Understanding When Others Don't: How to Help Those Hurting from Loss (And Maybe Learn Something About Your Own Losses Too)

By Stephanie Hittle MS LPCC

To whatever extent our dreams, expectations, and plans fall short of our reality, there is loss.

Our idealized dream of life may include avoiding abuse and tragedy, marrying once to the "right" person, having successful careers, having children who mirror our values, and after a long and healthy life, dying peacefully in our sleep.

But life doesnt always go that way.

Life often includes abuse, divorce, premature death, illness, financial setbacks, and unfulfilled dreams. In each situation, there is loss. And loss may be experienced very differently depending on a person's background and personality.

Understanding grief and loss, then, may be more complex than you think. This book shows you why and how you can help. It offers a different perspective for people who want to minister to those who are hurting from loss. And along the way, you may learn something about yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512724974

Stephanie Hittle MS LPCC

Stephanie Hittle, MS, is a licensed professional clinical counselor in private practice in Centerville, Ohio. She works with adults experiencing a variety of issues including loss, infertility, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorders. She has authored several articles on grief and loss and various aspects of relationship health and is a frequent presenter on those topics. To read her blog, go to understandingwhenothersdont.blogspot.com. To inquire about speaking engagements, contact her at [e-mail] or 937.823.3484.

Book preview

Understanding

when

Others Don’t

How to Help Those Hurting from Loss

(And Maybe Learn Something about Your Own Losses Too)

Stephanie Hittle, MS, LPCC

28074.png

Copyright © 2016 Stephanie Hittle, MS, LPCC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All client references are general in nature and have had potentially identifying information omitted or changed for use in this book.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2498-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2499-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2497-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015921199

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/04/2016

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

1 Grief Mythology

2 What Successful Grieving Looks Like

3 Why It Is so Hard to Know What to Say

4 Messages

5 The Hardest Losses

6 Relationship Loss without Death

7 One Day Everything Changed

8 Losing in Bits and Pieces

9 Dreams and Things

10 Losing Faith

Afterword

Appendix 1 Helps

Appendix 2 Personal Reflections

Bibliography

To my encouragers. Without you, this book would not have come to fruition.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to:

All those who gave permission for me to include their stories in this book. In their generosity of sharing, they hoped others would be helped.

Pastor Joan Hoffmann, for making sure my scriptural references are accurate in their contexts and for her gracious willingness to do so.

Pam Walker, for adding her unique perspective to this book and for being such a significant part of my life and career in a way only God could have designed.

Maria Rineer, for her enthusiasm in encouraging me to write and for offering to be a reader as this project developed.

Cynthia Shaw, MS, LPCC, for her willingness to review my manuscript and for being a valued colleague.

Rachel Irwin, PhD, for being a completely honest appraiser of my words and for being a blessing to me as a daughter.

Sally Wold, for offering to proofread and for being a treasured friend in good times and bad.

Nancy Waclawek, for being both a talented editor and a friend who understands.

Jackie Palmer, my amazing assistant, for keeping me on track at my private practice.

Andy Hittle, my husband and partner in this life, for supporting this project and my private practice. Without you, I could not have accomplished either.

Every time you cross my mind, I break out into exclamations of thanks to God.

—Philippians 1:3 MSG

Foreword

Show up and shut up, I say to students in my Death and Dying class. That’s my attempt to give them something that will be useful in the moment they confront loss and grief. My friend Stephanie Hittle has created something far more useful to those who want to help—or who need some help for themselves. In this slim volume, she has distilled her experience and wisdom as a counselor, Christian, and fellow sufferer, and given us a book that will help—really help—at many different levels. It will help those who suffer, it will help their family and friends who want to help them in their suffering, and it will help small groups who want to read and understand and talk about the subject, especially those who want to understand from the perspective of Christian faith.

When we suffer, we want help. When we see people suffer, we want to help. But often we don’t know what to do or what to say. And we are afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, and so we stay away. We don’t show up. With the best of intentions, we leave sufferers to suffer alone in their suffering. Stephanie’s book will help us to be the helpers we want to be—and along the way, we will find some help for our own griefs and sorrows.

David VanDenburgh, D.Min.

Pastor and Life Coach

Professor/Chair, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Kettering College

June 2015

Some people don’t have a clue.

—Client talking about comments people made to her in the aftermath of her husband’s suicide.

Introduction

Most people mean well.

Most people want to say and do things that are helpful to people hurting from loss. Most Christians want to represent God well and be healing influences to those around us. We just have varying degrees of understanding as to how to do that.

This book is about understanding.

It is about increasing whatever understanding you have about loss, including practical application for how to use that understanding. It is designed to help you understand different kinds of losses, why and how people react differently to loss, and finally, how your own losses may have impacted your life in ways you may not have recognized. It also corrects misunderstandings about loss.

Misunderstanding hurts. Understanding heals.

In the book of Job, that quintessential story of grief and suffering in the Bible, Job’s friends visit him after he experiences multiple losses. At first they simply sit with him in silence as he expresses his grief. At that point, they are doing okay. Just their presence is support. Then they open their mouths.

Instead of ministering with words reflecting understanding, they offer explanations and judgments that result in Job being hurt further.

Job’s friends didn’t understand. They didn’t understand Job or what he was going through from his perspective; they spoke only from their own limited viewpoint.

As a clinical counselor in private practice, I hear grieving clients tell of unhelpful and even damaging remarks people make to them as they go through grief. Grieving clients—people who have lost relationships, finances, health, dreams, trust, and sometimes even their faith—often hear such comments or questions as:

"It’s been six months since your husband died; isn’t it time to go through his things?"

It was just a pet.

So your dad was an alcoholic when growing up; you’re an adult now. What does that have to do with your life now?

Infertile? Just relax and you’ll get pregnant.

Why did you have to file for bankruptcy?

You were just a few weeks pregnant; it’s not like you lost a real person.

I know you lost your son, but you still have your daughter.

It was just a house; it’s just a material thing.

You are so emotional. Are you making this worse than it is?

God has a reason for this.

You shouldn’t be angry at God.

It’s been nine months. Shouldn’t you be over this by now?

Such comments and variations on those themes increase rather than diminish pain.

So what should you say?

Unfortunately, there are no simple answers to that question. Despite our desire to find easy, simple steps to ministering to grieving persons, people are far too complex for that. This book addresses those complexities.

In learning about others, we often learn about ourselves. In my workshops on grief and loss, participants sometimes come to help others but often leave with a more profound sense of how their own losses have shaped their lives.

This was illustrated by a young man who took my college workshop on grief and loss. The course, geared for graduate-level counseling and education majors, included a final essay about applying what they had learned in the class to their own lives and losses.

Sometimes I can