I understand what's happening to me..... I'm grieving....

Old 09-18-2009, 12:13 PM
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I understand what's happening to me..... I'm grieving....

Credit must go to Dothi for this - a couple of weeks ago she suggested I Google the stages of loss. I wasn't too sure of this because well... noone's died...

However, not wanting to leave any stone unturned, today I did some research on loss and grief. What an eye-opener...

Everything makes so much more sense - I have had so many losses over the last four months:

-My son received a diagnosis of High Functioning Autism
-I gave up my dream job to become my son's Carer
-The loss of my childhood, accepting I was an abused child
-The loss of my early adulthood, accepting that the emotional and psychological abuse was continuing
-The loss of my brother to alcoholism and my mother to codependency
-The loss of a mother that I never had and that I will never get
-The loss of an adult brother that I never had and that I will never get

No wonder I'm on my knees but.... in true ACOA style I have been telling myself that they're only little things, not that bad - typical, eh!

Time to start accepting IWTH, that is some list you have just typed out.

Looking at the stages of loss, I can see that I am past the denial stage but I am still bargaining, feeling angry and feeling sad.

I also felt hope for the first time today - hope born of the understanding that I was grieving.

IWTHxxx
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Old 09-18-2009, 03:14 PM
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((( iwanttoheal )))

Are you taking good care of yourself physically? Your body is going through some major flaming hoops right now along with your mind and spirit....please be sure to treat it very tenderly.
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Old 09-18-2009, 07:24 PM
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Give yourself time, IWTH I've been doing lots of grief work recently - it does get better.

Regarding the stages of grief: they were first outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her (1960s?) book "On Death and Dying" - do read it if you can, I highly recommend it. It's important to note that these stages are not always linear, they can ebb and flow unexpectedly during our own personal process; also, not everyone experiences all five stages. The important bit is, the grieving process cannot be rushed.

Accurately identifying the losses is a huge step. In my experience, no amount of intellectual reasoning was enough, I still had to deal with the raw emotional aspect of the process itself; knowing that "acceptance" was the ultimate goal did help a lot though, and, like you said, it gave me hope. Just allow yourself as much time as you need to work through this.
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Old 09-19-2009, 04:57 AM
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Thank you everyone for your support.

GiveLove, thankyou, I am looking after myself - I'm sleeping lots and not allowing myself to take on anything new.

The grief has caught me unexpectedly - in a way, it seems totally unfair. You finally find the courage to get rid of a horrendous, poisonous weight from your life and you feel this giddy sense of relief and release. What you don't expect is for this relief to turn to grief.

I guess it makes sense though, I have been carrying this damaging, poisonous heavy weight for so long that when it's no longer there, there is a tremendous sense of loss and pain. It doesn't matter that you are crying for something you never had (in my case, a good childhood with a mother and father who put me first and loved and cared for me above everything else) or for something that damages you (in my case, continued emotional and psychological abuse from my codie Mum and alcoholic brother plus a unspoken demand that I put their needs first and look after them), what matters is that you are grieving your losses and it is very raw and painful.

You think to yourself, why should I cry about these people but I'm not crying about them, I'm grieving my losses.

Regarding the stages of loss, I'm a bit like a ping pong ball, going from anger to tears to bargaining "If I do this (speak to my mother, send a letter to my brother) my reward will be two people who care about me". My head accepts my losses, my emotions just haven't caught up.

So, it will take as long as it takes, one teeny step at a time.

Thanks again for you thoughts, IWTHxxx
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