Giving Back In Grief

Coping with Grief / Coping with Grief : Litsa Williams



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“We rise by lifting others."

Robert Ingersoll

There's an endless number of quotes floating around the Internet about the value of helping others... which seems like a good thing... right?

They inspire us to give, help, and serve. They remind us that we can make the world just a little bit better. They provide a comforting thought when the world seems more than just a little bit terrible.

I've met so many people who have shared similar stories about how, in the wake of their own loss, they found healing through helping others in their grief. People have started support groups, Facebook pages, advocacy organizations... or they've volunteered with organizations that are connected to the person they lost... or something else; the possibilities are endless really. This has got to be a win-win. Whether the benefit is coping, a boost of feel-good positive emotion, or actual physical help, it seems positive all-around.

In fact, a couple years ago Dr. Suzanne Richards conducted a review of dozens of studies on topics having to do with volunteerism. Dr. Richard's study, which you can read in full at the link above, found that research consistently shows increased mental and physical well-being, decreased depression rates, and lower mortality rates in those who volunteer.

So, volunteering while grieving = good. Case closed.

Wait, what's that? There's a catch? There's always a catch.

Remember how we told you that all that coping exists on a continuum? This means that coping that looks "negative" can actually be adaptive in some instances... and that coping that looks "positive" can actually be harmful when used as a means to persistently avoid facing one's own grief. Well, we're going to go ahead and put volunteerism on that continuum as well. As wonderful as helping others sounds, one can actually cancel out any positive benefit if they take it to excess or if they do it for the wrong reasons.

All of you compassionate and caring people out there are probably thinking, "This is bunk." But it can happen. For example, it may look a little something like one of the following:

1) Your emotions are overwhelming and excruciating. You hate feeling emotional and don't like spending too much time sitting around with your thoughts. You have to get up and do something, so you throw yourself into volunteer service or advocacy work as a distraction. Now you work so hard you don’t have time to spend time dwelling on your own emotions. (Read Self-Care in Grief: The Myth of Keeping Busy).

2) Your situation is terrible and devastating and it seems like the worst thing in the world. You think maybe if you spend time helping people who are even worse off, you will realize your situation isn’t so bad. So you throw yourself into work with individuals who have problems that seem way worse than you can imagine. (Read Comparing Grief and Why We Shouldn’t Do It).

3) You've heard from others that helping others can make a person feel better. Although you feel emotionally fragile and overwhelmed by the work, you know the research says volunteering helps your physical and emotional well being. You figure you will fake it until you make it, and eventually it will probably start to help.

4) You thought you were in a pretty good place with your grief and you felt inspired to give back... but, now that you're engaged in the work, you're feeling overwhelmed by the depth of others’ pain and frustrated that others don’t seem to be making progress in the way you had hoped or expected. Overall, you're confused about why you all of a sudden feel worse than when you began.

The differences between positive and negative coping can be so slight at times and one almost always has to take the good with the bad, so how does one know when they're getting those benefits of volunteering versus when they may need to take a bit of a mental health break? Well, first there are a few things you should be aware of.


Volunteerism as Avoidance:

Avoidance is a tempting pattern in grief, especially when your avoidance is packaged in a really positive behavior that others reinforce. Research from 2008 has shown that low levels of volunteer services can have a positive impact, while volunteering to excess (as defined as volunteering for more than 800 hours per year) undermines those positive mental health impacts. This is relevant because avoidance is often a cycle that you have to engage in excessively in order for it to be maintained.

If you think you may be throwing yourself into something (volunteer service or anything else) in an effort to avoid your grief, you should take a step back and give this article a read.


Motivation for Volunteerism:

In 2012, Sara Konrath et al. asked whether the motivation for volunteering has an impact on the individual. They contrasted people who serve for altruistic reasons, as opposed to those who volunteered for self-related reasons (e.g., social connection, self-protection, learning/understanding, or self-enhancement).

This study reinforced the positive health benefits of volunteering found in other studies... when the goal of helping was truly altruistic. Interestingly, when the individual's goal was not altruism but self-enhancement, learning/understanding, etc, participants actually did not experience positive health benefits. In these instances, mortality rates were actually increased rather than decreased. Weird, right?

It's important to note that, in light of these findings, the authors included a discussion about whether it is better to volunteer for a self-focused reason rather than not at all. The good news here is, compared to people who didn't volunteer at all, the mortality risk wasn't much different. Also, the authors speculate a bit about their findings and suggest that there are significant stressors that can come with helping others. These stressors can have a greater impact on us depending on the frame of mind we are in when we are serving others.

A number of other research studies also found that volunteering and/or providing social support to others is associated with negative mental health outcomes like feelings of burden and frustration when those being served had overwhelming problems, intense demand, and needs, or did not show reciprocity.

I don't point this out to dissuade anyone from volunteering, but the implications of the research seem obvious for those who decide to help others in their grief. We wrote a post about the special considerations important to grievers who choose to help others in their own grief including boundaries, limitations, and reliving grief-related emotions and experiences (which you can read here). We recommend you check it out if you decide to get into this work.


Feelings of Expertise:

Finally, I think it's important that we all acknowledge that our personal grief experiences do not make us experts on anyone else's individual grief. Therapists, volunteers, grief-bloggers, and supportive friends all need to keep this point in mind when helping others. When we are grieving, we can become very focused on our own grief, our own pain, and our own experience. It can be difficult not to want to impose the lessons we've learned onto others. 


The Take-Home Message

So, we can't tell you whether you should decide to get into the work of helping others. On the one hand, volunteerism and advocacy work can be absolutely life-changing. On the other, it can also be stressful and overwhelming... especially when we ourselves are struggling.

Our parting words of wisdom are this: Be self-aware. Make sure you are volunteering for the right reasons. Make sure you are in a good place with your own grief before opening yourself to the pain of others. Remember the old cliché: You can’t give to others if your bucket is empty. Pay attention to your feelings, notice what's happening just before or during times when you feel distressing emotions, and check in with yourself from time to time to ask whether this work is actually bringing you closer to a place of healing.

You should also probably subscribe.

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After writing online articles for What’s Your Grief for over a decade, we finally wrote a tangible, real-life book!

What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss is for people experiencing any type of loss. This book discusses some of the most common grief experiences and breaks down psychological concepts to help you understand your thoughts and emotions. It also shares useful coping tools, and helps the reader reflect on their unique relationship with grief and loss.

You can find What’s Your Grief? Lists to Help you Through Any Loss wherever you buy books:

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11 Comments on "Giving Back In Grief"

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  1. Daisy  September 21, 2018 at 11:38 am Reply

    My love has just lost his father, he is pushing me away, saying he’s numb and incapable of saying he loves me or even loves me back, he is holding on to his father a lot and I don’t know how to handle the situation, this is the first time I am in a situation like this. I read the blog for introverts and isolation, but I can tell you he is not an introvert, has over a thousand friends and generally is the life of the party, but this has him completely isolated in his mind, he tried Mary Jane to help him sleep, but even so, he gets little to no rest, and he does mundane activities like play video games, watch cartoons but I don’t see him trying to cope with his grief. Can someone please just give me some hope?

  2. Mary  September 9, 2016 at 9:40 pm Reply

    Hello, I can relate a lot to what you all say here…I am trying to find support and have thought of volunteering as a way to reach out, etc.. and also am looking for support groups…but do find it difficult, because of the differences in people’s backgrounds, sometimes it makes me feel drained/worse to get support.share..where are these forums?..any ideas? Thank you for this website!

  3. Sharon Delany  April 20, 2016 at 4:13 am Reply

    Thank you I have been feeling a bit selfish about not jumping in to give something back.My Dad died in September and I have a little time on my hands I just don’t feel ready Thank you for permission to take my time x

  4. Susan  April 19, 2016 at 10:49 pm Reply

    Thanks for that insight. I wanted to volunteer at a hospital when my mom & dad were both still here, but I was taking care of them first my dad till he passed away and then my mom till she passed a couple yrs. later. Since she passed I thought about volunteering again, but it was a long process and I feel like I need to justake care of me for now.

  5. Deb  April 19, 2016 at 11:52 am Reply

    You’re welcome, Karen!

  6. Deb  April 19, 2016 at 11:28 am Reply

    Yes, this is a tricky balancing act while grieving, and even years later it can still be a challenge, depending on where, when, and what you’re volunteering for, and which personal triggers it may still set off.

    I really resonated with this part:
    “…found that volunteering or providing social support to others is associated with negative mental health outcomes like feelings of burden and frustration when those being served had overwhelming problems, intense demand and needs, or did not show reciprocity.”

    I chose mainly to *attempt* to both give AND receive via online grief boards, where I could more easily pick and choose those I felt safer in responding to and sharing with, and where I learned the importance of phrasing things in terms of MY experience, MY beliefs, until I learned more of what another’s were. Even so, I encountered many situations and people where such things as differing value systems, ideologies, levels of knowledge &/or intelligence, etc. created more distance, over closeness. Or there was simply too little reciprocity overall to do myself any good, intensifying my feelings of aloneness. Sometimes quite the painful “learning experience,” it was very challenging during the rawest phases of grief (say, the first year or two), but it eventually helped me create better boundaries in future situations. In the long run, I learned more about myself – my limits, my unhealthy patterns, when to throw in the towel and say “enough’s enough” with those who were too selfish, takers/users, manipulators, and the like.

    But it’s tough when you’re in such intense pain to begin with, in trying to strike a healthier, reasonable balance between giving and receiving, particularly when you’re not in control of what may happen at a moment’s notice when dealing with others.

    Thanks for another great topic and article, Litsa!

    • Karen  April 19, 2016 at 11:32 am Reply

      Thanks for sharing your experience with online grief boards.

  7. Andrea  April 19, 2016 at 10:56 am Reply

    When I saw the title of this post my first thoughts were: here we go again with the throw yourself into someone else’s pain and it will help – song. So glad you brought out the other side of that idea. You are so right and I learned this the hard way as usual. Jumped into a volunteer commitment that we were pushed into by friends and immediately felt ten times the stress. The time requirements were more than I could handle and it turned out not to be at all what we thought it was. We survived a catastrophic multiple loss through what we were told was a murder/suicide and I was desperate to get some relief from the pain. I have always been an altruist giver and doer so it never occurred to me that I was desperate for a distraction. Now I am covered in guilt along with grief because I absolutely hate what we have gotten into and I am not a quitter but I just want to QUIT. More guilt. Thank you for this post. People take heed. She is telling the truth.

    • Karen  April 19, 2016 at 11:29 am Reply

      Please take care of yourself and go ahead and quit if you don’t like doing it.

    • Kay C Oxford  April 20, 2016 at 10:51 am Reply

      I wish I could read this but the font is way too light for my eyes. Is there some way you could make this darker?

      • Yam Kahol  May 3, 2016 at 5:21 pm

        @Kay C Oxford, I have an idea. If you subscribe to receive new posts by email then (I think) they arrive in your inbox in normal font 🙂

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