Early Mourning Reflections
I would like to preface this blog post by stating that this is not intended to provide psychoeducation or therapy to those reading, nor is it written with support of scholarly articles related to the experience of grief in a general population. This is opinion and simply a reflection of how I view and experience grief in my life, with the hope that others hold space for themselves in it's undulating waters.
“I bought books on grieving, on loss and bereavement. They spilled over my desk in tottering piles. Like a good academic, I thought books were for answers. Was it reassuring to be told that everyone sees ghosts? That everyone stops eating? Or can’t stop eating? Or that grief comes in stages that can be numbered and pinned like beetles in boxes? I read that after denial comes grief. Or anger. Or guilt. I remember worrying about what stage I was at. I wanted to taxonomise the process, order it, make it sensible. But there was no sense, and I didn’t recognise any of these emotions at all”. - H is for Hawk, (MacDonald, 17)
Trying to understand mourning as a construct can feel as impossible as understanding the enormity of the solar system. We don’t ever stop mourning, we simply adapt with the memories of that person, place or stage of life. We adapt and change because those people we have lost in the physical world or in the context of the relationship we once had with them, have a profound effect on how we experience our world.
Unsolicited grief experiences:
My Dad passed away in August, 2020. I know I loved him (I mean, I still do). I know what I miss about him. I know what I don’t miss about him. I know how he made me feel through the memorable and mundane experiences with him, good and bad. I see places, I think of him and feel things. I hear songs, I think of him and feel things. I see people, I think of him and feel things. I experience life differently because he is gone.
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. We saw it coming. We prepared. We are learning to have no expectations. We want her back yet she’s still here. We are experiencing life differently because she is not the same mom, yet she represents the same thing to us as she always has: love.
And then there are the other losses:
The loss of our career, level of functioning, or home/place of residence leaves a void we fill with behaviors, thought patterns and choices (good and bad; healthy and unhealthy). These experiences then result in additions to the endless vault of nostalgia that fills our souls. Not one of us can perfectly describe how somebody or something made us feel. The sensory experiences can be felt but never fully expressed because of the phenomenon of perception.
You will experience what you experience. Be gentle with yourself if you are full of rage. Be gentle with yourself if disassociation feels like your only safe space. Be gentle with yourself if you feel no one says the right thing. Be gentle with yourself if you can’t stop eating. Be gentle with yourself if you’re mad that you never said goodbye or prepared for such a monumental loss. Be gentle with yourself if your loss is a result of something you believe you could have prevented. Be gentle with yourself if some days you want to sleep and not brush your teeth or show your face. Be gentle with yourself if you want to work 12 hours per day to avoid feeling. Be gentle with yourself if this experience doesn’t match others’. Be gentle if relationships fall apart because of your adaptations.
And if you are asking yourself “how can I be gentle? What does that even mean?” Being gentle means (to me) observing yourself as you would people in your life who you’ve witnessed in a state of distress, who have fallen so far down a hole in life through futile attempts to cope using unsavory survival skills, yet you’ve loved them anyways.
Hold the same space for yourself as you would others.