True North with the AFSP in the Out of Darkness suicide prevention community walks

“Out of the Darkness” Fundraiser with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

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As a society, we struggle with repressed emotions, feelings of hopelessness, and sadness to a worrying degree, and as a counseling practice, we see it in our own patients consistently. We provide assistance and care to those suffering, who walk in the dark – that’s why we felt that it was pertinent for us to form a team and partner up with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in their “Out of Darkness” Community Walk, taking place on November 5th, 2022.

We pledged our team to fundraising, and have set our goal to $250 with the intent to honor those lost to the darkness, but also to support those we see, those we love, and those we work with who struggle and grapple with this concept daily.

To donate, join, or support our team, you can visit https://supporting.afsp.org/team/297815. There, you have the option to donate to a specific member or the entire team, download checking forms for donations, or register to join the team.

The Community Walks have been going on since 2004, and we’re proud to be able to participate this year to band together with others who fight against suicide. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is the largest private funder of suicide prevention research, and their evidence-based programs implemented in local communities across the country reach millions of people every year, so we’re excited to contribute to their work as we continue in tandem with ours to provide a helping hand.

Together, we hope to open all the avenues of communication around suicide and to rid the negative stigma around getting help when you need it so that it doesn’t have to become a last resort. If you’re looking for a safe place to start your journey out of the darkness, we’re always here at True North for you, and you can contact us or call us at 502-777-7525 anytime.

If you you need immediate help, please call the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, chat online at 988lifeline.org, text TALK to 741-741 for a texting option, visit a medical or emergency building such as Urgent Care, your local fire or police department, or talk to a trusted person in your life so that you don’t have to struggle alone.

We’re all in this fight together, and we want to be here for everyone in every way we can be!

Experiencing Complicated Grief Written By Zoe Avery of True North Counseling

Experiencing Complicated Grief

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Written by student intern Zoe Avery. Zoe is currently attending University of Louisville for Couples and Family therapy and has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Murray State University. Learn more about her work on our staff page. 

Experiencing grief can be one of the most intense seasons of some people’s lives. Often during our grieving processes, we feel as though the pain we feel has gone on forever and may not ever end. While these thoughts and struggles are normal parts of our individualized grieving processes, some people may experience extreme or prolonged versions of grief after the loss of a loved one. 

What is Complicated Grief? 

Following a loss, a multitude of symptoms are considered normal and expected, being applicable to both normal and complicated grief. The primary difference between these two is the length of time these symptoms are experienced. When someone experiences complicated grief, their severe symptoms may last over a year, never fading or tapering as with normal grief. Complicated grief may also be characterized by symptoms worsening over time, inhibiting healing and moving forward, back to a life similar to before the loss. 

Symptoms of Complicated Grief

  • Intense sorrow, pain and rumination over the loss of your loved one
  • Focus on little else but your loved one’s death
  • Extreme focus on reminders of the loved one or excessive avoidance of reminders
  • Intense and persistent longing or pining for the deceased
  • Problems accepting the death
  • Numbness or detachment
  • Bitterness about your loss
  • Feeling that life holds no meaning or purpose
  • Lack of trust in others
  • Inability to enjoy life or think back on positive experiences with your loved one (1)

Causes and Risk Factors

While exact causes are not fully known, complicated grief may be more likely to occur in individuals with previous mental health disorders. There may also be a link between complicated grief and the nature of the loss experienced, such as violent deaths or the death of a child. Seeking help or support early on in the grief process may be helpful in subsiding or decreasing the symptoms experienced. 

1.Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2021, June 19). Complicated grief. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved April 27, 2022, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/complicated-grief/symptoms-causes/syc-20360374 

what we owe

What We Owe Each Other

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There are no “perfect” victims.

Every post I’ve seen about Breonna Taylor and other BIPOC victims of institutional violence has included a “wait, but what about the time that…?” comment (or multiple comments). Ask yourselves if you’ve ever been involved, or even adjacent to, something or someone that would fill in that blank. Did you ever go on a date with someone who had a criminal record? Even if you didn’t know about it, would it be something that would be used against you as evidence in the court of public opinion if you, too, were murdered in your home by the police?

Those of us in the mental health field are all too familiar with the mental acrobatics that people who have NOT experienced tragedy use to cognitively distance themselves from something that, in reality, could happen to anyone.* If we tell ourselves that it was because of the rape victim’s drinking, or because the children who were molested had a parent who wasn’t present, or because the domestic violence victim had dropped out of high school, it allows us some comfort that these terrible things won’t happen to us.

The reality is, terrible things happen at a much higher frequency than most people are aware of. And the only people that are to blame are the perpetrators.

Scratch that. Also to blame is the culture that prioritizes some lives over others, treats sexist and violent “jokes” as “locker room talk,” and appoints officials with a documented history of crimes against women.

This is not one of those “it gets better” posts. This is a post that ends with: It gets better when we realize that we’re all in this together, and sometimes, the only thing that separates you from immense tragedy and trauma is a stroke of luck or fate. We are all in the same ocean, but we’re not in the same boat. Some are in rowboats, some are in yachts, and still others are clinging to debris tossed aside by the bigger boats’ occupants.

Philosopher Tim Scanlon wrote What We Owe to Each Other, a complex overview of utilitarian ethics made famous more recently by the excellent television show The Good Place. The answer that I came up with for myself is: Love. We just owe each other love. The principle that has guided this view is influenced by Cornel West, PhD:

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

—-

* Though, in reality, are significantly more likely to occur if you are already a member of a marginalized group.

racial profiling

Racial Profiling and Our Youth

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Time to Wake Up! Protecting our Black Youth from Racial Profiling

“Racial profiling is a longstanding and deeply troubling national problem despite claims that the United States has entered a “post-racial era.” It occurs every day, in cities and towns across the country, when law enforcement and private security target people of color for humiliating and often frightening detentions, interrogations, and searches without evidence of criminal activity and based on perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. Racial profiling is patently illegal, violating the U.S. Constitution’s core promises of equal protection under the law to all and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.” –ACLU

I grieve for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Few of us can imagine the horror that they experienced in those last moments as they were murdered by the people who took an oath to serve and protect them. I grieve and I am disgusted. I want to do something!

As a Social Worker and owner of an agency that focuses on serving and protecting our black youth, I believe that I have been sleepwalking. Most of us have. I hear stories and read accounts of young black men being stopped and handcuffed for bogus traffic stops simply because they were black. Our young black men in our community do not feel safe! They live in constant fear of being stopped by the police. Imagine, if you can, how oppressive that is. It is emotional abuse! The young black men that I work with suffer from this oppressive fear. They feel it every day as that they walk into or drive into the community.

The fear of racial profiling is traumatizing our black youth, and we must wake up and reignite the passion that will end it once and forever.

Here’s an important name: Tae-Ahn Lea. Tae-Ahn was the teenager that was stopped in June of 2019 (a year ago) and detained in handcuffs while his car was searched for 1 ½ hours for drugs. He is suing the Police Department. Here is part of that document:

“Tae-Ahn Lea is an honors graduate from Central High School. He was the homecoming king, has no criminal history and upon graduation became employed with a well-respected local car dealership. Tae-Ahn, however, also happens to be black, live in a low-income neighborhood, and drive his mother’s fairly new vehicle. He was thus the perfect target for members of the Ninth Mobile Division of the Louisville Metro Police Department who, throughout the past two years in Louisville, have employed a discriminatory, prejudicial, and illegal stop and frisk practice in which “violent crimes” units use traffic stops as a pretext for pulling over young black men driving nice cars, handcuffing them and subjecting them to abusive, racist, and intrusive searches without consent, good cause, or reasonable suspicion of any criminal activity.”

Time to wake up! Time to do something! Young black men in our community need our help! They need my help. As an agency, we will be investing time, work, and money to stop this illegal practice! We cannot do everything, but we can do something! It’s time to be a change agent! It’s time to end racial profiling!

Join us!

out of the darkness

Out of the Darkness

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Hank Buckwalter, his wife, Chelsea, and Rommie and I participated in the Out of the Darkness Walk this past weekend at Waterfront Park.

It can be emotionally overwhelming to be in a gathering of people that are celebrating the lives and passing of their loved ones. I listened as the “Honor Beads” were given to the family members and friends of those who had taken their lives. They celebrated these beautiful humans that saw only one solution to the pain they were experiencing.

I lost a friend of 47 years this year to suicide. He was in a lot of pain. At his memorial service, an acquaintance commented, “I can’t believe Jeff took his own life.” I forgive him for his insensitivity. As much as I miss Jeff, our laughs, our High School pranks, our wonderful conversations on his deck near Hikes Point, I understand why he took his own life. He was in pain.

I struggle with the legality and morality of suicide.  Having said that, I will do everything in my clinical and personal power to prevent others from taking their own lives.

People need hope and when they lose hope

 they see very few solutions to their problems.

I wrote a blog a year ago about hope. Here is what I said:

People come to therapy because they have feelings of hopelessness. As a young therapist, I was inspired by Moltmann’s admonition, to be an instrument of hope. At the very heart of therapy is the goal of helping people find hope, because without it they cannot live. I believe that hopeful people inspire hopefulness in others. A hopeful therapist has many tools and strategies for helping people, but most important they inspire hopefulness. I believe they infect people with their hopefulness. They engage in a Therapy of Hope.

If you have thoughts of suicide, even fleeting thoughts, contact a therapist. We have included the suicide hotline number on our website. Call it and make an appointment. In Kentucky, all therapists are required to take a workshop every three years on suicide prevention. Make the call.

After the walk this past Saturday, Hank and Chelsea, and Rommie and I went to First Watch and had breakfast together. We reverently celebrated life.

Things Not to Say to Someone Who Has Experienced A Pregnancy Loss

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You can always have another.

Firstly, you don’t know that for certain. Secondly, they wanted this child. The prospect of another somewhere down the road doesn’t mitigate that loss.

Now you have an angel watching over you (or God must’ve wanted your baby in heaven).

While this may be comforting to some people further along in their healing process, it can also be incredibly hurtful. Even if someone finds comfort in their faith or religion, most will still feel that they would be happier if their baby were with them here on earth.

At least you didn’t know your baby.

For many pregnant people, their babies became real the moment they saw that second line or received a call from their doctor’s office. The idea that this death should affect someone less is false. A loss is a loss.

Did you do something you weren’t supposed to?

Someone who has experienced a pregnancy loss will probably already be asking themselves this. As I wrote in a previous blog on Pregnancy Loss, most miscarriages are for unknown reasons. Often, reproductive medicine physicians will not suggest an autopsy or tissue sample for fetal abnormalities until the third miscarriage. So just…don’t say this.

I understand how you feel.

Even if you have also experienced a pregnancy loss, everyone grieves differently. Grief is a journey, and if the loss is new, they may be in a very different place than you are.

So what can you say instead?

I’m sorry for your loss.

I care about you.

If you’d like to talk about it, I’m here.

 

Jennifer Kendrick

AAMFT Approved Supervisor
Kentucky Board Approved MFT Supervisor

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Clinical Social Worker in KY
Licensed Clinical Social Worker in IN
cell: 502.203.9197

Pregnancy Loss

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In addition to being a social worker and family therapist, I am a loss doula. Loss doulas are a little different from labor doulas. A loss doula supports people who are miscarrying, having a stillbirth, or whose child is not expected to live long after birth. When I’ve talked to people about this aspect of my work, one of three responses occur. Either they react with horror, “Why would you ever want to do that?” 2) They recognize it as a necessary service, “I’m glad you do that, but I couldn’t handle it” or  they join the club of people who never wanted to be in that club. “That happened to me. I needed someone like you.” (Or, hopefully, “I had someone like you, and they helped through an incredibly tough time.”)

Pregnancy loss is much more common than you may believe.

A miscarriage is classified as any pregnancy loss before 23 weeks’ gestation. After 24 weeks, if a baby is born deceased, the medical term is “stillbirth.” Babies born alive between 24 and 37 weeks are referred to as premature. 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage, and about 1 in 100 women have recurrent (meaning more than three) miscarriages. Miscarriage, in particular, can be experienced in a variety of ways. Some people experience the movie version—sudden bleeding and the loss of the baby physically, while others are not aware that their child has died until they receive an ultrasound and no fetal heartbeat is detected.

Why we don’t talk about it.

While miscarriage and stillbirth are very common, we’ve only recently started talking about miscarriage, pregnancy loss, and infertility. For many people, it’s still a forbidden topic. The secrecy about miscarriage however, adds to the psychological pain. Loss can already feel very isolating, and keeping a loss “secret” increases feelings of isolation. Sometimes people hesitate sharing about their miscarriage(s) because they are worried about the responses they will receive from friends and loved ones. (See: Things Not to Say to Someone Who Has Experienced A Pregnancy Loss.) There is still quite a bit of mystery surrounding miscarriage. Often people will never know what caused the loss of their child and this complicates the grieving process.

Seeking Help

As I’ve written before, grief is a complicated, individual process. Therapy often involves helping the bereaved reconcile mixed emotions about their loss and assisting with the creation of a new narrative. It can also involve commemorating or memorializing the person who died. Often, medical doctors will unnecessarily complicate the grieving process by not making the right suggestions. This can include deciding how the deceased’s remains will be handled, whether there will be a memorial service, and naming the deceased. Sometimes, it involves couples’ therapy, as men and women may handle the death of a child before birth very differently. In moments of struggle and grief, I want couples to turn toward, rather than away from each other, which therapy can help facilitate.

If you are interested in receiving individual or couples therapy to address a pregnancy loss, contact us. If you’re interested in a pregnancy loss group, please let me know that as well! I am considering whether we have enough interest to have a mixed group. However, there may be one group for people who have been pregnant and another for their partners.

Jennifer Kendrick

AAMFT Approved Supervisor
Kentucky Board Approved MFT Supervisor

Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Clinical Social Worker in KY
Licensed Clinical Social Worker in IN
cell: 502.203.9197

Friday Waypoints- 02-21-19

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Podcast I’m Listening to

I’ve been a big fan of Sam Harris because of the work he’s done on Mindfulness. He has an app called “Waking Up” and a Podcast entitled, “Making Sense.” This past week the podcast episode #147 was an interview with Stephen Fry. Fry is an English actor, comedian, writer and activist. If you’ve listened to the Harry Potter books, it’s his voice you will hear.

Harris and Fry spend much of this podcast talking about mindfulness and meditation. There are literally thousands of podcasts to listen to while you’re driving.  If you’re looking for a few to follow, consider these:

  • Optimal Health Daily
  • The Daily Meditation Podcast
  • Happiness Podcast
  • Meditate and Move
  • Optimal Living Daily
  • Stoic Meditations

Lessons from My Clients

Most of my practice has been with Teenagers and their families. What I have observed and seen with many of these teens is that life can be a struggle. In fact, it can overwhelm them. Many are experiencing anxiety and mild depression and they can’t seem to shake it. It’s partly due to social media and technology, but it’s mostly due to cultural influences. What I mean by that is the that teens are affected by the things we value and spend our time doing. Teenagers today are under a lot of stress. They struggle with finding meaning in life. Life is getting more and more complicated at home, at school, in the community, and with peers.

What I relearned this past week is that sometimes our teens simply need to talk to someone about their worries and fears. I saw the burden lifted as a wonderful young man simply talked and I listened.

I Lost a Good Friend This Past Week

There are few things that bring things into perspective like losing a lifelong friend. Life really is short. Without going into details, most of my adolescence was coupled with him. I admired him, I never felt judgment from him. We supported each other through our hardships, but these past few years he was in unbearable pain.

I am sad for many reasons. This is a great loss for many people. He was an intelligent man and for many years, was full of life. I will miss him.

And as we do with many of our losses, we live with them. I will live with this loss.  I will live. “Life is to be lived,” as the saying goes. And it is short and fragile. Remembering that, and remembering my dear friend’s life, will hopefully inspire me as it did when he was alive.