A year of coping with the grief of losing a daughter

When Kirsten O'Connor’s daughter Kahlia died by suicide in April last year, she started to keep records about her creative and complex daughter.

It was a way of processing her grief, she told RNZ’s Afternoons.

“Sometimes when you're going through grieving, the brain isn't working quite right. You forget memories. And I was really scared that I would forget memories of Kahlia.”

Those records became a memoir, The Year After Kahlia, which traces her experience of grief after her 24-year-old daughter died.

Kahlia was an amazing individual, O’Connor says.

“She was 24-years-old. She was creative, she was absolutely loved, and she was complex.

“She did struggle with mental health for a number of years. But I always like to say she tried and she tried extremely hard. She really wanted to be here.”

Although things finally became too tough for Kahlia, she says, being with her daughter as she struggled with her mental health was a “privilege”.

“I do feel that I walked alongside with her in this journey. She let me in and we had an incredible relationship.

“So, I feel very privileged. I was able to hold that space with her that we could communicate.”

No matter what struggles Kahlia was experiencing, she was loved and supported, O’Connor says.

“She could see how much I loved her and nothing that she could do would upset me or hurt me.

“It did, but I didn't want blame to be part of her story. I just wanted her to feel loved and supported.”

Grief is a multi-faceted experience that goes beyond the merely emotional, she says.

“It's neurological, it's biological, it's hormonal. Because people often think that grieving is simply emotional and that we can think our way out of it, but it isn't. There are so many things that happen to the brain in rewiring.”

Kahlia had made previous attempts on her own life, but there was never a moment in her mind when she thought it would actually happen, she says.

“I don't know whether that's hope or just us being parents. So, shock was a main aspect.

“But different things; I couldn't understand how the world was still continuing and I felt a complete disassociation with the world around me and people around me. I stopped wanting to communicate. I really isolated.”

As well as a lack of sleep and “ruminating thoughts”, she found it impossible to make decisions, she says.

“So not being able to decide when to go back to work, not being able to decide what was important for her funeral. I found decision making extremely tough and since have learnt that when you're going through grieving, especially those first aspects, that front part of your brain basically takes a bit of a back seat because your emotional system has taken over and you have a panic response all the time.

“So instead of thinking, shall I send this email or shall I not? The body actually registers it as, is someone going to die or is someone not?”

You can't do “grieving wrong,” she says.

“Constantly what I hear is people think that they're doing it wrong or they're broken or something is wrong with them, simply because we live in a society that wants grieving to be quick and fast and people to go back to normal.”

She felt a profound loss of identity after Kahlia died, she says, something for which she was completely unprepared.

“Kahlia was my complete cheerleader, my confidante. She was the person that knew me best. We could have five conversations and still know what each other was thinking about. We had such a history together.

“When that person disappears, you don't have the mirror of yourself anymore. So, I had a great confidence drop.”

It took her months to slowly re-build her self-confidence, she says.

“There's a different me now than there was before Kahlia died. Essentially, obviously, I'm still the same, but there's some core elements that are entirely different.

“I have less tolerance, I think for small talk and all those sorts of things. I really want to live in the making things matter space. So, there's a huge difference in personality as well.”

The Year After Kahlia is available through Kirsten O’Connor’s website This is Grief. The book is also available at all online stores.