A few weeks ago, for the Grief Girl magazine, I asked my followers on Instagram: how did the grief community help you? Due to time, I didn't have a chance to include this response, so I thought I would upload it as a blog post. For this week's blog post, I am so happy to introduce the lovely Patricia from 'Neshama Journey'.
A few months into my grief, when I was able to leave the house and see people again, I turned to my community centre for support. I suggested that it would be really helpful to have a grief group with who we would be able to open up and share our stories. For a couple of months after that, I still wasn’t able to find a group and get that support.Â
Up until COVID, I had a meditation group that was my main support system outside of my family and some very closed friends that I was comfortable to see. When the quarantine started, I was left alone with my grief, and the occasional FaceTimes and WhatsApps.
A month into it I decided to join a Facebook grief group from David Kessler which opened me to the virtual grief community that I had no idea even existed. In his daily lives and in the posts of other members I was able to find the help and support that I needed, and most importantly, I realized that sharing one’s stories could be healing for oneself and for others. It made me enter a secret dimension in Instagram too when I finally got the courage to launch my account @neshamajourney created while my mother was in her final days when I already knew I would need a community to confide in. For me, it was about finding meaning into my mother’s passing, sharing my grieving experience, helping other bereaved persons one at a time. I noticed that I needed to talk about my mom and my grief every day with others going through a similar situation. It didn’t matter if one or one hundred would read me, it was cathartic for me to be able to share my feelings knowing someone out there in the grief community would understand. It was liberating to talk about grief in a society where grief is still very taboo, to educate others on how to support and to inspire others to do the same.Â
I started knowing other Instagram accounts with moving stories from all types of losses and at different stages of grief. I wanted to talk to them and know more about them: it could help me and others to heal. I started doing Instagram lives, sometimes every day, sometimes a few times a week. I love getting in touch first and chat privately with the person I will have a conversation with on my life. There is always something in someone’s story that you can relate to and that can lift you up or give you hope. I am glad to shed some light on this obscure theme and this secret digital community that work together to normalize grief. Â
Patricia de Picciotto Founder and Art Guide NY Art Experience LLC @nyartexperience #nyartexperience
Also find Patricia @neshamajourney on Instagram.