What do you do when you try to avoid thinking about something?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), May 14, 2000

Answers

I turn on the radio and clean. It really helps and it's constructive too! Or if I want to try to work it out in my head.. I write it down.. sometimes in journal entry form and sometimes in poetry.

-- Jen (invisiblegirl@kittymail.com), May 14, 2000.

I feel the more you try to avoid thinking about something, the more you'll think about it! So I just give myself a few minutes, or an hour or whatever to think about it, and then I move on. Also, journaling is good to sort things out... or prayer. That's helped keep me semi-sane for years...

-- Katie (missmermaid@hotmail.com), May 15, 2000.

Go see a movie about the Holocaust. (or something similar) By comparison, my troubles then seem small again.

-- cory (coryglen@hotmail.com), May 15, 2000.

i talk about it. to myself. im sure one day i will get commited for it, but it helps. i also feel down, and maybe cry about it a it. scream, maybe hit things. then most of the pain goes away.

-- Phil (Khayman44@hotmail.com), May 15, 2000.

I have enough problems and enigmas that I can just transfer my thought to something I can persue more productively.

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), May 15, 2000.

I lost a beloved child several years ago. I understand some of what you're going through. I also understand "diversionary tactics". Everyone grieves differently and I can't make it easier for you, but I can tell you two things I discovered about grieving for a child.

The first is this: The first year is full of landmines like holidays. By far the worst is the first-year anniversary of your child's death. You can't take your mind off of it because your heart won't let you. But I can tell you this with assurity: Each year that passes after that will get easier for you to bear. Each year that goes by, your heart will get stronger, and your ability to remember your son with more smiles than tears will happen. I promise.

The second thing is this: What helped me through many of those landmine moments was to force myself to instantly replace every single horrific painful thought as it occured with a mental picture of him smiling or with the memory of a moment when we were raucously laughing together at something. That's not denial...it's self preservation.

Eventually, what that second thing did for me, was that it eased the way for me to begin to celebrate all the moments of his life with me..instead of grieving every single second of his life away from me.

I still have, even so many years later, moments where I miss him so much I can hardly breathe. But the difference now is that missing him doesn't occupy my entire life anymore. When I have a moment of missing him now, I take it as a sign that he's "thinking" of me (yes I do believe there is an afterlife), and I mentally say a little prayer for him and then tell him, "Yes, I hear you. I love you too".

And that's enough for me.

Don't dispair, Al. It does get easier. Time and patience with yourself is essential.

-- Terri (seventhsister_2000@yahoo.com), May 15, 2000.

I try to get busy, I work on my scrapbooks, create and knockout lists of things I have been putting off, focus on more positive things I can control and take care of!!

-- Glenna B. Yarnot (glennab@home.com), May 15, 2000.

What do you do when you try to avoid thinking about something?

The rather obvious answer is I think about something else. The worst time for thinking about things I do not want to think about is when I'm trying to go to sleep. What else can one do, but think of something else? I also try to be really tired when I go to bed.

-- Dave Van (davevan01@hotmail.com), May 16, 2000.