Coping With The Loss of a Loved One
- Actress Kristin Davis’ dad Dr. Keith Davis, who lived with Parkinson’s disease for 10 years, passed away at age 88 in September. Now, Davis is remembering her “brilliant” dad in a tribute post shared on social media as she and her family continue to celebrate his life.
- Dealing with the loss of a loved one is incredibly challenging, regardless of what led to their passing, but moving forward with the lessons your loved one shared and remembering you don’t have to forget them can be a great place to start.
- Grief is an unavoidable and important part of healing following the loss of a loved one to cancer, and talk therapy can be a useful tool to cope.
- Parkinson’s disease is “a brain disorder that causes unintended or uncontrollable movements, such as shaking, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination,” according to the National Council on Aging. Symptoms for this chronic illness tend to worsen over time.
- If you or someone you know is battling a type of cancer or Parkinson’s disease, it’s important to know that you are not alone. You can always find someone out there for you to be vulnerable with, if you’d like, and connecting with others while battling a disease can help you cope.
Her beloved dad, who worked as a professor at various colleges across the U.S., passed away at age 88 on Sept. 14. However, Davis took to social media to share a heartfelt tribute post to her late dad just this week.
“I know many of you are probably caring for people in your life, and I know how my love and energy it takes. Thinking of our whole family and especially my Mom.”
“We love you dad and we are so grateful you lit up our lives and left us with so much,” Davis concluded.
An obituary for Keith Davis shared online lists his accolades and offers further insight into his life, reading, “He attended Duke University for his BA and PhD degrees in Psychology. He taught at Princeton University, University of Colorado, Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina.
“At Carolina, he served as Professor, Chairman of the Department, Interim Dean of Humanities and Social Science, and University Provost.”
Davis’ dad was “most proud of his accomplishments as teacher and researcher, with over 120 publications” and “served as founding associate editor of the journal, ‘Personal Relationships,’ series editor of ‘Advances in Descriptive Psychology’ and Executive Editor of the ‘Journal of Social Psychology.’
He is survived by his wife of 57 years Dorothy Reeves Davis and his four daughters, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Expert Resources On Coping With Loss
- How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
- How to Handle the Emotional Toll of Caring for a Loved One With Cancer: Prioritizing Your Mental Health
- Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
- Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
- Mental Health: Coping With Feelings of Anger
- Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
- Cancer Support Groups Aren’t for Everyone — We All Have Our Own Way of Coping
Sadness Is Not Always A Bad Thing — Coping After Losing A Parent To Cancer
What Is Parkinson’s Disease?
Kristin Davis’ dad Dr. Keith Davis lost his battle with Parkinson’s disease, a chronic illness that affects the nervous system, after living with the disease for 10 years.
The four main symptoms of Parkinson’s, according to the National Institute on Aging, are:
- A tremor in hands, arms, legs, jaw, or head
- Muscle stiffness, where muscle remains contracted for a long time
- Slowness of movement
- Impaired balance and coordination, sometimes leading to falls
Other symptoms can include:
- Depression and other emotional changes
- Difficulty swallowing, chewing, and speaking
- Urinary problems or constipation
- Skin problems
For anyone battling this disease, more symptoms begin to show up in the body as time passes. Although there is currently no cure for this degenerative disease, researchers like those at The Michael J. Fox Foundation are trying to change that.
RELATED: Michael J. Fox, Who’s Lived a Decades-Long Parkinson’s Journey, Focuses on Gratitude & Joy
Medications can be taken to reduce and control some symptoms of Parkinson’s. Some of these medications include dopamine promoters, antidepressants, cognition-enhancing medication, and anti-tremor medication.
For those dealing with a disease like Parkinson’s on a daily basis, actor Michael J. Fox who was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s in 1991 when he was just 29 years old previously shared some advice during an interview with AARP magazine.
“Have an active life and do not let yourself get isolated and marginalized. You can live with it,” he said.
Prioritizing Mental Health & Acceptance After a Diagnosis
“People sometimes say that a relative or a parent or a friend died of Parkinson’s. You don’t die of Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s, because once you have it, you have it for life until we can remedy that, and we’re working hard at it.”
“So, to live with it, you need to exercise and be in shape and to eat well,” Fox says. “If you can’t drive, find a way to get around. Maintain friendships. Don’t say, ‘Oh, I don’t have anything to say to Bob.’ Bob might have something to say to you. Just make the call.”
Life After Loss
It’s normal to feel sad about changes in your life that might be brought on by death or a cancer diagnosis.
“Grief comes in waves,” says Dr. Scott Irwin, a psychiatrist and Director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “They’re grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different.”
Some days can be tougher than others, but Dr. Irwin says talk therapy is helpful so it’s important to reach out to your doctor, to a therapist or to support groups in your community.
Thriving After Battling Disease or Loss: Finding Vitality and the ‘Pathway’ to Resilience
Psychiatrist Dr. Samantha Boardman suggests that people working on their mental health practice positive psychology. Positive psychology focuses on encouraging patients to feel positive and finding what brings a sense of vitality to their lives, like how Kristin Davis and her family are coping with the loss of their loved on.
Dr. Boardman explains them as “pathways to embrace your everyday resilience.” In other words, these are tools people who may be struggling with mental health issues can embrace to help maintain a certain sense of positivity. And those positive feelings can go a long way when people are facing a health challenge like a cancer diagnosis.
According to Dr. Boardman, these three wellsprings of vitality are:
- Connecting. This involves how you’re connecting with others and having meaningful interactions. It involves being a good listener and being engaged with the people around you who you care about.
- Contribution. How are you adding value to the people around you? Are you helping them in ways that feel meaningful to them? This entails contributing/engaging with others in a meaningful way.
- Feeling challenged. Being “positively challenged” could involve learning something new (perhaps by taking a new class or reading an interesting book) and expanding your mind in some way.
“Those are the cores of vitality and the core pathways to enhance your everyday resilience,” Dr. Boardman said.
How to Cope With Complex & Changing Emotions
When a stressful life event occurs, people may react with a range of different (and quickly changing) emotions. This is completely normal.
“The way people respond is very variable,” Psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik tells SurvivorNet. “Very much consistent with how they respond to stresses and challenges in their life in general.”
In this video, Dr. Plutchik is speaking mostly about how people react after a cancer diagnosis which can be a huge range of emotions from fear to anger to determination.
Handling stressful life events
However, the conclusion remains the same no matter what stressor someone may be dealing with: your emotions are valid and seeking mental health help may look different for every person.
“People have a range of emotions when they’re diagnosed with cancer,” Dr. Plutchik explains. “And they can include fear, anger … and these emotions tend to be fluid. They can recede and return based on where someone is in the process. Going through a cancer diagnosis is just the beginning of a complicated, complicated process.”
Dr. Plutchik explains that the patient, or person going through the stressful event, should accept that emotions will be fluid. You may feel fine one day and then feel a massive wave of stress the next. It’s also important for those you look to for support whether that’s a therapist, friends and family, or both to understand the fluidity of stress-related emotions.
If a stressful event is affecting how you think and feel, it may be time to seek some sort of mental health treatment. This could mean traditional talk therapy, medication, changing lifestyle habits (like exercise and diet), seeking out a support group, or many other approaches.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
