UHNW and HNW WOMEN: WHY GRIEF DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, IT WELCOMES ALL

facets of you – UHNW WOMEN & MENTAL HEALTH

WHY GRIEF DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, IT WELCOMES ALL

Join today’s conversation on why you as an UHNW or HNW Woman should not hurry through grief and just ‘get over it’, because others expect it of you to get back to ‘normality’ as quickly as possible. We all experience grief at varying levels and cycles. Grief does not discriminate, it accepts all. So, in this your time of grief, what is the one thing that you are experiencing the most? How does this grief that you are going through, look like to you? As an UHNW or HNW Woman do you have to mask that you are not fine? How do you navigate through the grief to find a coping mechanism? When does grief become an issue on your day to day living? Do you know what grief is?

You are an affluent woman. You are shy or an introvert. Perhaps with low level autism. You live in an affluent home. You live an affluent lifestyle. You have weight fluctuations. You have dietary impulses. Yet right now you still feel grief from a loss so integral to you that you find the moments too difficult to bear. Seeking immediate comfort through food, drinks, films, music and scents. The grief takes you on its journey through tears and laughter. Warts and all.

This conversation is about grief. Be open to its ebbs and flows. Take my hand and make the journey so that you can be helped.

SO WHAT IS THE ONE THING THAT YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THE MOST IN GRIEF?

Client: Heidi

Heidi: Numbness. I experience the feeling of numbness and bizarrely I also feel pain. I do not understand that. Complete opposites yet they sit together.

Client: Ingeborg

Ingeborg: At times I forget what has happened and feel that the person is still there. Alive. With me.

WHAT IS GRIEF?

When I asked this question to people that had contacted me for help after having listened to their situation, I had asked it for a reason, but most people are often stumped at hearing it. People view grief as an after thought. Some attach no importance to it at all. Grief is something that happens to other people and not you; until it does land at your feet. So up until then why bother thinking about it. Grief brings sadness and sorrow. It lacks the ability to soothe and caress worries away. There is nothing positive or advantageous about grief so why give it any additional thought? Grief has no purpose. This is the common conception of grief. Yet… grief is a normal mechanism of human nature through which solace arrives.

Therapist: Grief is such a normal formation in our life.

HOW DO WE DEFINE GRIEF IN OUR LIFE?

When someone is going through grief and people ask how they are, the usual response is “I am fine.” A false smile plays on their lips. The head is turned away. The eyes are fixated or gazed elsewhere. Or the person just walks away quickly with an excuse of some sort just to get away from people looking; sensed as staring, at them. Some can mask the “Fine” aspect well. Fine has the ability to convert itself in its meaning through grief as thus, giving you an indication as to what it looks like and why you are pretending to others:

How does FINE manifest itself in grief for you?

WHAT MIGHT HELP YOU WHEN YOU ARE GRIEVING?

Client: Rhiannon

Rhiannon: If you are grieving make it known that you are open for dialogue, how ever that transpires, at what ever stage you are at during your grief. Give someone the opportunity to help you. You may not want to take the help immediately, but at least be open to the option that help from someone is available.

Client: Ingeborg

Ingeborg: If someone you know is grieving make it known to them that you are there for them. You can simply say “I am here if you need me. There is no rush on my part. I am just here for you.” Be completely honest in your sentiment.

Jay: For many people the comprehension of death is easier to embrace when they come to terms that death is a passing from one state to another. The physical body to a spiritual body. It is this passing from one energy form to another that you try to make sense of, together with the very normal feeling you get when someone you love; or have great affection for, dies.

It is more than likely that you had loved somebody when experiencing grief. Or, if you feel that love is too strong a word for you to use, that you had felt great affection for. An incredibly strong inclination towards someone. I have felt this. Particularly towards people that I had not met before, but felt a connection towards because they resonated with me and became a part of my history whilst growing up. Such as Princess Diana and Nelson Mandela, to name but two. Various people have been admired, adored, loved from near and afar throughout the world. It is definitely painful when someone that we have; or feel, a deep connection to dies. It is something that really affects our life and how we view life. How we view mortality. For many it can be really emotional or challenging to talk about. Especially when trying to convey the word describing the death. The bereavement. There are many words and expressions for it. Some words and phrases are better than others. Some irritate you. Some resonate with you. So the question is, is there a word or phrase that everyone can use and in a tone that respects the passing of someone dear to you?

Bereavement Therapist

Therapist: When someone important to an individual has died, I work with them through their bereavement. There are indeed many words to convey that someone has died. In essence ‘died’ is the best word to use. Death is a part of the cycle of life. It is going to happen. We are all going to go through a period of sadness. We are all going to miss people. We will all die and that is OK. No-one lives forever in their body. Some leave this earth almost as soon as they have arrived. Some live to a ripe old age. So, the way I try to describe grief is ….imagine this is YOU.  Everything about your life is contained within it (you). See Figure 1.

Figure 1

When a bereavement happens there is not an area of your life that is not affected by that grief. It touches every part of you. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

As therapists, what we used to think is that over time bereavement became smaller and disappeared. Now, the thinking is this, that the bendy, crossed lines and tangents; that the squiggly lines, stays the same. Our lives GROW AROUND IT. See Figure 3.

Figure 3

In our life the bereavement stays within us. At certain times like birthdays, we dip straight back into the feeling of the bereavement. The bereavement starts to become overwhelming during this time. See Figure 4.

Figure 4

Then when that birthday passes, you begin to return to the larger part of your life again. You switch on the coping mechanism to live again. See Figure 5.

Figure 5

I guess what I believe is that this part that is confused, does not stay like this forever (the squiggly lines of emotional torment). That somehow it changes shape and becomes a little less fuzzy (it changes in clarity, movement; i.e. spinning, depth and colour). Although it still remains there as bereavement. So you do not move on, you just learn to live with it. You learn to live with part of your life.

WHAT ARE THE EXPECTATIONS SURROUNDING GRIEF?

Client: Rhiannon

Rhiannon: My life experiences as an only child and having lost my parents in my young adult life changed how I viewed life and how precious it is. At the time of the loss I honestly did not feel as though there was anything to turn to. My school friends all had their parents and grandparents. My colleagues at work all had their families. Their families seemed much nicer than my own extended family. There was a gap in my life and I was falling through it. My parents came from fairly large families but they were not the type of people that understood me, including the way that my parents and I lived. We were working class. Every penny counted and we lived reasonably well. I went to a good girl’s school in the UK. The extended family I had lived some distance away as they did not get along with us; if truth be told they were racists and hated my mother as she was Black, they were not truly supportive of me when my parents died. In truth they were looking for a mention in the Will. They were hoping for some money and possessions. That is the family that I have. So, with people like that I only had a handful of friends to turn to. This is why I am supportive of charitable organisations that help orphans and adults in need of help who have no-one to turn to. I see myself in them. I understand what they are going through. But what people do not realise is that an awful lot of UHNW and HNW Women who resonate with me are still coping with grief, decades, years, after a death of both or one parent. You may be an adult but you are still an only child at your heart and mind. With me being a shy and introvert young woman, my larger family tried to take advantage of the situation. I want to make sure that the UHNW and HNW Women reading this know that they are not alone. That they do have somewhere or someone to turn to. If what I am saying here helps them to deal with grief through real time support and like-minded people, then I have done my job.

Merely from my experience of watching people going through various levels of grief, people returning home from a funeral; and depending upon how they feel; they will take their funeral or ‘graveyard’ clothes off and change into something else. A stiff drink usually follows that, followed by a discussion on the day and the people who attended the funeral. The gossip. They take their black clothes off and it is almost as though they are peeling off their grief or sorrow. Yet for the immediate family, even when they change out of the funeral clothes they still feel as though they are wearing it. No change from the feelings of despair. Loneliness. Loss. Emptiness. This is when they need the support the most. Especially if you are an only child. The hurt is most cruel. Unforgiving. Unbearable. I know because I am an only child. People around you assume that you want to be alone. That they need to walk away from you and give you space. They seem to just disappear. They just step away from you. They think that someone else will help you to pick up the pieces, or that you will be strong enough to cope. This silent expectation that you can cope with the loss. It is a huge expectation for a girl losing both parents at a young age. It is a huge expectation for a woman losing someone near and dear, when that is the only person in the world that they have.

There are huge expectations around grief and how you should cope with being sad when someone has died, or is dying. Some try and keep the stiff upper lip thing going throughout. Some do the ice queen thing. People often mistake the coldness for just that, but that is wrong. It is just a coping mechanism for the short term in front of people. A way not to break down in public. On film. Especially with everyone having a mobile phone and clicking away at you through your attempts at dealing with loss, misery, emotional upheaval, etc. People look at you and judge when you do not conform to the exact stages of grief that is written about by the experts. OK, so the books hold a form of guide to help in the main, but the theories seem more subjective to me. Meaning that not everyone is going to spend two weeks at stage one, or five months at stage two. The script of my life does not follow the script of a psychology book, or indeed all UHNW or HNW Woman going through grief.

WHAT ARE THE FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF?

Regardless of whether you started life with a wooden spoon or a silver spoon, you will experience grief through your life journey. The commonly held text book prescription as to how you experience grief is thus. The FIVE stages of grief. 1st = Denial. 2nd = Anger. 3rd = Bargaining (centred around ‘What if...’, or, ‘If only...’), 4th = Depression. 5th = Acceptance.

Therapist: People are not robots. No matter how hard nosed you are in business and life, it is true to say that people have a lot of those feelings, but not necessarily in the order that they indicate in the prescribed text books. The path of the grief, plus the intensity, plus the duration, varies from person to person.

Jay: As an UHNW or HNW Woman you have arrived at your opulence from various points in your life. Some of you started the journey on your own. Some of you had a partner support your dream. Some of you built a family whilst on your journey to success. Some of you remained childless. Whichever route you took you had to make a number of decisions to get to where you are right now. Perhaps; seemingly, neglecting or putting something or someone aside until a better moment. Then fate, or destiny, steps in and takes someone away from you. Someone integral to your mental well-being. Then you go through the disbelief and grief. You are human. You have human emotions. Your experiences of grief and loss do not follow a rigid script that everyone must follow, as described in psychology books. You WILL go through the peaks and troughs of grief expressing your “Why?”’s. Sadness. Pain. Relief. Anger. Anxiety. Numbness. Denial. Your different feelings at different times, for different reasons, for different people.

Client: Rhiannon

Rhiannon: Some people have the audacity to criticise and say “What? You are not over it yet?” “You need to pull yourself together you have responsibilities elsewhere!” “So when are you going to get it together? The business needs your attention.” Callous. Cruel. Unforgiving. Unforgettable. Grief is not something that you can get over just by snapping your fingers. When you truly love someone, when you honestly have affection for someone and I include pets in this, how can you find a way to wake up each day and not miss them! How?

For me, half of the emotional upheaval connected with bereavement is that it is not just about what happened at the actual time of death, it is about the things in life that are going to happen. That the person who has died will not get to be a part of the future with you, in the way that you want them to. For example, the woman finding a new love and actually being happy in life with her new partner, knowing at the back of her mind that her father will not be a part of the occasion when she presents her new partner for marriage. Another example being a woman who has adopted a child later in life and knows that her deceased parents are not going to be there to complete the family group. The words of wisdom and support from the parents in bringing up and supporting the child are not there from them. The space that remains is a huge void. You will not hear the supportive voice of a parent stating “Well, when you were a toddler your mother and I did this....” Your thoughts are that it just is not fair. You feel incredibly robbed, but you cannot alter time and space. You feel an acute injustice that things had not turned out more fortuitous for you with your own building of a family, or that life could have been placed in an order that should have rendered a more happier existence for you. Yes, you have the wealth now, but at what cost? Then you have the realisation that there are many other UHNW and HNW Women in the same boat as you.

Client: Stephanie

Stephanie: My mother had me late in her years. Her favourite music was Country & Western. She liked Charlie Pride and Ray Charles very much. She had a lot of vinyl records that she played on the old record player. I grew up listening to that sort of music, so it is no surprise that I am familiar with the music and know the words of the songs. Much nostalgia for me. From birth to now.

It does not matter how many years have passed it frequently feels recent. There are the days when I miss her enormously. Learning more about the family heritage. Learning more about her life. I never bothered to write it all down, it was always that I would get around to it, now it is too late and I cannot seem to remember much of what she had told me. My father passed away a few years earlier, so it all seems sudden to me. All too quick. But they were elderly. Even though, it still hurts the same.

I do find myself thinking about something fairly recent that I want to share with my parents and I am snapped into the here and now reminding me that it has been six years. Time and space plays tricks on the mind. I feel like an orphan, even at my mature age! I still have that empty and sad feeling as I had when they died.

Jay: Thus far you have read about the type of grief that your life grows around. The ‘normal’, yet hurtful grief that most of you experience through the loss of someone; person or pet, inextricably dear to you.

UNDERSTANDING WHEN GRIEF CAN BECOME A PROBLEM?

Therapist: In essence a complicated grief is when you are absolutely stuck within it and cannot think straight. This is the situation of UHNW and HNW Women who are shy, or an introvert or have autism, as your social network has dissolved with the person who has died. Where that person instigated all the social activities and introductions that you engaged in with them. It could be that you relied upon your partner, or parents, for everything social and you are not adept at interacting on the scale that they had been known for. You are stuck in a wilderness through your mind and feelings in reaching out to people. It could be that you already have a depression, and the anxiety then becomes worse as a result of the loneliness. Therefore leading to a more complicated outcome.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAYS YOU CAN TRY TO COPE WITH GRIEF?

At least once in our life we shall experience grief. Our grief is individual to us. There are a variety of ways to cope with grief so here are some ideas that you can use when you are ready.

Client: Stephanie

Stephanie: When you feel the grief coming over you and you start to feel sadness, let yourself be sad. Do not suppress it. It wants to come out. To be set free. Grief makes you look at things that are happening now; today. Grief makes you consider the future. Grief makes you look at things that had happened in the past. Its impact shapes your every step going forward. Sometimes you feel as though you want to take steps backwards, even sideways, but definitely not forwards. Pretty soon you arrive at the point, or realisation, that the steps which you take from now on are all that you have and you have to make a concerted effort to do something productive with them. Your journey in life takes on a new role. Every person is an individual. Sitting here and opening up about my mother and how I feel, how I felt, does not mean that you are going to experience the same feelings, but knowing how I felt, how I feel, may resonate with you and provide you with some consolence.

Client: Heidi

Heidi: In essence it is vital that you find someone to talk to. It can be someone that you know, or a stranger. They are there to listen to you and help you on your journey through grief. This person could be a doctor. This person could be someone that you are working with. This person could be a friend. This person could be a family member. Just get talking to someone. Even a pet!

HOW CAN YOU TALK WHEN THE WORDS ARE NOT THERE TO CONVEY HOW YOU FEEL?

Therapist: When you find that it is incredibly difficult to get the words out and you are with a trusted friend, colleague or family member, create a process to help your emotions become readable to another person. For example, if you want to show that you are OK, but the words cannot come out because of the tears try using a traffic light system of Red, Yellow and Green to indicate how you are feeling. You could carry around a small pouch that contains three stones or crystals (one in red, one in yellow; or orange, and one in green) and place it near you so that people know how you feel. A green stone tells someone that you are feeling better. A yellow; or orange, stone could mean that just need a little helping hand with speaking about something or doing something. A red stone could indicate that you are having a real tough time of it and you are trying to keep things together; perhaps you need someone to hold you, and stay with you for a while until the feelings subsides. Over time people around you will learn to understand what the stones mean and how you need the interaction from others. Whether you are using the traffic light system, or another system, i.e., cards, numbers, pictures, be open to the helpful questions and gestures from the people around you. They want to help you in the best way that they can. This does not mean that they must stop their life in order to help you regain yours. Enable a team around you. It does not have to be grand. One person and your pet dog can suffice if that is all that you have and trust. How great is that! Plus simple.

HERE ARE THE THINGS THAT ARE NORMAL ABOUT GRIEF THAT WE JUST DO NOT TALK ABOUT OR ACT UPON

1. One of the most important things about going through grief is that you should feel able to talk to her/him. Without feeling embarrassed with that thought.

2. Wearing some of their clothes is normal.

3. Wanting to wear their perfume is normal.

4. Touching and stroking photographs showing her/him is normal.

5. Kissing of photographs is normal.

Client: Rhiannon

Rhiannon: Whether you are going to a Qi Gong class, a Yoga class, or a high impact aerobics class. Or even something as simple as preparing a beautiful garden luncheon for a couple of friends, as a thank you. For those of you that have pets, possibly taking your pet dog out for a walk, instead of having someone else do it for you. It is possible that you can arrive at a manageable place in your life where things gradually click into place and become do-able. Where you are not grieving as soon as you awake.