Helen Fitzgerald - The Grieving Teen: A Guide for Teenagers and Their Friends

For most teens, one of the joys of the teenage years is the feeling of being connected to othersnot just parents and family, but friends, classmates, schools, clubs, and teams. Its what makes this time of a persons life so special and why in later years adults reminisce so much about their own teen years. For many people, life never again provides the richness of friendships and the camaraderie that they enjoyed in those years between thirteen and nineteen.

A death in the family can change all that. The terminal illness of a sister or the divorce of ones parents can do the same. Suddenly, families have to move or responsibilities are shifted such that there is little time left to spend with friends. Ones inner world can change overnight, dimming the prospect for college, perhaps, and robbing one of the carefree years that one once thought still lay ahead. Of course, the loss of a loved one can make all of this seem selfish and unimportantbut its not: these issues need to be brought out into the open.

Also, there is another part of teenage grief that makes it different from that of, say, adults. When tragedy strikes a family, the parents usually get the most attention. Adult friends gather with support for the widow or widower. If a child has died, it is the parents, again, who usually get the most attention from friends and relatives. Teenagers who are themselves approaching adulthood are all too often left to deal with their own grief alone. And the grief that they have to endure may be made worse by the fact that others dont seem to see it.

In earlier books, Helen Fitzgerald has offered her wise counsel, based on years of individual and group counseling, to the parents of younger children and to adults mourning the loss of loved ones. It is the grieving teen, caught up in life-shattering grief, whom she addresses in this book, one of the first to take a comprehensive look at the special needs of teenagers. The anger, guilt, and regrets that they feel, the loneliness, shock, and disbelief are all here. And throughout, the author offers sound, creative ideas on what a teen can do to work through his or her grief.

I have followed the career of Ms. Fitzgerald for most of the twenty-two years since she pioneered the nations first grief program in a community mental-health center. That program continues today as part of the Mental Health Services of Fairfax County, Virginia. As coordinator, Ms. Fitzgerald has counseled hundreds, perhaps thousands, of teenagers, both individually and in groups, and has helped their families, friends, and siblings support them in their grief. She knows just about every personal tragedy that could befall any young person, and she brings to her work a level of understanding and empathy that others only wish that they could emulate.

If you are a teen looking for help with your own grief, feeling resentful, angry, or guilty, wondering if you have a future, this book can help you come to understand your feelings, discharge your anger, and start a new life from the ashes of sorrow and loss.

Earl A.Grollman,

author of Straight Talk About Death for Teenagers

Belmont, Massachusetts

November 1999

In an earlier book, I wrote about a fifteen-year-old named Laura, whose unhappy situation as a young person whose needs were ignored continues to haunt me, for stories like hers remain largely unaddressed in the many books that have been written about death and dying. What Lauras story represents is the young person set somehow adrift by the illness or death of a loved onenot intentionally, of course, but set adrift nonetheless. As Laura cried out in that story, Im hurting, too.

Today, it seems that there are more than a few Lauras out there, shattered and set adrift by the violence that has become almost commonplace in our country. I think of the friends and classmates, sisters and brothers whose lives were changed forever by crazed gun-men at places like Columbine High School in Colorado, Heath High School in Georgia, or Thurston High School in Oregonplaces once distant but now strangely united in tragedy. And I think of all those who have lost relatives and friends through accidents, illness, and self-inflicted wounds. It is for you, the Lauras or Bills or Elizabethsteenagers whose lives have been caught up in personal tragedy, who have been alienated even from grieving loved onesthat I have written this book.

TeenagersI almost recoil at using the word because it seems to lump everyone between thirteen and nineteen into a single groupoften find themselves in the same role as Laura. Somehow, at a time when these emerging adults are just learning who they are, the adults around them might be equally uncertain as to how to deal with them. The result can come across as indifference, and it can be very painful and isolating.

Also, sad to state, genuine conflicts arise in families, pitting siblings against one another, or parents against children. Not every feeling of alienation is based on misunderstanding: sometimes parents really are unfair; sometimes siblings really intend to make your life miserable.

Is this the way youre feeling? If it is, let me see if I can refine it a bit. Someone you love has died or is dying. It may be your father or mother, brother or sister, grandparent, close friend, boyfriend, or girlfriend. It is someone whose life was a part of your life, whose dreams and aspirations were, to some extent, your dreams and aspirations. And that persons death or expected death is having a devastating effect on you and your own pursuit of a meaningful life.