Therapist shares tips for loss of a child

Arleah Shechtman boldly pursues an unusual path, even during the season of good cheer.

Her new book, “My Beloved Child: My journey since the death of my daughter,” strips bare the brutal yet important process of grieving.

“The outstanding thing about grief is, basically, it’s expected to be silent. You’re not permitted to really grieve and talk about it in public,” Shechtman said. “I’ve had people say to me, ‘Who in the world wants to talk about grief?’ Well, I do.”

A psychotherapist for almost 30 years, Shechtman moved to the Flathead Valley with her husband, Morrie, 17 years ago and redirected her practice to executive coaching. Throughout her career, she has helped people grieve the death of children and spouses as well as many other types of loss.

The wisdom Shechtman shares from her personal and professional experience with grief applies to every kind of change in life, good and bad. She points out that even the joy over the birth of a child entails the loss of freedom and sleep.

“It’s all about being able to let go of something and that requires being able to grieve what you have lost,” she said. “If you can’t grieve, you can’t heal.”

Her journey began 34 years ago when her 15-year-old daughter Sharon died of a drug overdose. Shechtman said the circumstances added the burden of guilt to her grieving process.

“It’s a tough road, but my message is you can heal,” she said. “While the loss is still painful and will always be there, I managed to have a very rich and full and happy life.”

In her acknowledgments, she credits Morrie with insisting that her poems and story would help others. The two met after her divorce that followed Sharon’s death.

“My journey back from a puddle by her grave has been possible because Morrie wouldn’t allow me to die with her,” she wrote in the book. “He prevented that desire in me by caring enough to keep challenging me. That I chose to let that happen is why this story is 30-plus years old.”

Shechtman said many books have been written about the death of a child but hers differs because it takes that long view of grieving over three decades. Her desire to write the book was fueled by a passion to give people, especially men, permission to grieve.

“Women can cry, but they struggle with grieving, which has to do with the injunctions females hear about selfishness and upsetting others,” she writes. “It is forbidden for males to cry.”

 Shechtman wanted to help people articulate what they feel. She called grief visceral, recalling how she used to get angry when other people would say they avoided speaking of her tragedy because they didn’t want to upset her.

“Now I just chuckle,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t want to upset you — how much more upset can you be?”

The second half of her book tackles the common question about how to help a friend. Most people feel ill at ease in that situation.

“Any encounter with a grieving person is always going to be unsatisfying,” Shechtman said. “I mean you can’t bring the child back or the person that’s lost. If they understand that’s to be expected, then it might be somewhat easier.”

She speaks to what a person can do in one poetic passage:

“You cannot know what it’s like to have lost a beloved child. You don’t have to. It is enough to hold me tight & let me cry.”

Along with giving people permission to grieve, Shechtman has a mission to create places that are safe to grieve. She said most people once had family, extended family, friends, community and church providing that caring and understanding.

She said most of those avenues don’t exist in our highly mobile society.

“The closest I could come to what I have in mind is the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.,” she said. “It’s very powerful.”

Shechtman described seeing people walk along the thousands of names, kneel down to leave a memento and weep. In her view, the memorial represents one of the few places in this country where people feel comfortable exhibiting grief.

During her journey, Shechtman confronted her fear as well as her friends’ fear of the torrent of emotions unleashed by loss. She describes grieving as brutal and so unexpected because our society hides disease, death and dying.

“It’s only recently that we could talk about breast cancer publicly. So that’s my goal,” she said. “The loss of a child is so much every parent’s terror that I’ve had people just turn around and walk away because it’s so terrifying to them.”

In “My Beloved Child,” Shechtman details lessons learned from the death of her daughter:

 v Grief cannot be denied, only delayed.

 v Grief happens in waves. They will pass.

 v Don’t stifle outbursts of grief.

 v Don’t listen when people try to silence you with a Valium or prayer.

 v Let yourself express anger.

 v Choose to risk loving again.

 v Expect your family to “die” with the child.

 v Let people help you.

 v Funerals and gravesites are crucial to the grieving process.

 v Music, movies, art and poetry can help you process your grief and move on.

 v Grief has a way of clarifying values.

 v Honor the little-known sixth stage of grief.

 v There is a surprising flip side of grief.

For Shechtman, the surprising flip side was that Sharon’s death opened her up to all the beauty and wonders of the world. She writes:

“My appreciation for others and their struggles is greater, and I stop and smell the roses more often — something I call ‘living from the gut. This is the payoff for choosing to allow yourself to grieve: After experiencing the lowest of lows, your soul and your psyche can also stretch to experience greater highs.”

People interested in more information or ordering a book can visit Shechtman’s website www.mybelovedchild.net. It’s also available through Amazon.com as a print book for $13.95 and an e-book for $9.95.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.