Coping With Grief and Tragedy

Mark, an EMS blogger friend over at Medic999 wrote an outstanding piece last month on his struggles coping with a recent call. I have great admiration for writers who are willing to put themselves out there in very real ways. Mark and I are similar people. We’re both in our thirties with wives and children. And we both tend to have a positive outlook on our careers.

We also have the similar experience of feeling moments of grief at very random times. I know exactly what Mark is talking about when he explains the experience of driving along in his car and tearing up and not understanding why.

When I was a young twenty-something paramedic, I had an older paramedic tell me about a similar thing happening to him. He would just be doing something completely inconsequential and he’d have these moments of grief just wash over him. His doctor even discussed putting him on a SSRI medication. (He declined.)

When he told me about it I remember thinking he was a bit whacked. I just couldn’t relate. Until I turned 34 or 35 … and it started happening to me. I’d be playing with my kids, listening to a song or driving my car and suddenly I’d just feel overwhelmingly sad.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that feelings build up inside of you and need to be released. I don’t think there is any overstocked warehouse of grief or sadness somewhere within me and some internal supply manager is yelling, ‘We need to offload some of this stored up grief in here!” I don’t buy it. I do believe that we develop triggers to certain feelings. We may or may not be aware of them. It makes sense to me that when we work this close to human tragedy and grief we develop neuro-associative triggers and when we experience those same stimuli later on we produce similar feelings.

I wasn’t sure how to cope with this at first. I’ve given it a lot of thought over the past few years. This how I have chosen to frame the experience. If your dealing with something similar, you may find this helpful.

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