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Willamette Resources
Willamette Resources
Willamette University has a fair share of resources available for students
This is a YouTube webinar hosted by Willamette Professor Maegan Parker Brooks who works in Grief Communications. The webinar focuses on grief as a whole but can be connected to all types of grief.
The main Willamette website has a subpage that is specifically for students going through bereavement. Bereavement is specific to losing a loved one, but the advice and resources on this webpage are well worth looking into.
https://my.willamette.edu/site/dean-cas/faculty-resources/bereavement-support-students
The Bishop Wellness Center on the Salem Willamette campus provides physical and mental health services to students in emergencies. They also have various counseling services available to students. They offer both in-person and virtual counseling appointments that can be scheduled in person at Bishop or by calling them at 503-370-6471.
WUTalk is a 24/7 Telephone Crisis Line that can help connect students to a call center with information at all hours. To reach them in times of need, the phone number is: 503-375-5353
More information about Bishop Wellness Center can be found here: https://my.willamette.edu/site/counseling
Outside Resources
Outside Resources
Many resources are available from organziations outside of Willamette. Below are just a few of the many available online that focus on grief from the lense of disabilities.
An episode of the online podcast Disabled and Proud Podcast, features Hannah who shares her experience navigating life with disabilities.
Hannah provides some insight into how grief can be an on-going and continually changing process. A key point made in this video is that you can learn to live alongside grief instead of letting it take over your life.
It can be helpful to hear other people's stories to see that you are not alone in your experiences.
Emotional Regulation Tools
Emotional Regulation Tools
Emotional regulation and loss-specific coping mechanisms, have been found to decrease grief symptoms and can be beneficial in a person's grieving journey (Brodbeck et al., 2022).
Journaling:
Making note of emotions and feelings can be helpful in understanding your thoughts when going through a difficult time. Journaling can be for you, with no stress for perfection.
Self-Care:
Self-care can range from taking mental health days to treating yourself to a spa day. But regardless of what you do for self-care, it is important to take time for yourself when processing a loss.
Simple breathing techniques like "Box Breathing" (Breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds, then breathing out for 4 seconds, and holding again for 4 seconds, repeat as needed) can help calm down your nervous system.
Acceptance of the Loss:
Accepting a loss is hard and takes effort and time. Acceptance doesn't happen overnight and that is okay. Taking small steps to accepting the new reality is.
Promoting Positive Thoughts:
Although it may be difficult, positive thinking really can help. Identifying negative thoughts are the first step to reshaping them into positive ones. Whenever possible, stop the negative train of thought with a distraction or changing the lens to be more positive. This can be difficult to do alone, social support can help drastically with helping reinforce positive emotions.
Workbooks:
Here are some links to digital grief workbooks. They are not specific to disability and some activities may need to be altered, for instance, if the workbook describes losing a loved one that could be replaced by losing abilities.
Expressing Emotions Through Art
Expressing Emotions Through Art
Diversity of Loss is an arts-based grief support group located at Willamette organized by Associate Professor Maegan Parker Brooks.
As seen in this support group, art is a great way of expressing emotions. Many different exercises can be found across the internet that channel difficult feelings into art. A couple examples are listed below:
Storytelling Comic:
Creating art about the moment of a loss (such as the moment of diagnosis) can lead to acceptance. Remembering the exact moment can be hard to process, so take time and take it slow if needed. A comic style works great for a project like this as it allows for physical art and written art to portray the moment.
Safe Space:
In this activity, you first write all of your emotions around the border of the paper. Then you draw a safe space. Maybe its a house, a cave, or a blanket fort. Within the safe space you list the support that you have, the friends or family members that are there for you when you need them. You can add different elements that represent your interests or other comfort items that help in time of need.
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