Getting through grief

[melissag]

OK, so I will admit, I am an overthinker. It's just the way I tackle any problem - think it through, look for the road map to the solution, follow it.

 

This isn't working so well for me right now. I guess because I can't solve it, since it's out of my hands. I have gone to IC a few times, and my therapist told me that I am going to have these feelings (hurt, sad, angry, humiliated, scared, you name it), it is normal, and I need to feel them. To me that sounds like sitting around wallowing in misery. Is that what I have to do to plow through this? Is it wrong to try to focus on the positives (not that there are many, but whatever I can muster up)? Is that just squelching the bad feelings and making it worse?

 

I'm just having trouble accepting that I'm going to need to feel horrible for weeks and months . . . the thought is incredibly depressing.

[Yarrow]

You don't have to wallow. It's not the same thing.

 

The way I think of it is that you have to accept that you are going to feel the way you do and not judge yourself for feeling this way. You do have to feel the grief if you are going to get it out of your system for good. Otherwise, you're going to get stuck in this phase and unable to progress towards healing. When you feel the sadness/self-pity/fear/humiliation, then try to still yourself and identify the feeling. Give it a name. Accept that you have this feeling. Tell yourself that it is all just part and parcel of the depression that you are experiencing, and not of you as a person. Let the feeling flow....through you and then out of you.

 

And there you go! Then once you've done that, it quiets your mind, and then you can focus on the positives without all the other distraction.

[K Os]

I agree, it's not the same as wallowing. You can think of it like an illness if that helps. With a recognisable illness you know what you can expect before you get better - first you'll have chills, then you're going to get a high fever and you'll have a mass of itchy red spots, when the fever breaks you'll have sweats, then you'll be through it and you'll be well again. It's a bit like that only in emotional terms. While you're ill you can stay positive, knowing that all the bad feelings are just your system's way of getting better. You can sit in bed and do jigsaw puzzles, you don't have to think about the itching all the time. And when you're through it you'll be fine, and your immunity will be stronger than it is now

[melissag]

I agree, it's not the same as wallowing. You can think of it like an illness if that helps. With a recognisable illness you know what you can expect before you get better - first you'll have chills, then you're going to get a high fever and you'll have a mass of itchy red spots, when the fever breaks you'll have sweats, then you'll be through it and you'll be well again. It's a bit like that only in emotional terms. While you're ill you can stay positive, knowing that all the bad feelings are just your system's way of getting better. You can sit in bed and do jigsaw puzzles, you don't have to think about the itching all the time. And when you're through it you'll be fine, and your immunity will be stronger than it is now

 

Really? I don't feel like it's like an illness, because I don't see what's going to be so great about the end of it. It seems like D just goes on forever, especially when you have kids. I will never be free of it. The pain of losing someone I love, the guilt and hurt for what this is going to do to my children, not being able to see them every day (that one kills me, I don't know how I will even begin to handle that), and having to constantly be in touch with someone who crushed my heart and invalidated 13 years with no emotion whatsoever. And it just keeps going. It's like cancer that keeps coming back. It looks like a life sentence to me right now. Will it really get better like an illness?

[K Os]

I will never be free of it.

 

melissag - I don't mean to be trite with my analogy. Of course there are aspects of this that will last a long time. Memory is a powerful thing and we can't escape that. I revisit good and bad things from my experiences with my wife, and both are difficult for me in their own way. To return to the analogy, there will always be some scarring. But what I'm saying is that the more intense part of the suffering *does* get better with time, and with looking after yourself properly through it. Part of looking after yourself, and I echo your therapist here, is allowing yourself to feel whatever you feel and not trying to bury it or avoid it. It's all natural and normal and it serves a purpose for you, even though it's very painful. Maybe I can give you a snapshot of me and where I am. My wife moved out over a year ago, and dropped the bomb on me two years ago. My state of mind is far better now than it has been through that time, some of which has been truly awful. It has got better for me, genuinely better. Tonight, yes, I've been upset because of something that has cropped up with my son and my ex. These things still happen. But they are more like isolated incidents now, and in general my life has moved on and I'm in a far better place than I was a year ago. The worst bits do get better. I'm sorry for your situation but I know you will find ways to come through it, and come through it well. You strike me as a good and strong person who loves her children and knows which way is up. You'll do fine.