While grief is the inevitable result of a loved one dying, when you find yourself in that situation it can be a very isolating and difficult place to be. Sue Ryder's Online Community and Support for people who are dying aims to help.
While it was originally designed primarily to give support and advice to people facing the end of life and their families, it has now become a significant support for people dealing with, and in some cases struggling with, bereavement.
Indeed, our research shows that people who have someone to talk to during bereavement come to terms with the loss of their loved one around nine months earlier than those with no support.*
As the community has grown, it’s become clear there’s a real need for people to have a space to share experiences and feelings, to vent, to support each other, to cry for help and to reflect on progress they’ve made.
It’s a really interesting place and has been adapted as time has gone along: originally we had palliative care nurses on hand to support people online, now we have bereavement counsellors.
Last month we took our #connectingthread ball of wool, symbolising the Sue Ryder Online Community and Support, to SNP conference to share this increasingly popular tool with as many people as possible.
And what struck me was that when people came over to find out what on earth our big ball of wool was about, a constant flow of stories emerged about how death and grief had affected them, or how they knew someone currently caring for someone who was dying or who had recently lost someone. It seemed that so many people had relatively recent experience of death, yet in our every day conversations this very rarely comes up. And this means that people often end up keeping memories of their loved ones to themselves, trying to deal with grief on their own.
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I can talk from my own experience having recently lost my 97 year old Nan. While we were prepared for her death, I still felt a great deal of sadness. But when the family got together following her funeral and shared stories – some extremely old – it was a really positive experience. It brought us together to remember her as a person who lived a very varied life, much of which I had no clue about until we all got together. For me, this is a first step in the grieving process.
There is no doubt that we do not talk enough about dying and death in our culture; it’s something we do our very best to ignore. So it’s no wonder then, when the inevitable happens and someone we care for dies, many of us struggle and feel entirely alone.
The Sue Ryder Online Community and Support is one small piece of the jigsaw that can help people through this time, but what we really need is a change in our culture where we can talk openly about death and the people we’ve loved and lost.
*Research was conducted in 2015 through Census Wide, with 2053 respondents participating in the survey.
This blog was written by Elinor Jayne, Policy and Public Affairs Manager - Scotland, Sue Ryder.
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