Living in a family where a child has died

So there was an article in this morning's Boston Globe (an Op/Ed) that talks about a mother's rage over the new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders establishing guidelines for diagnosis of depression; in this case depression over the loss of a loved one.

To get this out of the way now, this book is a set of guidelines, not hard and fast rules. What the book is saying is to judge the patient based on what you are observing in their behavior in addition to the answers to questions.

Parent's who don't move on after the death of a child who have other children face the prospect of ruining the life of their other children. You risk devaluing those other children every day, year after year, because you freak them out by making sure that dead child is as alive as those children are and making sure the world attaches enormous importance to the dead child (and often not as much importance to the living). Am I creeping you out here, I should be. If your dead child was an only child you might still devalue those around you by telling them as well. In the worst cases the parents then resent their adult children for not being able to get on with their own lives as "normal adults" because, well, what do they have to emulate; the unbalanced mess that is their parents.

Please do not force your children to say "You know what, I'm not dead, that makes me, my problems, issues, concerns, and fears MORE IMPORTANT than the memory of your dead kid who I never met and nobody else in life is as hung up on as you!"

It sucks to have to say that to your mother, trust me.