर्गन फेल्योर से उसकी मृत्यु हो गई। अनल शाह अभी भी इस शोक से जूझ रही है और उन्होंने यह दिल दहला देने वाला नोट बेटे की मृत्यु के बाद लिखा है। उन सभी लोगों के लिए जो लगातार जिद्द करते हैं कि मुझे अपने बच्चे की मृत्यु के शोक से निकल कर पुनः सामान्य जीवन जीना शुरू कर देना चाहिए! ऐसा लगता है कि मेरे चेहरे को देखने से आपको अपनी संभावित मृत्यु का ख़याल आ जाता है…

Anal Shah has experienced extreme pain when she lost her son to a sudden attack of fever. Living with that grief and agony has been an uphill task for her. But after five years she seems to have found some semblance of peace. Losing your child is the most catastrophic event a parent can face! I have lost my mother, a few cousins, grandparents, friends, but nothing can surpass the pain of losing a child that you nurtured in your womb for 9 months. It may seem unbearable at the onset but it will…

Miscarriage or loss of pregnancy is never the fault of the woman. Kavita Nehemiah, who suffered a miscarriage in her first pregnancy, has co-founded a social community to help women navigate life through baby loss and grief and understand this.  I had a miscarriage in 2019 at age 32. I had conceived with great difficulty, after almost two years. I used to think infertility was written on the cards for me. I had been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome) and almost absent periods…

Nandini Murali, author of Left Behind: Surviving Suicide Loss, talks about the death of her husband by suicide, her voyage through the oceanic grief and her intervention strategies that kept her firmly buoyant. Read the second part of her interview. Read part one here. Has writing the book Left Behind: Surviving Suicide Loss, after the death of your husband, been a healing and cathartic experience for you? Oh absolutely! It has been transformative. I experienced great joy and satisfaction when…

We are all struggling with various issues during this second wave of the pandemic. PatientsEngage has started a live webinar series every Tuesday (English) and every Thursday (Hindi) at 7pm IST with experienced counsellors who will help us understand what we are going through and share practical and actionable tips on what we can do about it. In the first of the series on 11th May 7pm IST, we spoke with experienced Psychologist Hvovi Bhagwagar on what we can to deal with the negative news…

Jane De Suza’s latest book ‘When the World Went Dark’ weaves a charming story amidst the backdrop of the pandemic with death and loss understood from the consciousness of a nine-year-old child. Our editor Shivani Maheshwari reviews it.  Here is a sweet little book that will make an interesting read for children, as well as adults. It has Covid 19, loss, bereavement, as the framework, and the foreboding title ‘When the World Went Dark’. But it far from a depressing, dry pandemic chronicle.…

Author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi discusses his latest book ‘Loss’ and examines from up-close mortality, personal grief and achieving equanimity. Your book ‘Loss’ dwells extensively on the death of your parents, a pet dog and the devastating impact it has on you. What is the most difficult aspect of coping with the loss of a loved one? The recognition of two deaths. One, of course, is the physical death of the person you have lost. The other is of the person you had become around the person…

We have to break the silence surrounding grief, especially around death by suicide, and learn to deal with sorrow in a healthy and sensitive manner, writes psychologist Chandra Ramamurthy. I am a Clinical Psychologist by training. I lost my son, Naman Dutt, age 17 years, by possible suicide. The reason why I say possible suicide is because the circumstances of his death still baffle me. Naman was diagnosed with depression and though I have seen severe clinical depression in my practice, I never…

Dr Avinash De Sousa, consultant psychiatrist and psychotherapist, talks about how bereavement counselling has become crucial in the times of Covid -19 to deal with sudden deaths and inability to mourn satisfactorily. In times of the Covid pandemic, terms like grief therapy and bereavement counselling have gained significance. Could you tell us a little bit about these concepts? Grief Therapy is a form of therapy which is administered by means of counselling or psychotherapy to an individual who…