Claire Bidwell Smith - Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief: A Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Healing the Impact of Loss

I F YOU ARE READING THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW, ITS PROBABLY SAFE to say that you or someone you love is struggling with anxiety. Not only that, but maybe you are just now connecting the dots to see that this anxiety may stem from a loss youve experienced in your life.

That loss can be recent or decades old. Your anxiety could be severe or just enough to make your life uncomfortable. Anxiety is a tricky emotion, and Im guessing that youre more than ready to figure out how to get a grip on it and learn how to feel good again. Thats exactly what this book is designed to help you do.

Anxiety that stems from loss is more common than most people realize. When someone we love dies, our world turns upside down on multiple levels. The shock of everything that comes with losing someone significant is a powerful catalyst for all the feelings of fear and dread that constitute anxiety. So I want to start by acknowledging that you are not alone in experiencing anxiety after loss.

Your loss could have happened just months ago, or you could still be grappling with the effects of a loss that occurred years earlier. Losing someone we love is an experience that stays with us all our lives, and the broader implications of a significant loss can manifest in all manner of life changes and behavioral and emotional triggers. This book is designed to speak to those who are in the first stages of processing their grief and also to those may no longer be actively grieving but are experiencing the long-term effects of that initial grief, specifically anxiety.

Ive written this book to help you understand how to diminish and release that anxiety, while at the same time processing the loss that brought it on in the first place. I understand that simply acknowledging your anxiety can make you feel anxious, so I promise were going to do this in a safe, comfortable, and compassionate way.

In this book Im going to lead you step by step on a path to healing. Its the same path I took when I worked through my own anxiety following the deaths of my parents, and its the same path down which I have led hundreds of clients in my work as a grief therapist. Know that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that by reading these pages, you are taking the first steps toward healing your anxious heart.

In my work as a grief therapist, I openly share my past with my clients. Because grief and anxiety are such particular experiences, I know it helps others feel more comfortable when they know that I have truly walked in their shoes. While I am going to share many stories of how my clients overcame their own grief-related anxiety in later chapters, I want to begin by telling you a little of my story.

I was eighteen years old when I had my first panic attack. I was on a road trip with my high school boyfriend, Jordan. We had just graduated, and it was the summer between our senior year of high school and our freshman year of college. We were headed to separate schools in New England that fall and had decided to take a trip to visit each others colleges, hoping to remain connected even after the summer.

The trip had gone wellwe saw each others campuses, held hands as we walked across commons, and whispered vows of faithfulness in the face of distance. As we drove the two-day drive home to Georgia, we talked endlessly about all that was ahead of us. I stared out at the highway rushing before us, the future looming large, my sneakers propped on the dashboard, and my hair blowing in the breeze from the open window. The future seemed exciting, but also a little scary.

As I gazed out at the road, my heart suddenly did a little flip-flop. And then a bigger flip-flop. I yanked my feet off the dashboard and sat forward, breathing in deeply. My heart was racing and I felt dizzy. Whats wrong? Jordan asked. But I couldnt answer himI was too panicked to speak. Was I having a heart attack? The thought made me even dizzier. I felt as though there were a giant weight on my chest, and I couldnt breathe.

I shook my head at him, wide-eyed. Somethings wrong, I finally managed to say. Not knowing what else to do, Jordan followed highway signs to the nearest hospital emergency room and walked me through the double doors.

Several hours and multiple tests later, the doctor concluded that Id had a series of heart palpitations but that I was otherwise young and healthy, and he sent us on our way.

From that day on, I lived in fear of having another episode like the one in the car. And in fact, I began to have them quite frequently. Chest pounding, heart racing and palpitating, severe dizziness. It was an awful problem, one that I quickly began to feel imprisoned by.