What have I lost: Recognizing losses
Experiences that result in loss are common to those in service and their families, but some losses aren’t as easy to recognize as others.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Nobody even suggested that maybe I was actually grieving the loss of my husband in some way. I mean, he was still in my life. He hadn’t died. But he was no longer the man I knew. That was really the final brick in the wall for me. The key. - Family Member
The responsibilities of your career or family may not have allowed you adequate time to notice your losses. You may have buried some of your feelings of loss only to have them reappear with a vengeance years or sometimes decades later.
It didn’t happen after six months of retirement so I thought things are going to be fine… And it wasn’t until… three years later, and it factored into a long-term relationship break up. My parents were in long term care, and it was just like EVERYTHING hit all at once. - RCMP Veteran
The pages that follow help you identify losses you have experienced during service or as a family member to Canadian Armed Forces or RCMP Veteran. We encourage you to read about each other’s potential experiences to deepen your understanding of the impacts of service and how to support each other.
When grief is difficult to recognize
You don’t have to be present at an event for it to have a deep and distressing impact. This is known as vicarious grief or vicarious trauma. Stories by those who were present or that are shared third hand, details that come to light during investigations, or images in the media can all cause or intensify grief and trauma responses.
Hearing a story can lead our imagination to fill in the blanks and create terrible images in our inner world, even if none of them are what actually happened in the outer world. Recognizing that these are difficult experiences, and not dismissing them, allows us to fully deal with how we may be injured.
Sometimes we minimize our experience because “it didn’t happen to us, so what right do I have to feel anything?” However, while many of us did not witness firsthand the terror attacks of September 11, most of us were deeply disturbed by it.
In some cases, you may not know you are grieving. This is referred to as ambiguous grief.
Not being able to recognize the experience as grief makes the situation even more challenging.
Once we have recognized what we have lost, we can start to see the choices we are making, consciously or otherwise, to respond to our grief. We can then begin to more effectively take charge of our situation.
The pages that follow help you identify losses you may have experienced during service or as a family member of a CAF or RCMP Veteran. We encourage you to read about each other’s potential experiences to deepen your understanding of the impacts of service and how to support each other.