It is tragic. A large part of the healing process is validation. Often, validation happens through verbalization. If you are anything like me, now and again, you don’t realize the extent of your feelings until they are out there for the world to hear. My feelings are buried underneath other feelings. Those feelings are sequestered behind rules and regulations of social etiquette. Frequently, my feelings are not realized until I begin delving through the layers. Unfortunately, we are a society that has forgotten how to grieve, and therefore, it is intensely uncomfortable to be around others who do. The particularly tragic part is that, like any wound, those buried will continue to fester. You have to get the infection out in order for true healing to begin. Emotions are that way. If we confiscate our emotions or bury them away, there’s a good chance that the healing process will never arise. This prolongs the healing process.
You see, everyone goes through varying stages of grief. Kubler-Ross has the “DABDA” theory that we all experience grief in 5 stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I think there’s something to this. The tricky part is that the timing, the order, and the intensity of these stages are as unique as the people who experience them. There can be no expectations when dealing with someone’s grief. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Sometimes we are told otherwise, but it simply is not true. I have learned an enormous amount about grief recently.
In the past 6 years my family has experienced a great amount of loss. Between Aric and I, we have lost 19 family members or friends. We have experienced the financial hardship with job losses and medical bills. We have walked through both medical and developmental hurdles with our oldest son. In 2012, we nearly lost our son, Gavin, to a magnet. Each loss took its toll. Each loss has compounded on the previous loss, and led me to feel sad, overwhelmed, irritable, guilt-ridden, etc… It’s a miracle that I haven’t had a mental breakdown. Regrettably, I have had an emotional shut down instead. I am a mother of two small children. I can’t shut out the world in order to detox all of my emotions. Instead, I bury them. When the cracks start showing, I turn the safety valve long enough to let off some pressure and then start stuffing again. It is a dark place to be. As you can probably imagine, this has caused friction in my relationships as well. In the maze of survival, I got trapped in a routine of making sure everyone else was ok. Meanwhile, my wellbeing and joy deteriorated by the day. I stopped doing things that brought me pleasure. What I am realizing now is by keeping everyone else and everything afloat, I was drowning in bitterness and resentment. I began to resent my husband and children for all that they were stripping from me. I was taking no pleasure in being a wife or mother.
The ironic thing about being a “doer” is that when you find yourself in a heap, you begin to sort. So sort I did. Trivial things began to find their way into the discard pile. I started asking for help. I began to take more time for myself. Slowly, and I mean painfully slow, I am weaving my way through the web of emotions. I am rebuilding relationships. I am rekindling the fires that burned away. I am just now starting to rebuild myself. I know it will be a long journey. In the process of all this, I couldn’t find the words to express my feelings. I am not sure that I have, even now. Nevertheless, that is why I neglected my blog. Several times, I started to write a script, but everything I had to say was not quite right. Today, I am writing from my heart. While I have found new liberty in emoting, I am also reminded that my thoughts and words are important. In the midst of my grief, I had someone tell me that my grief was out of proportion with my loss. It was very hurtful. It spurred anger. I wanted to lash out. Actually, I wanted to give them directions to the highest cliff and permission to jump. I also realized that I couldn’t let negativity control me anymore. Negativity often carpools with cynicism and judgment. I knew that I needed to take a different path. So I went silent. I decided to use the power in my unspoken words as motivation to be a better me. One step at a time, that’s the path I am on.
