"A resource person is one who has knowledge, skills, competence, and expertise in a given subject or area. Even during this confusing time, you know yourself better than anyone else. You know what you feel ready to do and what you feel completely uncomfortable even considering."
Michele Rosenthal
Resources
National Organizations Offering Support & Advocacy
Traumatic Bereavement
Traumatic bereavement is a singular journey that is benefited by the company of others. Some might find healing in support groups, others with individual counseling or with a trusted friend. Still others will turn to short or long-term use of psychiatric medicine, or find support in a religious community, or maybe even a community not related to bereavement at all, but where one feels seen and heard. Likewise, one approach for support may begin to fade in its effectiveness and necessitate a replacement. Traumatic bereavement needs a healthy container where it can be addressed, nurtured, expressed and honored. However, one size does not fit all.
This is the reason behind this section. My hope is that it offers enough options of support for bereavement after homicide that no one has to feel alone. It takes more than one root to support a soul.
Traumatic Bereavement Articles
Grief and Loss Organizations & Education
Supporting Resilience
Lyda Hill Institute for Human Resilience
Articles on Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence
Recommended Reading
The books listed below are a small sampling of what I find beneficial, insightful or comforting. Sometimes I find inspiration in a fictional character. Other times, the truth of life articulated in non-fiction wills me to fight another day. They are offered only as suggestions and a springboard to the plethora of resources on living with the impact of a homicide and traumatic life change.
- Chodron, Pema; When Things Fall Apart, Shambhala (1997).
- Emerson, Ralph Waldo; Self-Reliance, Dover Publications (1993).
- Frankl, Viktor E.; Man's Search For Meaning, Simon & Schuster (1984).
- Friedman, Edwin H.; Friedman's Fables,Guilford Press (1990).
- Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie; Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma, Free Press Macmillan (1992).
- Levine, Peter A.; In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, North Atlantic Books (2010).
- Rosenthal, Michele; Heal Your PTSD: Dynamic Strategies That Work,Conari Press (2015).
- Solnit, Rebecca; The Faraway Nearby, Penguin Books (2013).
- Thomas, Claude Anishin; At Hell's Gate, Shambhala (2006).
- Winslow, Emily; Jane Doe January, HarperCollins (2016).
- Athens, Lonnie, D.Crim. "Dramatic Self Change", The Sociological Quarterly, 1995, Vol. 36, No. 3, pg. 571-586.
- Peterson Armour, Marilyn, PhD, "Journey of Family Members of Homicide Victims: A Qualitative Study of Their Post Homicide Experience," Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2002, Vol. 72, No. 3, pg. 372-382.
Children's Books Recommended for Adults
Children's books have a wonderful way of demonstrating battles of the heart and conscience, as well as offering inspiration for struggles of courage.
- Buscaglia, Leo; The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages, Slack Incorporated (1982).
- Craighead George,Jean; Frightful's Mountain, Puffin Books (1999).
- Eliot, Ethel Cook; The House Above the Trees, Raven Rocks Press (2003).
- Hannigan, Katherine; Ida B ... and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World, Harper Trophy (2004).
- Jarrall, Randall; The Animal Family, Random House (1965).
- Lin, Grace; Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Little, Brown Books (2009).
- Steptoe, John; The Story of Jumping Mouse, Lothrop,Lee & Shepherd (1984).
- Steig, William; Brave Irene, Farad, Straus, Giroux (1986).
Recommended Books on the Criminal Justice System
- Rosenbaum, Thane; Payback: The Case for Revenge, University of Chicago Press (2013). This book spoke to me because it affirmed what I experienced as a hypocrisy within the criminal justice system which makes the feelings of revenge taboo, while denying the fact that vengeance plays a role in the system. The feeling of vengeance is not the same as the action of vigilante justice. Our system exists so that vengeance does not turn into vigilante justice; but accountability for homicide by society is, at its core, based on the feeling of vengeance. Forum on Life, Culture and & Society.
- Jacoby, Susan; Wild Justice, the Evolution of Revenge, Harper & Row (1983). This book helped me to understand feelings of revenge in a historical context. It helped me to normalize what I was feeling as I defended it.
- Bharara, Preet; Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law, Alfred A. Knopf (2019). This book addresses the difficulty in getting cases to trial and the impact on everyone who works within the system in a straight-forward and meaningful way. It also sheds light on the fact that those who are the most vulnerable in society are also those who society deems least worthy to fight for.
- Darden, Christopher;Walters, Jess; In Contempt, Harper Collins (1996). Christopher Darden aptly exposes the influence of money, fame and bias in the criminal justice system.
- Pompelio, Richard D. Esq.; Crime Victims' Rights, Equal Justice Publishing (2009). The section dedicated to criminal law explains in a concrete and accessible manner the rights and system that survivors of homicide victims are thrust into.
Biographies and Autobiographies
Sometimes we find inspiration in another's story and our hearts are stitched for the better.
- Wiesel, Elie; Night, Hill and Wang, (2006).
- Woolf, Virgina; Moments of Being, Harper Collins (1985, 2nd Ed.)
- Mandela, Nelson; Long Walk to Freedom, Back Bay Books (1985).
- Carson, Clayborne; The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Grand Central Publishing, (1998).
- Ets, Marie Hall; Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant, University of Wisconsin Press (1999).
- Pisar, Samuel; Of Blood and Hope, Little, Brown & Co., (1979).
"The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today."
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life