Updated at 1:53 p.m., Friday, January 18, 2008
Red Cross offers tips for dealing with grief
Advertiser Staff
Following the death of a toddler thrown onto the H-1 Freeway yesterday, the Red Cross of Hawaii is offering advice for coping with emotional grief or anguish.
"If you were directly involved or witnessed a traumatic incident, it is completely normal for you to experience some of the physical reactions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors listed below," said Ken Lee, a Red Cross crisis counselor and social worker. "Your normal reactions will take some time to go away. If these changes begin to overwhelm you, or if they last longer than several weeks, you should seek advice from your medical care provider," he said.
You, your relatives and your friends may be experiencing any of these reactions, he said. These reactions are normal and 95 percent of the time these reactions will go away over time.
Physical reactions include: muscle tremors, fatigue, chills, sweating, nausea, shock symptoms, gastrointestinal distress, dizziness, difficulty breathing, chest pain, headaches, elevated blood pressure, a feeling of hollowness, weakness and sensitivity to noise.
Emotional reactions may include: impatience, fear, anxiety, anger, irritability, numbness, loneliness, guilt, shame and lack of enjoyment in everyday activities.
Mental reactions include: difficulty concentrating or remembering things, confusion, limited attention span, decreased ability to make decisions, decreased ability to solve problems, calculation difficulties, recurring dreams or nightmares about the disaster, reconstructing the events surrounding the disaster in your mind in an effort to make it come out differently, repeated thoughts of memories of the disaster that are difficult to stop.
Behavioral reactions may include: overprotecting yourself and your family, isolating yourself from others, startling easily, sleeping problems, avoiding activities that remind you of the disaster, increased conflict with family members, keeping excessively busy to avoid thinking about the disaster, crying for no apparent reason, changes in appetite, increased alcohol and drug use, discarded treasured objects.
Spiritual reactions include: crisis of faith, questioning basic religious beliefs (Why did God let this happen?), displaced anger towards authority figures.
For more information, visit www.hawaiiredcross.org.
| | |
|
|
