STOP. FEEL.
Once, I was writing and my pen fell out of my hands because my body was shaking violently from tears; I had never cried like that in my life and so far, 2 years later, nothing has come close to making me cry that hard yet.
Grief is a word that I particularly hated as a child; being uninformed, I thought that it meant being sad forever, being weak and unable to move on after a loss. Little wonder I never really grieved any loss, not when my dog and her puppies died and sadly not when my dad passed. I intended to be strong, powerful and in control until life came at me fast.
I was 12 when my father passed. He had been pretty sick for four years prior to his death without great improvements so honestly, everyone in my family had time to prepare our minds for his inevitable demise. He was in his late 60’s, almost 70 when he passed so I personally started to use those details to console myself and mentally prepare long before he became a spirit flying among the angels. In those days, I’d tell myself “He’s old; he’s had a long life, a decent one. He has wives and children and grandchildren; he has a house that he built from the ground up; he’s had a long and successful career as an electrical engineer. He’s lived well”. I would then tell myself, “He’s been sick; it’s been 4 years of torture for him and every one of us, he’s had it difficult; death would be a kindness for him, he’d have peace”
I held on to those thoughts even when he did die; unbeknownst to me, I had only been mentally preparing myself to numb. Of course, I cried when I was informed, throwing myself on the floor, screaming and blaming God. I believe this was my first experience of praying for something earnestly as a child and being disappointed by God but anyway, due to the emotional deregulation that comes with BPD that I’m quite sure I already had back then, I was fine a few hours later. I did not cry again until the day he was buried and perhaps a couple more times in the next 8 years. In my mind, I had shed some tears so that must mean that I had mourned; I certainly did not intend to stay still in loss and put my life on hold, for me it was time to move on. What a terrible mistake.
Indeed, there is no particular way set in stone dictating how to mourn a loss but there is certainly a process to go through. You cannot wish that process away no matter how hard you try. What came next for me was that I shut down emotionally. I obviously did not know it at the time but I stopped crying over any death or feeling empathy when people experienced any form of loss. In my mind, I would think, “death is inevitable, move on”. Seeing people grieve and be unable to move on as quickly as I had done, had me sneering and labeling them weak because after all “Didn’t they see it coming? Why didn’t they prepare their minds?”
I would forever be thankful for my friend and mentor at the time, Kate, who saw everything that I couldn’t and told me quite bluntly that I had not grieved my loss and as such, I was holding myself back.
I scoffed.
It had been eight years and in my mind I kept thinking, “How exactly am I expected to mourn? I cried. What else is a girl to do?” She made it happen though, regardless of how hard I fought her; I really didn’t see the need to open an old wound, I certainly didn’t expect to cry or be sad because had she been listening? — Death is inevitable! I basically started journaling to get her off my back and prove my own point. Boy, was I wrong! The most important thing I learned is that crying is a response to loss and grief but it isn’t the entire grieving process. I followed a ‘grief study’ step by step, journaling through memories that I had ignored for years and every emotion on the face of the planet hit me at top speed, knocking me out. Eight years of grief came calling and the hurt was eight times worse than anything I’ve ever felt. Once, I was writing and my pen fell out of my hands because my body was shaking violently from tears; I had never cried like that in my life and so far, 2 years later, nothing has come close to making me cry that hard yet.
I went to school in black and other dark colors for a week accessorized with dark shades to hide red puffy eyes. Nobody noticed but it didn’t matter because that week was mine and I hadn’t been willing to share it with people.
You are probably wondering why you are reading a sad story of a girl with a healing heart and her very sad grieving process. I’ll tell you. With corona virus ravaging the world right now, so many people are dealing with all sorts of loss, thousands of deaths across continents and yet only a handful will truly allow themselves to grieve. I find that the reason for our “get up and go” attitude in this age, is that our world today has no tolerance for sadness or hurt or grieve. It is not “sexy” to feel and it is apparently worse to show others those emotions. Oh how we cheat ourselves. Sadly, consumerism is enabling competitions of how productive a person can be in a pandemic and nobody is encouraging people to stop and feel.
So here it is. Stop. Feel.
You might not have directly lost family or friends to this virus but as a world, collectively, we have all lost so much. Stop. Feel.
You probably know a person or two who have lost loved ones in this period either to the virus or other factors. Perhaps like me, you are sitting on an old loss, refusing to be “weak.” Stop. Feel.
Don’t push your hurt aside whether it’s old or new. The world has literally stopped so all you have, right now, is time to block everything out and feel darling. There is no weakness in grief; it is rather a proof of strength — the ability to face your pain head on and work through it.
Before you begin your journey of feeling and healing, there are a few things that you must know:
- There is no “standard” way to grieve, don’t expect this to be straightforward and linear. Everyone handles loss differently.
- While going through this process, you are likely to feel a lot of emotions ranging from nostalgia to sadness to anger, to relief etc. and you will feel these emotions in varying intensity but don’t forget that all your emotions are valid.
- Grieving comes with different changes in behavior, countenance and perhaps lifestyle for a period of time. Be kind to yourself. Be patient too.
- There is no timeline for grief; don’t be surprised if you think you have gone past a certain stage only to go back to it. That is normal and fairly common. Healing is a journey, not a destination; own your journey and keep at it.
- Finally, this process would require a significant amount of writing. In grieving, as with many other stages in life, journaling has been found to be very helpful. Get your notepad and pen out.
If you have no idea where to start, you can begin with the 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. Write through each stage and document everything you feel or have felt with this loss. Remember that you are not alone in your grief even though it might feel that way; allow people to love you and help you through this. Feel free to reach out for more help (I am not a grief expert), insight or if you just want a friend holding your hand through this time. Good luck darling and don’t forget to go at your own pace.
I’m rooting for you.
Love and light.
