(no subject)

[senoritafish]

John went over to his friend Jerry's last night when I got home, ostensibly to watch the Laker game, but he hates basketball Maybe to have a bit of a wake as well. He says watching Angus and Gareth playing together reminds him too much of he and his brother. I hope his wanting to isolate himself away from his family is a temporary thing. It seems like taking care of his kids would be a good distraction, but everything reminds him of Jay. I want to give him time to heal from this, but his mother is already suggesting grief counseling. I know it was over a year before I started feeling normal after my mom died

Comments

[metalmensch.livejournal.com]

A year is about right. For some reason or another, noone seems to be quite right for a year after they have a family member die. If he begins to get too isolated, you might want to suggest grief councelling. It will speed up the process. Especially if his retreat is being detrimental to the kidlings.

[senoritafish.livejournal.com]

Part of it is that he is a stay-at-home dad, and he needs to get away after being cooped up for over 8 hours with 3 small children, every day. But it's also the first week he's had any alone time, when he would normally call up his brother and chat. He feels like he's got noone to talk to or even cares that this happened. All of his male friends get unconfortable around him, and his supposed best friend did not even show up to the memorial service after calling and asking what to wear, then says he'll call or come by and doesn't. It doesn't help. I wanted to give him time to deal on his own before I suggested some counseling, if at all. I know sometimes it's good to talk with someone outside the situation, but his experience is that counselors don't help much, so he may be reluctant to try one again.

Apparently his mother has already joined some kind of support group, and is bugging him to do the same. This will probably make him even less likely to go.

Sorry, running off at the keyboard.