For Teens

Life as a teenager is hard enough. You're already going through a lot of changes. These may be physical, emotional, mental and social changes as you grow up and start on the path to adulthood. You probably like to spend more time with your friends and look to others your same age for approval rather than your parents or teachers. You probably feel like it's really unfair that your loved one died and are realizing all the ways that it is impacting your life. Change is never easy, and this is a change that you probably wish had never happened.

When someone you care about dies, it is normal to feel a lot of different emotions. Sometimes you may feel so overwhelmed with our sadness or anger that it makes it hard for you to be around people or want to do things. You may feel scared and become more concerned about others in your life. Sometimes you may be so tired of dealing with everything that you just want a break and need to get away for a while and not think about it. All these things are normal and okay to feel. Someone has died and things aren't like they used to be. They never will be the same, but eventually they'll be okay again.

There are things you can do when you're feeling sad, angry, lonely, frustrated, scared and confused. There are people you can talk to, places you can go. Ted E. Bear Hollow provides a safe, confidential place for grieving teens just like yourself to be together. During support groups, day camps and our teen retreats, you'll have the opportunity to meet other teens your age who have also experienced a death. Some of these deaths may be really recent, like a few months ago and others may have been a while ago, like a couple of years. Grieving is an ongoing process and it's not something that happens over night, even if we wish it could. It is something that we can learn to deal with and learn to live with if we have the right kind of support. At Ted E. Bear Hollow, you are never alone. There are always other people who, even though they can't understand EXACTLY what you are going through, they can relate to how you feel because they have also experienced a death. Here everybody "gets it" and you don't have to worry about explaining yourself or feeling judged.

This website contains pages just for teens. You can learn new ways to cope with the death. You can find helpful resources and ideas to help you feel better. You can even share poems, stories or songs that you've written about your experience. We hope you find this to be a safe place and we invite you to get involved and find that support you need.