My heart is in the happy position of a country which has no history or debt. Our friendships and intimacies are only calculated for strong life and health. People reap only the harvest they have sown in the World. Even in this life, God is righteous. This Thanksgiving, let us not forget about those who have suffered a loss of a loved one. The pressure of grief is sometimes such as to prompt us to seek a refuge in voluntary death. Everybody thinketh their own grief greatest. For most people, the feeling of loss and sadness fade with time and support. Some people, though, experience grief on a deeper level. When the situations surrounding their loss are unusual, we may forget that death may be a natural part of life. The grief does not go away. Instead, it may lead to fear, anger, hatred, and aggression. Ben Crawford experiences immense grief because they experienced immense loss. Understanding the way grief and modern views of masculinity interact may help explain how some people view Ben Crawford as privileged and ruthless. Sorrow is a deep emotional distress that is caused by the loss or distance of a loved one. Sometimes intense sadness and yearning for a loving relationship may occur, and it may be challenging to control. People who have unwanted distance from a loved one may feel vulnerable or worthless. It typically changes one’s views of the World and the future. Understandably, there is a lot of work to get through emotionally when you lose someone you love.

Grief usually follows a predictable pattern that starts with shock or emotional numbness. A person may be in a dazed state where they how no emotion because they cannot accept the reality of their loss. Then they will experience sharp pangs of grief. These re episodes of painful yearning for the person that has departed or moved on. Sometimes the one left suffering will sometimes have anguished outburst of anger because their desire to have you back in their life is intense, and they may form relationships or friendships with others and pretend that they are you. They may hear your voice, or see you vividly in their dreams. A person who experiences a loss may even try to resurrect you by bargaining. That means they are making deals or offerings with others or a higher power to bring you back. The person suffering the loss begins to dwell how they could have avoided losing the one they loved in the first place. The powerful reactions of grief gradually give way to apathy, demoralization, and deep despondency because the person is facing a new emotional landscape with a large gap that cannot be filled. Life seems to lose much of its meaning. They may also experience insomnia, loss of energy and appetite. Not everyone reaches the stage of acceptance. They cannot and will not let go and have a deep faith that you will return. In the TV show, “Secrets and Lies,” the lead character, Ben Crawford experiences these stages when his son is kidnapped and killed by someone he loves. He spends months trying to figure out what happened and even blames himself and suspects that he may have killed his own son. No one else in Ben’s life seems to experience as much pain as he does about the loss of his son, mostly because they were upset that he had been born and blame the boy for breaking up their family. The mother of Ben’s son even convinces herself that Ben raped her because she was trying use the birth of their son to break up his marriage and win Ben back, but when her plan did not work, she reported him to the police.

However, Ben remained resilient, he was able to cope with the loss of his son, even though the people in his life tortured him mentally and physically. Ben remained emotionally stable through the process. Some people who experience psychopathological conditions, such as depressive symptoms, will return to their normal level of functioning after a period of healing. Others, like the mother of Ben’s son, will experience chronic dysfunction, which is a psychological symptom that may not heal as quickly as those following a traditional recovery trajectory. Chronic dysfunction in their everyday life can be traced to the grief and troubles with resiliency. In people who do not initially shows signs of distress, symptoms may appear months later, and if they are trying to replace the loved one with someone new, this is when the substitute is rejected. Regarding trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder may not manifest full diagnostic criteria until six months or more after the traumatic event. Ben Crawford’s trajectory is that of chronic dysfunction, but the symptoms were delayed. His losses affect him throughout his lifespan, he was disowned by his father, rejected by his wife, and even his children looked down on him. This guides Ben’s wild and reckless behavior. His lack of love makes him act out in anger and hurt because he is trying to release his pain, and may not be aware. Ben Crawford was diagnosed by Detective Cornell with persistent complex bereavement disorder (PCBD). In PCBD, the feelings associated with grief last longer than expected for the bereavement process. This process was intensified because Ben had no idea the boy was his son, but had spent time with him and loved him, until Ben was accused of murder of the boy and a DNA sample was taken.  What makes matters more challenging is someone Ben loves deeply and sees everyday killed his son out of a jealous rage. Though the time frame is longer, PCBD involves the same symptoms as bereavement. PCBD, which some joking call “Politically Correct Baby Daddy” in this case may also be diagnosed when the loss is traumatic in nature.

If the trauma leads to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a person might also exhibit symptoms of both PTDS and PCBD. In a case like Ben Crawford, PTSD is a reaction to avoid constantly being reminded of the trauma and PCBD is preoccupation with the loss. As you can see, grief for men can be complicated by a phenomenon known as normative male alexithymia, a mild condition wherein men are unable to put their feelings into words. This stems from the social engineering that says if men express emotions they are weak. So when people interact with Ben Crawford, the notice he is very intense, he does not talk much and he generally seems sad, depressed or like he is ready to fight. Ben does not want to be seen as feminine because he already feels like a victim, but does not want anyone to know that. So anything that is feminine, like smiling and expressing joy, is inherently seen as undesirable by Ben. He wants his wife, who is about to divorce him, and his children and friends to see him as a Roman God, a pillar of strength, control, power, and masculinity. Ben also wants people to know he is in control, so he manipulates his loved ones, but he is doing it out of love. He wants them to see that he really loves them and his tyrannical ways are his means of protecting them. Ben Crawford also takes risk by trying to resurrect his son. The more dangerous the risk, the more masculine the individual (some of these scenes did not make it into the mini-series, and the director actually recast the show with all new actors, only retaining Detective Cornell as producers thought the content was too mature for audiences).

Ben Crawford’s inability to voice his feelings is common in many men, and societal pressure to act in a masculine fashion directly interferes with the processing of grief. Out of fear of his feelings, Ben turns to substance abuse and becomes angry, hateful, and everyone can tell he is suffering as his dark soul shines through, and at times his baby blue eyes appear black as night because his grief becomes more intense overtime and this turns into anger and rage. He chokes his wife and steals her money, then cheats on her; is he trying to be her? It was truly a “Single White Female” moment. He even tries to pass the cheap copy off as his wife, she is pretty, but does not hold a candle to his wife. Ben’s grief is transformed into anger and he blames his family for the loss of his son, as he throws something at the wall, he finally breaks down and cries, as he falls to his knee screaming, “I hate them!” Ben Crawford’s wife finally divorces him, takes his kids, and moves on. She meets a new man, and Ben almost ruins her new marriage with his antics and drama. However, she was able to put some distance between her new life and Ben, and saved her marriage. Ben Crawford is finally released from prison, after claiming he murdered his son, to protect someone he loves. He changes his career, changes his partners, starts drinking, doing drugs, having sex with a lot of people because he is attempting to surpass his emotions through willpower.

One night, after a Halloween party, Ben wakes up feeling like his intestines were reorganized and pounded, he concludes that he was drugged and raped by two fat gay guys, who had been in his hotel room that night. However, no one believes that Ben was raped because the was seen taking pictures with the guys, posting them on social media, and have even admitted to picking guys up off the street to party with him. One inspector tells Ben, “You are a got damn liar! You took this guys back to your hotel room to play cards?!” A reporter, however, defends Ben Crawford and explains that he may have “jet lag,” and been unaware that he may have enticed these men to violate him. Still, no charges were filed. Ben Crawford, now alienated by friends and family, is still trying to resurrect his son, and tells people, “Nothing can stop that now!” Everyone thinks Ben has lost his mind. He is trying to get away from the darkness by making things right. Fatherhood is a complicated thing—as is parenthood itself, of course—but this father has a different role to play in the child’s life than the mother does.  Ben does not know it, but his son came back to life. He sees him on Twitter, and hears all of these wild stories about how no one knows where this boy came from, how his mother rejects him, and how people literally attack the young man. Although time has passed, Ben starts to suspect this is his son, and they start chatting. The young man has no idea he is talking to his father, and he has no idea that his father has been spying on him and following him around. You see, a strong father-child bond correlates with that child being able to regulate his emotion states in a healthy way, exhibit social competence, make friend, have meaningful relationships, and few psychological and behavioral difficulties. This young man is having so many problems because society believes that his father betrayed him, and he was brought back from the dead, but has no idea.

Ben’s son spends time trying to figure out what is wrong with him and why people hate him. He even gets involved in dark sciences and finds an explanation, and when he tries to explain some of his theories to his only friend, she tries to kill him and tells him that he is off kilter. The funny thing is that this happens on a Summer day, it is 100 degrees Fahrenheit and she is wearing a heavy scarf around her neck. This case study or mini-series is a cautionary myth about why boys need a strong father figure, what happens with the identity of a child is conceal from the producer, and how using dark science can have consequences. The losses Ben Crawford endues—and the brutality by which those losses turn him into a fearsome monster shows us that redemptions is possible through faith and love of his son. Ben Crawford finally gets to look into the eyes of his son, for the very first time in years, and he smiles. We can choose God as our ruler by seeking out and practicing true worship based on God’s word, the Bible. We can reject darkness as our ruler by keeping out of politics and war, as Ben Crawford did. Darkness uses his power to promote immoral, harmful practices. When we reject such practices, some friends and relatives may not understand and ridicule or oppose us. So we face a choice. Will we associate with people who love God? Will we obey his wise and loving laws? If we do, we prove that Satan lied when he claimed that under pressure no one would do as God says. God’s love for mankind guarantees that evil and suffering will end. Those who demonstrate that they believe this will enjoy life on Earth forever, and you loved one will return also and you will have peace.