Grief

Old 11-03-2012, 03:57 PM
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Grief

After 20 years of marriage, I went to the Divorce Court Hearing yesterday morning. It was as if a prison door swung shut with that empty echoing metallic sound that means finality.

I had not seen my AH in a while. He had lost weight. He looked haggard. He looked old. Older. I had the momentary impulse to take him out to the store and buy him new clothes that didn’t hang on his frame.

The financial discovery and negotiation is beginning. The calendar is laid out. The business of divorce begins.

It is all over but the shouting. The Judge sealed my address. I no longer have to worry that he will hunt me down. He is not to contact me. My emotions no longer belong to him. Just to me.

It is all over except the grief. The crying that comes at the most inopportune times and just won’t stop.

I hear myself saying out loud, I want him back. Then I ask what is it that I want back? And the answers are clearer about what I DON’T want back.

I don’t want to be reviled again. I don’t want to be told I am inadequate in every way in colorful vivid language that is loud and punishing and unavoidable. I don’t want to be compared to prostitutes and told that I should watch porn so I can learn what sex really is.

I don’t want to be blamed for everything, especially when I try to talk about my feelings and what I need.

I don’t want to stay up late at night watching him drink because he might fall and hurt himself on the way to bed. Or carry through his threats to kill himself and I will find him hanging from the loft balcony in the morning. I don’t want to watch the changes in his posture, his gestures, the muscles in his face, his voice, as the evening goes on and his drinking subsumes his brilliant mind into mindless hectoring, then into vicious diatribes against me.

I don’t want to wake up in the morning and try to tell him what happened to me, what punishing, devastating things he said and did to me, only to have him say “That wasn’t me. I wasn’t present. I wasn’t there. Therefore, I am not responsible for what happened because someone else did it. Not me.” Or “you lie. I didn’t do any of that. You are crazy."

And yet this grief will not leave me alone.

That huge metal door, the divider of one life and the next, clanged shut and the reverberations will shake me it seems like forever.

My son met me and took me to lunch. My daughter called after work. They were so supportive.

And then it got dark. I was alone. And the loneliness, the loss, clanged even harder than that solemn metal door shutting off past from future.
I am hanging in the space between the two, not out of the past and not into the future. And I can’t stop crying.

I have a future planned. I have ideas that comfort me for the days and months ahead, and I see them as placeholders. They may or may not be what I do, what I eventually choose, but they fill a void of not knowing what will happen to me with some dreams, some ideas, something to hold on to.

Right now I can’t even get there. This grief just keeps coming back and back and back, like those waves hit the shore again and again and again. I am afraid, like the sand, I will just wash away before the tides goes back out. The undertow of this grief frightens me.

People here mentioned a book about grief, and I would like to know its name.

This is a death. A death of the dream, a death of the idealized, a death of the good times that eventually just peeked out from the shadows of the bad times. I couldn’t stay and stay alive. I know that.

I just never expected this to be so hard. This mourning. This loss. This haggard thin man, shrunk yet still capable of incredible rage against me. In one last endearing e-mail, he told me he had held me for he figured 6000 nights and he thought that was a bond that couldn’t be broken. Where did he go? Where did he go? Where did we go?

So how is it that I am here alone and he is there alone and there is no bridge ever again between us? I just can’t fathom it. I just want it to be okay. Fixed. I want what I thought I once had, even if I never really had it. And I just can’t stop crying. Some moments I just want to call him and have this be fixed. It is taking all my willpower to stay in this hiatus until the passage is ready for me and I can move into the future.

I know I have to endure this until I can move on. I have to feel it until there is nothing left to feel. I know that. I will do that. I just don't understand why I had to lose everything just to save myself.

ShootingStar1
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:17 PM
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Thanks for posting, your post took my breath away, you have cut right through the ******** and gone straight to the pain. That's amazing. YOu are so brave.

I read a book called

Healing Through the Dark Emotions, I can't remember the author, Mariam something.

It was amazing. When you share that much pain with someone, the healing is very intense, but your post has helped my healing.

Katie
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:20 PM
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I'm so sorry for all the pain you're going through...
What a powerful post.

Allow yourself to grieve, don't try to suppress it, let it all go.
Best wishes for brighter days..
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:34 PM
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Big hugs to you.
I know it sucks & is really hard to understand.
The only thing I can really think to say is a quote from Helen Keller"

The only way out is through.
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:42 PM
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" I just don't understand why I had to lose everything to save myself"

Wow, that made me cry. That is why we stay, the death of a dream. They are very powerful those dreams.

Thank you for your post - I am sorry for your pain. I think divorce is painful no matter how badly you may want it.

I am hoping that this finality will be swift in repairing you and giving you the happiness and peace you desire.

I would rather be lonely than miserable.

Peace to you shootingstar - and congratulations on saving yourself. I hope to make that accomplishment one day.
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:46 PM
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I got a lot out of a book called "The Grief Recovery Program." It took me a bit to get there. Know that there is often face to face groups that work this book and a number of my fellow Al-Anon group member took that and got even more out of it.

Also earlier in my healing I read a book by Anderson (Susan I think is the first name) called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing which helped me to understand the biochemistry going on in my body that kept some of the emotions coursing through me. It was really helpful to understand that I was not by myself in this.

Kind thoughts your way.
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Old 11-03-2012, 04:54 PM
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Oh, ShootingStar, I'm crying for and with you. Your courage in facing this pain head-on is stunning.
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Old 11-03-2012, 05:19 PM
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Dearest Shootingstar, when my dear husband died, I remember this period of painful "suspension"---having left one life and not yet started another. We were very close and the love was deep. The pain came in waves--just like you so aptly describe. My heart is going out to you.

I can tell you that it will eventually pass. You will heal. The presence of the grief is actually the beginning of the healing. Remember this.

I am glad that you are sharing this with us. Thank you.

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Old 11-03-2012, 05:28 PM
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I love this book - The Language of Letting go. This was Friday's message that I would like to share.

The Grief Process

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, November 2, 2012

You are reading from the book The Language of Letting Go

The Grief Process

To let ourselves wholly grieve our losses is how we surrender to the process of life and recovery. Some experts, like Patrick Carnes, call the Twelve Steps "a program for dealing with our losses, a program for dealing with our grief."

How do we grieve?

Awkwardly. Imperfectly. Usually with a great deal of resistance. Often with anger and attempts to negotiate. Ultimately, by surrendering to the pain.

The grief process, says Elisabeth Kubler Ross, is a five stage process: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and, finally, acceptance. That's how we grieve; that's how we accept; that's how we forgive; that's how we respond to the many changes life throws our way.

Although this five-step process looks tidy on paper, it is not tidy in life. We do not move through it in a compartmentalized manner. We usually flounder through, kicking and screaming, with much back and forth movement - until we reach that peaceful state called acceptance.

When we talk about "unfinished business" from our past, we are usually referring to losses about which we have not completed grieving. We're talking about being stuck somewhere in the grief process. Usually, for adult children and codependents, the place where we become stuck is denial.. Passing through denial is the first and most dangerous stage of grieving, but it is also the first step toward acceptance.

We can learn to understand the grief process and how it applies to recovery. Even good changes in recovery can bring loss and, consequently, grief. We can learn to help others and ourselves by understanding and becoming familiar with this process. We can learn to fully grieve our losses, feel our pain, accept, and forgive, so we can feel joy and love.

Today, God, help me open myself to the process of grieving my losses. Help me allow myself to flow through the grief process, accepting all the stages so I might achieve peace and acceptance in my life. Help me learn to be gentle with others and myself while we go through this very human process of healing.
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Old 11-03-2012, 08:31 PM
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the death of a family should be mourned. wishing you peace.
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Old 11-04-2012, 03:07 AM
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SS1 I'm so sorry that you are in such pain. It will pass, that I promise. It did for me.

I just don't understand why I had to lose everything just to save myself.
It seems to me that you haven't lost everything.....if by everything you mean all of this below....

I don’t want to be reviled again. I don’t want to be told I am inadequate in every way in colorful vivid language that is loud and punishing and unavoidable. I don’t want to be compared to prostitutes and told that I should watch porn so I can learn what sex really is.

I don’t want to be blamed for everything, especially when I try to talk about my feelings and what I need.

I don’t want to stay up late at night watching him drink because he might fall and hurt himself on the way to bed. Or carry through his threats to kill himself and I will find him hanging from the loft balcony in the morning. I don’t want to watch the changes in his posture, his gestures, the muscles in his face, his voice, as the evening goes on and his drinking subsumes his brilliant mind into mindless hectoring, then into vicious diatribes against me.

I don’t want to wake up in the morning and try to tell him what happened to me, what punishing, devastating things he said and did to me, only to have him say “That wasn’t me. I wasn’t present. I wasn’t there. Therefore, I am not responsible for what happened because someone else did it. Not me.” Or “you lie. I didn’t do any of that. You are crazy."
When my former husband cheated on me and eventually filed for divorce, I, too, felt grief that I thought would never end. But what helped me was to realize that I was grieving the loss of a fantasy. In other words....I really did not lose anything concrete or genuine. I just went through a painful 'waking up' period, and boy was it painful. But it passes, it always does.

I hope that today dawns a little brighter, and the grief subsides a little each day. Post here and let it out as much as you need.
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Old 11-04-2012, 04:26 AM
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I could have written much of your story. I'm in the divorce process right now. My AH is in rehab and was verbally and emotionally abusive...nothing I did was ever right..I was blamed for EVERYTHING...still am.

I now know that along with alcoholism he has Narcissistic Personality Disorder...which there is no recovery from.

He, too, would say that I was the crazy one. No. After seeing two mental health professionals ( one LCSW and one clinical psych), I have a clean bill of mental health. Both have concluded that my coda tendencies are the result of being the eldest daughter of a very large family and that from a very young age I was just used to taking care of the younger/weaker family members. So, I'm working on that...haven't done even one thing to help my AH in the last few months. NOTHING. He's completely on his own.

First he filed a "no fault divorce" against me a few weeks ago. (Very likely, he didn't tell his mental health professionals, otherwise they would have told him not to do this.)

Getting served with divorce papers was the hugest slap ever...as if I was the spouse that deserved to be thrown away. Thankfully, I live in a state that has a "with fault" divorce option and my attorneys just filed that against him. I'm sure that was like a bat to his head since he didn't even know such a divorce existed in this state (we haven't lived here most of our marriage).

So, now he's facing Divorce with Cause (mental cruelty, addiction, marital misconduct) and all the audio tapes, voice mail messages, emails, etc that I have of him being unbelievably cruel will come in. AND...the best part....he'll have to listen to the tapes.

For awhile, he kept telling me it was illegal for me to record him without his permission. Wrong....not illegal in our state. lol

I am so glad that there will be a legal record that HE was the major cause of the marital breakdown.
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Old 11-04-2012, 05:42 AM
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Thank you for putting in to words how you feel, because it is exactly how I feel.

I am crying right along with you....it is sad, the death of a dream.
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Old 11-04-2012, 11:07 AM
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I know, I know...oh how I know.

Let those waves wash over you, because they are washing you--cleansing your heart and soul, just like waves on the beach.

This too shall pass. You no doubt are inconsolable sometimes right now, and you may be very well going through the most painful thing in your life. Go ahead, give yourself permission to feel. I cried five days straight, didn't eat, didn't sleep, when my divorce was final. The mound of tissues was so huge I couldn't see the keyboard.
That you feel sometimes as if you lost everything to save yourself--it's too bad he threw away 20 years of reality for the detachment fantasy from reality of both porn and alcohol. He threw away himself. as well as you.

Live a life you can be proud of. Live a life where you are proud of yourself. Think about it...the alcoholic in denial never can, and should they ever come out of denial, they will have to face the destruction of themself as well as others.

One day, and don't even bother absorbing this until you are ready-but one day you will love the good memories, and not feel as deep a pain in doing so.

Yes, we have to choose ourselves. It's a tough choice, and it hurts horribly, but it's the only choice. I still struggle with this, divorced, and no contact. I still hold my own fantasy--that one day he will choose me over porn and alcohol. I'm still waiting.
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Old 11-04-2012, 02:18 PM
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Shootingstar-you just wrote out everything I am feeling. I don't have 20 years worth of grief, but all the same the pain is still there. I am ok one minute and the next I am a pile of tears. I don't know how I got to this point, how he got to this point, and worst of all how we got to this point. My heart is shattered. I wake each morning with panic seizing my chest. I just don't know how to get past this. I shouldn't be grieving-not for doing what is best for myself, yet for some reason I have had the urge to text him I miss him for the past few days (I have stayed strong so far) I hope you and I can both work through our grief. With te help of family, friends, alanon, as sr I know we will be ok.
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Old 11-10-2012, 11:01 AM
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OMG! What depth of emotion and so well put. I'm in the process of letting go after 36 years. I cried for your pain and I cried for mine. We WILL survive! There is happiness on the other side of that door. This hell is for a reason and I know I will be better off in the end. Mine AH is still here and I watch from a distance now. It's so sad but they are the only one's who can fix this. Stay strong. We can do this! Hugs and support from afar.
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Old 11-10-2012, 12:33 PM
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I am very moved that so many of you were touched by what I wrote. It makes me feel less alone to know I have companions in this process of loss and grief. I am so sorry that anyone has to go through this, and I am with you all, as you have been with me.

This has been a dreadful week for me emotionally since I went to the Divorce Court a week ago Friday.

My AH sent me 2 e-mails which looked to be innocuous topics about minor house stuff. But tucked into each of them were emotional messages which messed with my head, big time. They appeared to be conciliatory, apologetic, rational. They confused me deeply, and I fell again into his orbit, trying to figure out what was happening with him, now.

He has decided that he has figured out the reason for all of his bad behavior, including the porn and the drinking and the anger. He said "I apologize."

Like an undertow in a storm, I got sucked back into the depth of the emotional pain I felt when I was with him, now compounded by the loss of leaving him. I couldn't get any clarity. I went into a deep depression. I got sick, a chronic sinus infection, and that kicked off a bad rheumatoid arthritis flare in my fingers, wrists and elbows that I couldn't get to abate. An X-ray confirmed that I have a heel spur and plantar fasiitis, caused by the old sneakers I wore to walk my dog which were too big since I have lost 25 pounds. So I couldn't do any real walking. And my foot hurt badly, too. And that made my hip joint hurt badly, too. I just felt stymied at every turn. I just couldn't get myself out of the emotional hole and back to some real perspective.

Yesterday evening, I called my son, and like a laser, he cut right through the verbiage my husband sent, and later, what my son saw was confirmed by someone else.

AH wrote extensively about what his issues were. He castigated the psychiatrist who had seen us together, saying in the first message that we had spent that time "on my issues with his issues instead of on what was causing his issues" which he should have had time alone on. In the second message, he said "I was a train wreck waiting to happen and he (the psychiatrist) missed it." (He didn't seem to realize that he walked out of therapy after he had raged against the doctor for trying to discuss his behavior).

AH was proud of himself for his introspection and insight. Originally, as I read it, so was I. However, the barbs in his message set themselves like hooks in my heart. My son got it. He said, this is pure manipulation. AH only talks about himself here. He lost you in the Court Hearing, and he wants you back. He is saying what he thinks will get you back. This manipulation is no different than what he's always done. It is not about you, it is about him. And that is who he is. He is blaming you, he is blaming the doctor, it is someone else's fault that he did what he did. And that is who he is.

That's right. It seems to have escaped AH that while he was a "train wreck waiting to happen", I was tied to those tracks as he barreled on through his destructive path. I was under those wheels, and he cut me to the quick, and this past week it seemed irreparable.

So last night, relieved, I went to bed early, went back to sleep this morning, and woke to the sun, my little dog playing, my Christmas gift paperwhites beginning to sprout in their flowerpots, and I feel much better. I am taking more medicine for the arthritis flare, taking care of it, and just hanging around by myself reading compelling mystery books that are so action driven that you just can't put them down. Eating good meals that I made and froze. Not doing anything at all that isn't lazy and comforting.

It helped to reread all the support you all wrote me here, and I think grammyb for bumping this post.

I think I'll come back to this thread and post more often; I sure need more help and comfort than I asked for last week.

ShootingStar1
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