Open hearts. Honest conversations.
Youth Mental Health
Valerie is joined by Taylor and Venus, both members of this year’s Youth Leadership Advisory Board (YouthLAB). Each year Family Services of the North Shore invites 12 youth from across the community to learn about mental health issues. The YouthLAB takes all that learning and creates a public awareness project to share with peers.
This episode is for youth and adults alike. If you’re a young person, you’ll get some good tips on managing stress and talking to the adults in your life. If you’re an adult, Taylor and Venus provide insights on what it’s like to be a teenager these days, as well as ways we can interact in a meaningful way with the young people in our lives.
In this wide ranging conversation, we talk about such things as social media, post-secondary education plans, and tools and ideas for taking care of your mental health. We also talk about the realities of their lives, and the complexities of being a teen in our world today.
Show Notes:
Bereavement is the term used to describe the holistic experience of loss, including the emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and social experiences.Grief is the word used to describe the emotional component of bereavement. Loss is the experience of being separated from something or someone that we love and care for. In other words, loss is the separation, and grief is the emotional reaction to the loss.Loss is a normal part of the human experience. Even though loss is a normal and expected part of life we continue to have difficulties with it because it is a painful experience, and humans are wired to avoid pain. We work very hard at avoiding pain, and the death of loved ones is not something that we can avoid. These losses bring up a lot of stuff for us, maybe the unfinished business of a conversation we didn’t finish, or actions we regret, so death brings a lot of discomfort to our lives.When someone we love has died, or when we have experienced another major loss, the way we can make it less painful is to know that the pain of the loss is not going to kill us. We can talk about it to people who will just listen and witness our pain. We can think about how the pain teaches us about who we are. It’s important for us to not feel alone with the pain of a loss.The Covid-19 pandemic has brought out a lot of feelings of grief and loss. We can help ourselves and others live with these feelings by increasing the kindness we offer to others and to ourselves. It is important not to compare our grief with others’ feelings of grief. The important part is your own experience of the loss, rather than comparing it to others’ loss.It is important to take the lessons of the loss, learn from them, and figure out how to move forward; not forget where we’ve been but to take those lessons and apply them to the next part of life.When we are supporting someone who has experienced a loss, we can best do this by offering our kind, gentle, and non-judgmental presence. We don’t have to know the right things to say, we can simply listen without interrupting.In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross developed her Five Stages of Grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A colleague later developed a sixth stage: making meaning. These stages are meant to describe the commonality of the human experience vis a vis grief and loss, but noting that this is not a linear process.Grief moves us around. We have to learn who we are after a significant loss. We are changed by the experience.Some common reactions to a major loss are: an initial shock period where the body and brain are not able to process the information, there’s also a change in breathing – people have a feeling of tightness in the lungs, there are changes in eating, sleeping, and exercising patterns. There is a period of evaluation where people think about their last conversations and list their regrets with that person, along with asking themselves if they played a part in the loved one’s death (could I have done something more? I should have done more…).People also find themselves needing to be more in contact with nature or want to be home by themselves to process the experience. Others want to talk to God, and others aren’t interested in that at all. Some people return to church if they weren’t attending for a while. There is a period of personal reflection.The most important part of the process of bereavement is not to judge our reactions to the loss. Everyone is unique in this.There are three Burdens of Grief: (1) The loss of the person through death, (2) We are forever changed when somebody we love dies, and (3) Navigating a world that is not as sensitive or kind to people who are experiencing grief.After someone has died, we develop a new type of relationship with them. The relationship exists, and it continues but it is not the same. It exists inside your heart and in your head rather than in a physical manifestation.Rituals are a very important part of the bereavement experience. They are a way of taking what’s going on inside you and putting it up onto the table so you can see it, feel it, touch it, and manipulate it. Rituals help support the grieving process. You can not get the ritual process wrong. There are many ways to actualize our grief.If we know someone who is bereaved, we can be helpful to them by being available for them to talk, and by not asking for all the details at first. We can trust that our friend or family member will tell us what they want to tell us, when they want to tell us. It is important to hear what a bereaved person is needing, not what we, as their friend or family member, are feeling.The lesson of bereavement is to not leave things unsaid. If you love someone tell them. If you have something to say, let your beloved friends and family hear it.Resources:
To learn more about support for Grief and Loss through Family Services of the North Shore, contact Robin Rivers at [email protected] or phone at 604-988-5281 ext. 354. To access counselling services, email our intake counsellor [email protected].For additional support contact the BC Bereavement Helpline 604-738-9950 or toll-Free 1-877-779-2223, https://bcbh.ca/.If you are interested in getting involved as a volunteer, click here to learn more.If enjoyed the podcast and would like to support our work, click here to learn about becoming a donor.We would love to hear from you!
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