Coping With The Loss of a Loved One
- Singer Wynonna Judd, who lost her mom to suicide at age 76 on April 30, 2022, has just celebrated turning 61 and expressed how being a grandmother of one, to three-year-old Kaliyah has helped her understand there is “life after death.”
- While working through grief and vulnerable tackling of the emotions that accompany it, some find tools like therapy to be helpful. For others, support groups or turning to faith may be helpful.
- Whichever methods of support you look for after loss, you should know that there is no correct way to grieve. There is no perfect timeline for grieving, either.
- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration says if you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Just call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
To commemorate her birthday, Judd captioned a photo of herself standing in sunlight, “61. Thank you Lord, for another year of life!”
Read MoreSpeaking on Circle Country’s talk show “Talking in Circles,” Judd recounting how her mom’s death at age 76 on April 30, 2022, left her feeling “helpless” but her one grandchild has helped her power through sadness, as her biological dad also died, allegedly by suicide, back in 2000.View this post on Instagram
Judd said on the show, “What do you do with that kind of crap that happens to you? You feel so helpless, and there’s a mystery there as to why. So I had to go through that, like you did, right?
“You kind of had more of a why than I do, because everybody thought she was okay. Everybody thought everything’s okay, and it’s not okay. You don’t know what’s going on. I was on tour and distracted.”
She continued, “And it’s just a weird time. This past year, I’ve learned so much about myself, and now that I’m with my grandbaby 24/7, I’m learning that there is life after death.
“And if I can go out on this tour, this is heavy, and I can go out on stage and I can help someone decide to stay instead of leaving, then I’ve done my job.”
Judd added, “And I just know that what we’re going through after our parents’ death is, I’m now an orphan. I have to decide whether the cup is half full or half empty.”
Expert Resources On Coping With Loss
- Mental Health and Cancer — The Fight, Flight or Freeze Response
- Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
- Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
- 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
The beloved singer, who is a mom of two, recently shared a adorable photo of her granddaughter on Instagram, on a “cow girl lunch break.”
Earlier this year, Judd expressed how she’s often present when she’s fulfilling her grandma duties, saying on “Today with Jenna & Friends,” “I don’t have a computer.
“I don’t watch television unless it’s planned ‘cause I’m raising my 2½-year-old granddaughter, I listen to her. So I don’t really, I do a lot of Instagram.”
View this post on Instagram
Naomi Judd On Coping With Grief
During an earlier interview with People, Judd spoke about her devastating loss, saying, “I can’t quite wrap my head around it and I don’t know that I ever will. That she left the way she did.
“That’s how baffling and cunning mental illness is. You have to make peace with the fact that you don’t know. Sometimes there are no answers.”
She recounted her mom as being “always so determined. No matter what happened to her.”
Judd added, “Being fired. Being forgotten. A single white female raising two babies by herself. On welfare and food stamps. She never gave up.
“So think about that and apply it to every stinking part of life, including death. With the same determination she had to live, she was determined to die. It’s so hard to comprehend how someone can be so strong and yet so vulnerable.”
Tips For Starting Over After a Life-Changing Event
Starting over after a life-changing event, like losing a loved one to suicide, is certainly arduous, but it can be done. Here’s how:
- Examine your thoughts. Take time to reflect on the tragedy or difficulty you are facing. Dr. Scott Irwin tells SurvivorNet that, often, people with cancer and chronic disease are “grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different.”
- Seek help. Irwin, who directs Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, adds that talk therapy can help people significantly: “It’s about meeting the individual patient where they are and their feelings, how they’ve always dealt with their body image, what the body image changes mean now in their lives and their relationships, and how they can move forward given the new reality.
- Realize that you are not the first. Study the lives of other people who have faced similar difficulties. Dr. Samantha Boardman tells SurvivorNet, “Having support we know is really critical in the healing process.” She adds there is also a benefit in “talking to those who’ve, you know, been through this process, who are maybe a couple of steps ahead of you, who can tell you what it’s like to walk in their shoes and the unbelievable wisdom that one can gain from speaking to them.”
- Visualize the future. Imagine what it will look like for you to start over. Many people find it very helpful to create a vision board. Cut out pictures or quotes or mementos that give you a concrete picture of your future. Look to it when you are feeling down or in need of a lift. The good news? It works.
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.
SurvivorNet also spoke with Megan Newcomer, who lost a close friend to metastatic cancer in 2018. She shared her unique way of coping with grief. Her friend was an athlete and soccer player, so to help her cope, she embarked on a marathon race in his honor.
Newcomer advises others grieving to first “acknowledge your feelings.”
“Then, think about a way that you could honor the person through a mechanism that is meaningful to you. So that can be artwork, music, or developing a financial fundraising project. It could be something very simple, but I do think having it be intentional is what you’re doing to help honor this person,” Newcomer adds.
In a column for SurvivorNet, New York-based clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin wrote that it may be helpful to remind yourself that these feelings are “meaningful yet temporary.”
“If you approach them with compassion, kindness, and eventually acceptance, you will come away from this period in your life more connected to your resilience and strength,” she wrote.
Finding a Therapist That’s Right For You
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.”
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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.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor
- What can I do if my emotions begin to feel overwhelming?
- Are there approaches that don’t involve traditional therapy?
- Should I consider medication such as antidepressants?
- What are the potential side effects should I decide to begin medication?
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
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