Bereavement: My Experience (Part 2)

PART 1: http://www.ueadrop.co.uk/en/photos/feature/2012-05-17/1200/bereavement-my-experience-part-1.html 

I believe that this stems from the fact I am deeply aware that it is human nature to not want to believe that something so awful could happen to someone just like us. When you look at the newspaper, most people would not be able to deny that when considering the story of a sudden death, randomly lethal illness or a freak accident, it is very hard not try and find something, anything, that distinguishes us from the victim. “That could never happen to me…could it?”

Yet in reality I am no different to you, and it did happen.

I want to take this opportunity to urge anyone struggling with a bereavement – whether it be a recent loss or years since – to contact the Dean of Students if you need help in any way whatsoever to support you in your grief. Like Victoria Finan, who so bravely wrote an article for this series detailing the experience of coping with depression and anxiety, I cannot recommend the services provided by the Dean of Students office highly enough. I have had several courses of counseling with them, which has helped me stay on track throughout my degree, as, when you are dealing with a significant emotional trauma, the normal stresses and upsets of University life can feel magnified, as you feel like you are already working under the premise of a significant burden.

The Dean of Students counseling services also run an annual bereavement group. The experience of being part of this group was one of the most daunting of my life – as much as I am normally scared that people will alienate me due to my bereavement, here I was frightened that I would be alienated due to the fact that my loss was ‘only’ a boyfriend (as opposed to a parent/sibling etc.). Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more wrong; by the end of the six week course I felt immensely liberated and much less alone.

I know for a fact that I am not the only person out of the 16000 students at UEA who sometimes struggles to live with a bereavement, and yet it is a topic that is so rarely discussed – we are young and invincible, we have our whole lives ahead of us, why would we ever want to think or talk about death?

I feel that it is important to note that although I have written this article anonymously I want to underline that this is not because I am ashamed of my experiences of bereavement and that you shouldn’t be either. Those who know me well will know that I have written this piece, but I don’t want my bereavement to be the only thing that people who don’t know me personally to associate with my name. Although it is something I don’t always feel entirely confident about, I have to remind myself that I am so much more than my bereavement, or as philosopher Carl Jung said, “I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”