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Feelings of Guilt: How Grieving Relatives Can Cope With It
Photo: Carrie Marie Burr / plainpicture
Why didn't I notice anything?
Not paying attention?
Nothing said?
Done?
After a death, questions about guilt are remarkably present.
With participants in mourning groups and also - almost a little voyeuristically - with outsiders.
These questions sometimes even overlay those about love, longing and pain.
It seems like we feel extra guilty when we have lost a loved one to death.
To the author
Nadine von Kameke, 58,
is a journalist and grief counselor.
Her father died when she was still a teenager, and she lost her son shortly before he was born - that is how she learned that grief is inevitable.
Today she takes the subject benevolently through her life.
After years in South America with her family, she supports grieving adults and young people with the association Verwaiste Eltern und Geschwister Hamburg eV and accompanies them back to their changed everyday life.
Why?
Is it the desperate attempt to reassure ourselves of our supposed control: We could have prevented death - if we hadn't failed?
Or is it more about feeling guilty about regaining some form of control?
Guilt is a burdening feeling - oppressive and lonely - on the other hand it also creates a connection to the deceased person and to what is happening.
The basis for feeling guilty is an experienced, unique relationship.
Guilt makes this relationship felt persistently, should provide answers and make sense.
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