This article is for those of you who are working up the courage to attend your first TCF meeting. Recently, some people who came talked about the effect their first meeting had on them and why they continued to attend.
One couple said they felt so drained and unsettled they could hardly sleep and just dragged through work the net day. Another, a teacher, said that after her first meeting, she made arrangements to have a substitute teacher for her class the day following the second meeting she was going to attend. She knew she wouldn’t fell up to teaching after coming to TCF. One man said he got up on the Tuesday morning of the week TCF met dreading having to go. He dreaded it all day naming to himself many good reasons why he couldn’t e there. Then he said he always felt better after the meetings and was glad he had made himself go. These examples show why we say, “Try TCF two or three time before you give up on it.”
You may be asking yourself why someone would willingly attend a meeting that has such a seemingly bad effect and apparently left them more upset than when they came. Psychologists say we need to talk, feel and act in order to resolve grief in a positive way, so the lasting effects are beneficial to our functioning well and to our eventual healing. To heal we must have the courage to face reality and to change.
People continue to come to TCF even if their first meeting turned them off, because they sense these things and they see a group of people who are individually coping and struggling to make peace with one of the worst traumas they will ever encounter. Initially they man fell worse because for two hours they’ve dealt with their grief in a concentrated way. They haven’t been able to avoid it, push it to one side, be distracted by other things, or deny the death of their child, they have told their story; they’ve listened to other people tell theirs. They’ve hurt for others, themselves, and for a world in which death has inverted the natural order of things. They’ve gotten a bucket load of grief all at once. No wonder they feel overwhelmed.
For many, the idea of group grieving is uncomfortable. They’ve treated their grief as personal (and it is). They’ve been self-centered (most grievers are), they’ve wrapped themselves in a cocoon of not being understood and feeling different from normal people, and they’ve bought society’s myth that the repression of feelings is a sign of strength. Then here they are with a group of strangers who are spilling their guts. If they continue to attend they may find “those people” aren’t really strangers. They share a common bond. They too may have been uncomfortable at first, but as time went on they found that a TCF meeting is the one place where it is safe to crawl out of that cocoon and talk about those unusual, crazy thoughts and actions that plague them.
Another thing that may bother people is that some TCF members actually laugh and socialize. Laughter is a great balm for
tension and indicates that a certain amount of healing is taking place. People at TCF are in all stages of grief. Their laughter and socializing means they’re making progress. It shows that all bereaved parents may one day want to laugh again, that grief will not be all encompassing.
Because you are so raw and vulnerable since your child died, certain meetings may anger you or hit your most tender spots. TCF does have off-nights when nothing comes over as intended, the speaker isn’t on target or the sharing groups don’t gel or the vibes all wrong. Don’t judge the possible benefits by one attendance. Consider too, that it might have been an off-night for you or maybe you are attending too soon after your child’s death and need to wait awhile before coming back.
Time alone will not heal the wounds of the bereaved. It will distance you from the event, but it will not make you well. Acknowledging the death and the possibility for positive change, actively working to resolve the upheaval caused by the death and finding new avenues and persons to invest in and love will produce healing. TCF attempts to help as you reshuffle you life and work through you pain.
Grief is hard work and that is what TCF is all about. If after attending several meetings, you feel TCF isn’t for you, stop coming. It truly isn’t for everyone, but the group is there is you need them, whenever you need them.
