Dealing with the loss of a loved one is never easy. And it is more challenging when one experiences complicated grief – especially if it is mixed with guilt and regret.
Everyone deals with grief differently. Individuals may go through multiple emotions, from shock, disbelief, denial, anger, remorse and acceptance. And sometimes, individuals may feel multiple emotions simultaneously.
These emotions can last a few hours to weeks, months and even years. And every time one goes through the loss of someone, their experiences may be different. However, when these feelings become debilitating and worsen over time, it is considered to be a ‘complicated grief‘. And one of the causes of complicated grief for most migrants is when it mixes with guilt and regret of not being able to do enough for loved ones.
I lost five people close to me over a period of eight years and felt different emotions each time.
In 2011, I lost my cousin, whom I grew up with, at 43, to a brain tumour. I felt miserable, but perhaps knowing that he had a terminal illness helped me accept that he had gone to a better place.
Then, I lost my favourite uncle (my mum’s brother) in 2012 to a heart attack. He was only 58 and perhaps the most caring person I knew. I felt devastated but was more concerned for my mother, who had raised her brother, as my grandmother suffered from postpartum depression.
I had a more significant blow when my spiritual master passed away in 2013. I attended his funeral in India, but I was in shock! I took part in all the rituals without shedding a single tear. It was three months after his funeral when I first cried. That was also the first time I felt like my heart was being torn apart. The vision of his last rites kept returning to my thoughts every minute.
My elder brother passed away in 2016 at age 50. My brother had some health issues but also had a troublesome life. When he passed away, I felt extremely sad. But more than that, I found myself searching for answers on why I could not influence him to take a healthier, more progressive lifestyle. I felt guilty that I failed to understand him. However, I felt unsettling and complicated grief when I lost my mum in 2018.
No, I did not shed a single tear for my mum. But I felt grief entwined with guilt and regret – and perhaps it became more complicated due to the cumulation of the grief over the years.
The feeling of guilt
I felt intense guilt about not being able to provide the same level of comfort to my family members that I had in Australia. I particularly felt I let my mum down when she made enormous sacrifices to educate me.
In fact, I had done a lot for them by supporting them financially and morally. But all that seemed meaningless when I was in the middle of my grief.
Guilt is perhaps one of the most common emotions most migrants face when they lose someone they were responsible for looking after back in their home country.
Of course, our experiences of grief and guilt over the death of loved ones depend on the circumstances surrounding their death and our relationship with the person who passed away. So, the closer the family, the greater the responsibility migrants feel for their loved one’s welfare. And the greater the responsibility they assumed, the greater the guilt they felt during their loss.
Guilt is also an emotion we learn during childhood, where well-meaning adults use emotions to get children to do everyday tasks. It is also common in developing countries where parents say, ‘We are making all these sacrifices to educate you, so you will need to take care of the family when you get educated’. So, most migrants feel they must support their families back in their homeland, irrespective of their own struggles.
Feeling of Regret
Most migrants regret not being able to spend enough time with their families while getting established in a new country.
As I described in my blog, 8 Unexpected challenges new migrants face in Australia, migrants face many challenges when settling in a new country. They may be unable to support their families as much as they would have liked. So, when they lose their loved ones, they may even regret migrating in the first place.
Regret is a “negative cognitive state that involves blaming yourself for a bad outcome, feeling a sense of loss or sorrow at what might have been, or wishing you could undo a previous choice that you made”. I went through most of these feelings after my mum passed away.
My mum did not want us to make a fuss about her funeral. She only asked to decorate her with flowers for her final rites. But, when my mum passed away, I was going to India and had to return halfway through my flight to organise her funeral. I arrived in Fiji at 3 pm, severely jet-legged the day before her funeral. I could not find any shops that sold flowers within the time I had. I even went from house to house in the village, asking for flowers. I also offered to pay anyone who could bring flowers on the day. But I could not get enough flowers to decorate her as we would have liked.
I felt like a failure. I started regretting every decision I made in the years before my mum passed away. I regretted going on a holiday and not spending that time with her. I regretted not being with her when she struggled with losing my elder brother – even though I was dealing with the grief myself. I even regretted not encouraging her enough to see the doctor when she reported having short breath.
It felt like a treadmill of recurring questions of ‘what’, ‘when’, or ‘how’ I could have helped my family better. This continuous regret turned into chronic rumination.
I am lucky to have a husband who cared for me, but he started struggling to deal with my continuous regret and sense of failure. It was only then I realised that I needed to seek professional help.
The compounding effect of perfectionism
The level of regret and guilt that I faced could also have been due to my inclination to perfectionism.
Perfectionism is where individuals find it hard to change their expectations despite changing situations. Most perfectionists have rigid goals, and they link their self-worth to meeting those goals.
There are two types of perfectionism; Perfectionistic strivings, which include setting high expectations and striving for perfection, and perfectionistic concerns, which include fear of failure and self-criticism.
It is the negative impact of perfectionistic concerns that leads to emotional difficulties. When these individuals cannot meet the goals, they may have intense adverse reactions, such as fear, anxiety and perceptions of profound failure.
Perfectionists are not able to quickly bounce back from disappointment. Instead, they would beat themselves up much more and reel in pain when they could not meet those high expectations.
I believe my perfectionist tendencies were causing me grave pain and a great sense of failure since I could not meet my (and my family’s) expectation of raising their living standards to the same level as mine. It was hard to let go, and I continued beating myself for a long time.
10 Tips on Dealing with Guilt, grief, and Regret
1. Take one day at a time
One of the first steps to coping with cumulative grief is to take one day at a time.
You cannot plan what and how you will feel or how long the grief will take. It can also be overwhelming to deal with all these emotions at once.
I found it the easiest to wake up every morning and do one thing only. If that meant just sitting and crying or thinking of one of my lost family members – I prioritised that. And sometimes, there were days I stayed in bed if that’s what I felt like doing. However, I kept my focus on one thing at a time.
2. Step back and re-evaluate
We are usually so blinded by grief that we automatically blame ourselves for the death of our loved ones. Of course, it is not easy to reason things during your loss. But when things settle, it helps to take time to reassess the situation leading up to the loss of your loved ones. How many times did you reach out to them? How many times did you support them financially, morally, or otherwise? It is also equally important to review what was happening in your life when you could not support them.
When I was grieving, those who knew me reminded me that I had done more than enough for my loved ones. But their words were of no use to me. I felt they could not see my failings.
So, I took matters into my hand and drew a timeline of my life to understand if I missed any opportunities where I could have helped my loved ones any further. Only to find none! I found that the only times I could not help my family was when I struggled financially or health-wise.
3. Recognise your natural tendencies
One of the most important things when dealing with grief is reflecting on how you usually deal with typical situations. Do you have the urge to work extremely hard to achieve all goals, irrespective of how hard they are? Do you feel the need to be the perfect son, daughter, sibling, spouse, or parent? If so, you must first recognise that you may have perfectionist tendencies.
Recognising and becoming aware of your perfectionist thoughts is the first step to help rationalise your feelings.
I always knew that I had perfectionist tendencies. I set high standards and consistently achieved them. So, what helped me was stopping to assess my thoughts. I wrote my thoughts down in a journal, reflected on them and rationalised what I would expect from someone else in the same circumstances. I felt I was beating myself up for things that no one, not even the doctors, could help.
4. Seek forgiveness from your loved ones
Another important thing that helped me was asking for forgiveness.
Initially, it felt odd, as I did not know if my loved ones could still hear me. But I wondered, what if they could? So, whenever my heart felt heavy, I would call out to my loved ones and ask them for forgiveness for not being able to understand them and not being able to support them further.
I spoke to them aloud in front of their photos. At times I cried out in front of their photos. I even wrote them my messages asking for forgiveness. I am sure if they could hear, they would forgive me.
5. Do something to honour your loved ones
Many cultures organise vigils or memorial services for their loved ones. It allows us to honour them and remember them.
Social media also provides a great platform to reach out to others who may not be able to be present at the services, asking them to share the memories of their loved ones. I asked my family and friends to share something they would know about my mum on Facebook, which helped me refresh some beautiful memories.
Organising a funeral can also be an overwhelming experience, so you may likely miss something your loved one would have liked on the day. So, when I could not find enough flowers for my mum for her funeral, I invested in buying and donating them at temples when I returned to Australia. I also laid some flowers in the open sea (with the thought that they may reach her). Of course, it was not the same as providing those flowers at her service, but if my mum watched over me, she would have noticed that I tried my best.
6. Reconnect with friends and families
The death of loved ones can sometimes bring families together and mend broken relationships. When people are going through the same pain, they can vent or reminisce about the deceased and look out for each other. So, reconnecting with other loved ones, who are going through similar pain, can work towards each other’s healing.
When I lost my family members, all my siblings (although they live in different countries) started checking up on each other more often than ever.
We have now formed a more incredible bond than before. Our shared loss has reminded us that we all have limited time. The pain of losing our loved ones has also made us humbler and allowed us to forgive each other’s mistakes.
7. Forgive yourself
We are our worst enemy regarding self-criticism – especially if we are perfectionists. So, as we forgive others, we also need to forgive ourselves.
We may not have been able to do everything that our loved ones deserved. But most of us would have done everything in our power (with the knowledge, time, and funds we had) to support them. And yes, we may have made mistakes. But we are only human!
To forgive ourselves, we must have the same empathy, kindness, compassion and understanding as we demonstrated for our loved ones.
8. Practice self-care
Many people advised me to look after myself – eat, sleep, exercise and connect with others. But I did not want to do anything for myself until my sister shared a spiritual leader’s video which talked about how our misery can become a roadblock for our loved ones’ journey afterlife.
I don’t know if our loved ones are really watching over us. But I wondered, what if they were? I did not want my loved ones to be stuck between two worlds. I started pushing myself to do something for myself every week. I got a massage, rang my family members, walked, or watched videos. And it was in the middle of this healing process that I started writing blogs.
Writing blogs gave me a new meaning, purpose, and a much-needed distraction. By writing my story, I could help others (particularly migrants) heal and find tips to deal with their struggle in supporting their families overseas while building a new life in a new country. Of course, I still miss my loved ones, but at least I know I can help others through my story.
9. Practice mindfulness
Many people get confused between mindfulness and meditation. They are interrelated but different concepts. Meditation is an “intentional practice, where you use focus to increase calmness, concentration, awareness, and emotional balance”, and mindfulness is the “act of paying attention and being present in whatever you’re doing”.
Meditation may work for some people. But I could not still my mind. I was, however, able to learn and practice mindfulness. And, no, it was also not easy in the first place!
We are so used to multi-tasking that thinking of one thing at a time can be challenging.
So, all I did, was just become aware of my thoughts. When my mind started negative self-talk or self-criticism, I acknowledged it and told myself that my perfectionist tendencies made me think that way. I then refocused on what was happening around me – the smell, sight, and sound.
The mindfulness technique helped distract me, calm my thoughts and minimise the impact of negative self-talk.
10. Seek professional support
Many professionals (therapists), online resources and support groups are now available to help those grieving. But the key is to find the right support that works for you.
I found that the counsellor I chose when my spiritual master passed away could not assist me due to cultural barriers. They struggled to understand why I was so affected by someone who was not blood-related. However, I built a better rapport with a different counsellor when my mum passed away. Although I did not find much solace while talking to her, some of her suggestions came in handy as I progressed through my healing journey.
For instance, during the last years of her life, my mum shared some of her frustrations and suffering with me. So, when she passed away, I found myself beating myself for not knowing about my mum’s sufferings beforehand. But my counsellor helped me recognise that my mum may not have wanted me to know her struggles beforehand. She also suggested that by listening to my mum’s grievances during her last years, I already helped her relieve some of the pain she carried through her life.
My counsellor also helped me see that my mum trusted me enough to tell me about those issues – finding someone to trust is already a big help.
So, you may only be able to connect with some counsellors, or they may be able to help you. But counsellors do provide an independent ear and some professional tips that may come in handy. Their anonymity can also help you feel safer to open up and be vulnerable.
