Clustering discoveries into themes
After several encounters and a workshop held with some of the interviewees, included in the study, we were able to cluster the problems into main themes as well as depict the most recurrent ones among the individuals of this study.
Clustering information into themes give the ability to clearly see what are the common challenges faced in a separate manner to be able to look into each detail and break down the complexities in order to depict all kinds of scenarios.
A lot of tools were also used along the clustering of the data and while digging deep into each theme, as a way to make sense of each idea and see how challenges are connected to one another. In an other way, linking them to one another, have let us gain a better understanding of what an individual who looses a beloved goes through, what are the factors that affect him etc. Redefining the chunk of information that was gathered during the past 4 months into meaningful tracks of information.
Overall discoveries are divided across two main categories of people:
Young adults and Widowers (mostly in this study women)
Between those two, are common challenges in which they both live same conditions and endure similar situations. The first one being:
1- The inability to communicate on a social level, on a familial level and on a personal level.
All of these different levels of connexions (with others or with oneself) are in some ways obstructed or departed because of this heavy event that weighs down the individual who lost a beloved. Meaning that because the deceit was someone dear, his absence has triggered shaky emotions, which in turn have led to dysfunctional situations when alone, with family or in society.
Starting from the largest (society) to the most specific scope (personal) as to introduce the information in a reversed ripple effect.
- Because of these emotions, the individual as much as he/she has a desire to accomplish him/herself in society (which in this case is more observed in young adults) will have a difficulty to reach out to others, since people are not in the same situation as them. This means that in some situations, they will find a hard time connecting with other people as they might be in a state where they need other forms of friendship, where deeper conversations are favored. The issue lays in the fact that those people do not express this gap in front of their friends because of their desire to belong and maintaining the status. In result they remain silent and somewhat disturbed with others, feeling that nobody is really there them or can understand them.
In reaction to this, they try to move away as much as possible from the topic, in order not to also be perceived as weak, a pain for other or become a target of pity.
In the case of widows, some feel threatened by society, not wanting to expose their situation. Most of them had a hard time reintegrating themselves back into society after the loss of their husbands, for several reasons: lack of finances, absence of professional career, dissimilarity with friends in marital status etc.
When their husbands passed away, they felt very uncomfortable with society considering a hard face it again.
Unlike young adults, they took their time to expose themselves back in society, spending their time busy either working, taking care of the children, finishing some paperwork or dealing house chores, including all the new responsibilities they had to add on.
One of the mothers, has asked her children not to discuss about their case to anyone at school, fearing they might be judged or be unsafe. She also did the same with her surrounding so that no one gossips would expand on her new financial situation.
If we had to compare between both age groups, we can say that young adults are more prone to contact with society as they still have their career and relationships to shape which keeps their personal goals ahead and aligned with their usual lifestyle.
Adult women on the other hand, are more into finding solutions for themselves and children leaving them a bit away from the social stadium.
- In the family environment, dialogue is not enabled as a way to understand the other. Most family members tend to avoid discussion and dialogue about their feelings towards their loss because they believe they would be increasing the pain and opening wounds.
A silent and non inclusive empathy is apparent between members of a family since they all lived this loss. But each member remains in their own pain, trying to understand the other through their own sufferance. This limits their conversation, because of the very reason that they did not have enough space, time or opportunity to express their own emotions in order to be able to listen to others and talk about their own emotions together. This is why, dialogue is not favored or considered crucial for evolution of the family circle but most of discussion remain limited on the level of a financial situation, owned goods or the management of a critical case (such as the kid’s education) etc.
In some families we found a lot of conflicts either between a mother and her children, a young woman with her mother and sister, or a young man with his entire family. And this is because they are unable to accept their loss and have unmet needs, which in turn is affecting their personal as well as familial condition.
Because they refrain from expressing in society, their only diffusing their tensions is within their family circle. This remains an unhealthy pattern for both parties as they are both unable to cope with their loss, meaning they are unable to solve each other’s pains.
Most widows observed in this research, felt guilty towards their children, believing that they were not capable of holding their responsibilities as much as they should and that they are lingering on their husbands much more than they should, because reality is knocking at the door and they see how their children are behaving in comparison to them or as an effect of their nostalgia.
Some of the children are acting a psychological support for their mom more she is capable of supporting her children:
And some children are affected by their mother’s psychological absence leaving them with unstable psychological, emotional and life situations:
The most important aspect of non communication comes from the very roots of the individual. If a person is not capable of releasing unwanted and heavy emotions caused by loss then all relationship with others will somehow be affected. Some of its effects are very fulgurent.
We observed that the majority of young adults and widows have the tendency to cut their emotions off.
This is also apparent when friends try to give space for them to talk and they refuse. But this also is a proof of unhealthy self treatment, because these same individuals live longer emotional disturbance which also comes back during friend gatherings.
This is a result of unwanted loss, which in effect becomes a vicious circle for a person who is not accepting this event in their own reality and in turn reject their emotions of pains as a reaction to rejecting their loss. The issue here is the inability to release emotions of loss because an inability to release the deceit and let go of their loss. This is why they tend to say they did not understand what happened, remaining in some sort of denial.
