Lisa Hoffman & Charles Atkins

Published March 9, 2006

Charlie Writes:

Over the past few weeks Lisa and I have been the recipients of some bad news. It’s not been a single item, but several pieces that have fallen our way. The passing of two dear friends, some medical issues and so it goes. If only the adage that ‘bad news comes in threes’ were accurate, we’d be out of the woods.

"I’m not too crazy about writing on this topic," Lisa says. "It’s awfully depressing."

"It is," I reply, "but it’s also real and a big part of what everyone has to deal with. I guess today’s question is how do people get through the bad stuff? How do we make it through the rainy days?"

"While it’s still fresh in my mind," Lisa says, "and I’m mourning the loss of a friend, I try to remember all of the good things and how she’s changed my life and left a memory to be cherished. But there’s no getting around the hole I feel in my heart. Still, there’s no point in dwelling on the loss. It doesn’t help you or anyone else."

"Agreed," I say, "it’s finding a balance between being able to grieve and then letting go and allowing yourself to move on. It doesn’t happen all at once. The trick is to not get stuck in the sadness and depression that is so normal following a major loss, but to be able to remain fluid. The best funerals and wakes are ones where the tears are matched by laughter."

"I go on as best as I can," Lisa says, "which doesn’t mean that I’m heartless, but it’s done out of self preservation. If I can’t overcome the bad news, it eventually makes me sick and nothing good comes from it."

"There’s something interesting about our emotions that I’ve become increasingly aware of," I say. "It’s what you just described; emotions perpetuate themselves. Anger breeds more anger, sadness that is dwelled upon doesn’t go away, but deepens. Just as laughter and joy lead to more laughter and more joy. So there’s something quite sound in what you’re saying. There comes a point where it’s important to…"

"Let go," Lisa says, completing my sentence.

"And that’s the trick, isn’t it?" I add. "If people knew how to do this, and do it well, I’d be out of business as a psychiatrist. After all, if depression could be undone simply by pushing an emotional button or taking a happy pill there would be no one left in need of my services. But the truth is that emotions and our darker emotions in particular can take quite a powerful hold. They don’t want to let go, as one of my patients many years ago told me when describing her depression, ‘it’s like some great beast that bites down and nothing I can do will get it to stop.’"

"Sometimes," Lisa says, "when things get very bad I remember my old boyfriend Raymond would say, ‘what is it compared to eternity?’ and if you realize that and make it your philosophy then your worries fade by comparison."

"That’s not a bad approach," I say. "Comparing yourself to others or to other times in your life can sometimes give you the perspective you need to get back on track."

"It’s like the man with no shoes," Lisa says, "who then met a man with no feet."

"So what else do we do to pull ourselves out of the doldrums? Here’s one that I used last night after I got the last round of bad news; I made candy. It’s not necessarily what I did, but just by throwing myself into an activity that required my full attention it forced my mind and my mood to change. If I didn’t watch the thermometer as my liquid boiled up to 300 degrees, I would have been left with a bubbling mess of burned sugar."

"It doesn’t mean you’re in denial," Lisa says, "we have to acknowledge the reality, but it’s so important to counter balance that with maybe taking an inventory of the positive things in your life. I try to think of all of my friends, that I have a safe and warm home, that you brought me a plate of toffee. You’re turning into quite the sugar daddy…a regular candy date."

"That’s terrible," I groan, "but it brings me to my very favorite technique for changing the moment—humor. For those with a funny bone you know what I’m talking about. But when the going gets tough, the tough crack jokes, and I have little patience for those who find irreverence…irreverent. I think it was my Great Aunt Sue who really brought this lesson home as she cracked joke after joke in the face of her terminal cancer. One scene in particular stays with me. Sue had lost her hair to chemo and had on a little cap that she began to twist and arrange into dozens of styles, naming each variation in rapid fire, ‘French maid, chef, beret, Hassidic Jew, pope, coal miner…’. She lived years longer than any of her doctors predicted, and I think it was her attitude that kept her going, not to mention the positive effect her upbeat spirit had on all those whose lives she touched. Over the years I’ve given many talks on the positive effects of humor and laughter; I use it extensively in my own life. In my darkest hours I deliberately search for something funny, and once I find it I regain some sense of control."

"There’s always faith," Lisa adds, "and you need not be a religious person. It’s again looking to something greater, a belief in the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

"Along with faith comes meaning," I add, "If we can take our bad news and transform into something else, like an opportunity for personal growth or a challenge to be faced and overcome, as with humor, we regain a sense of control. I don’t think anyone described this better than Victor Frankl in his powerful book, Man’s Search for Meaning, which he wrote while incarcerated in a Nazi concentration camp. In it he talks about how finding meaning and purpose in the midst of such horror gave him the strength he needed to survive."

"Should we recap our rainy day list?" Lisa suggests.

"Okay, here goes:

• Allow yourself to grieve and to mourn, but if you start to dwell find ways to change your mood.

• Look for the positive side of things. In the case of a death allow yourself to remember all of the good things and happy times you had with the person who died.

• Throw yourself into activities.

• Look for Comparisons.

• Take an inventory of all that is good in your life.

• Find your funny bone.

• Turn to Faith.

• Search for a sense of meaning and/or purpose.

"There’s quite a lot more," I add, "and I imagine our readers are thinking of how they’ve pulled themselves through some tough spots."

"Yes," Lisa says, "But if I had to sum it all up it comes down to trying not to dwell in either the past or the future, but throw yourself into every moment and live for today."

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