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 HOW A LADY OVERCAME THE GUILT AFTER HER FATHER'S DEATH

I lost my dad on 7th April 2021 and life has nowhere been close to normal ever since. He passed after a month long battle post a bypass surgery wherein we were quite hopeful that he would bounce back to life and lead a pain free life henceforth. But life took a complete different turn during the last few days of his battle and he left us forever. I loved my dad a lot and I was/am really fond of him. Though I was beside him as much as possible during the toughest phase, a lot of guilt and regret started overshadowing once he left. The fact that we went ahead with his operation despite knowing that he had a 50 50 chance kept killing me everyday. Also, the fact that I could not even have a last conversation or apologise to him or understand what he wanted to say only made my grief worse.

I was traumatised after the death of my father.

To minimise the pain, anxiety and dark thoughts bothering me every night until dawn or even later, I decided to seek professional help and after speaking to a counsellor who suggested I need Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, I was connected to Dr Dushyant Bhadlikar who was kind enough to counsel me for free since otherwise I would have been unable to afford the sessions. Though I was briefed about the whole process and what would the therapy sessions be like, I found it very difficult. It’s also because I was in so much pain. In every session, I had to pick up instances from the past that caused a lot of pain and filled me up with regret, remorse, guilt and reprocess the memory in a way that I would have otherwise liked it to be. For instance, there were many times, when I wanted to apologise to my dad or speak to him for one last time or hear him speak to me before he left us but none of it happened. Through EMDR, Dr, Dushyant made me revisit those memories and reprocess them again and again in a way that made them less painful. It was extremely hard to recall those times that I so badly wanted to run away from and was ready to do anything to not think about them. 

However, Dr. Dushyant helped me create another parallel space of happy memories (picking any memory/place wherein I was happy or at peace) that I had to visit at the end of the session and acted as the painkiller. After taking a month long session, I thought I was getting better and did not need the sessions. However, I was wrong and after speaking with Dr. Dushyant I realised that I need to be more patient with the EMDR process and be stronger in terms of enduring the pain of thinking of the hellish times.

And I was right, initially when I started with the EMDR therapy I found it unbearable since I would be sad, cry and think of the hospital phase for the rest of the day or two. My friends used to tell me why are you doing this if you have think of those incidents again and again. However, without EMDR my situation was not getting any better so I reaffirmed my faith in the trauma treatment approach and it did work. Most importantly, the fact that I reprocessed the memory of speaking and apologising to my dad before he left (unlike earlier I was filled with guilt and regret) has minimised the pain significantly. And today, I still cry, there are sudden emotional outbursts, and pain but it is because I have been able to accept his fate, my role and most importantly because now I have started to miss him so so much. I don’t know for how long I will feel like this there is no answer to that because a parent is irreplaceable but I am relieved that those agonising thoughts and memories during dad bidding adieu don’t play with my mind as much. I feel I have somewhat come to terms with them - all thanks to Dr Dushyant who did not give up on me and treated my case with all his heart. Can’t thank him enough, he had been my saviour amid the most traumatic phase of my life. Without EMDR and his guidance, moving forward in life would have been very tough.

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Regards 

Ms L M