Sometimes I Feel Like ...

[spela]

Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy ... I would scream at everybody who want something from me - even if that's just a simple question, such as "what time ist it?" or something else where they expect my answer ... Or when they ask me how I am. How do you think I am?! Sometimes I answer by "not too well" or something like that - but than, when I'm left alone, I start crying, because it's not only "not well", it's much much worse than that!! And then some people complain to me about their job and how bad it is - WHAT? Why would I care?!! I'm still so upset at my friend, who, two days after the funeral, wrote to me that she's been having a hard time recently (she's being homesick, as she live abroad). I didn't answer her - what should I tell her? How can you say this to someone who has just buried the person they love most? I'm mad at my boss who made me do reports about the death of the pope - and didn't seem to realize what I was going through when I had to do it! It's all inside me, and I would just scream!!!

[MartyT]

My dear Spela,

Your post reminds me of this wonderful piece that's posted on the Comfort for Grieving Hearts page of my Grief Healing Web site:

The Agony of Grief

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you,

smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,

sweeps you up into its darkness,

where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,

only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.

Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time.

It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.

Grief is three o'clock in the morning sweats that won't stop.

It is dreadful Sundays, Mondays that are no better.

It makes you look for a face in the crowd,

knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd.

Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind

and makes room for the phantasmagoric.

It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting,

without saying a word.

Grief makes what others think of you moot.

It shears away the masks of normal life

and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth

before propriety can stop you.

It shoves away friends,

scares away so-called friends,

and rewrites address books for you.

Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk,right to their faces.

It tells the world that you are untouchable

at the very moment when touch

is the only contact that might reach you.

It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.

Grief discriminates against no one.

It kills. Maims. And cripples.

It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises,

and the mettle of rebirth.

It returns life to the living dead.

It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue.

It assures the living that we know nothing for certain.

It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens.

Grief will make a new person out of you,

if it doesn't kill you in the making.

— Stephanie Ericsson

in Companion Through the Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief

Wishing you peace and healing,

Marty T

[Nikki]

Hi Everyone

I will not ask any of you the stupid and insensitive question of how you are doing. Spela as you know I have been dealing with a lot of anger issues myself. Lately I feel the power of my anger boiling up in me I feel like it could send me to the moon. I seem to go from angry to sad to just plain hopeless in 0 to 60 seconds, it a rollercoaster ride I did not stand in line for nor did I have any interest in getting on.

I am angry with friends that don't understand, I am angry with people saying to me Oh dear it will be alright, you will find someone nice someday(-that really makes me ANGRY), someday how can I even get through today. I am totally in love with someone I will either never see again or at least not for probably a very long time. I also have feelings of anger towards Joe, and then I am ashamed, but I am only human. I read in one of the handouts I was given by my grief counselor that When You Repress Your Feelings You Give Them Power; When You Embrace them, You Gain Strength- I am trying to get that through to my heart my mind understands that but my heart is a little behind.

I also rememeber when this first happened, wondering where all my so called friends where, why were they not checking on me or even concerned and what about his friends don't they even care he is gone, I was reading a book at the time and like the above poem says I had to reread most of the stuff a million times but I remember reading (in of course you guessed it a GRIEF book, the book is called The Lessons of Love it is a mothers story of losing her son I stopped reading it when the mother met a man and so on) but there is a passage from the Ron Kovic movie Born on the Fourth Of July -Your fight is just beginning. Sometimes no one will want to hear what you're going through. You are going to have to learn to carry a great burden and most of your learning will be done alone. Don't feel frightened when they leave you. I'm sure you will come through it all okay. Sometimes just knowing I am not alone in the feeling of loneliness helps( a little).

After having a day filled with anger I was trying to find something to ease my anxiety, I was going through this web site I am a member of called Survivors Of Suicide there was a nice poem that reminded me so much of the way I feel about my love- I love you without knowing how, why or from where

I love you straight forwardly without the complexities or pride

I love you because I know no other way than this

So close that my hand on my heart is your hand

So close when you close your eyes part of me falls asleep too -unknown

Well I am signing off for now-I am starting to get a little teary eyed.

Wishing you all, and myself periods of peace today!

Nikki

[spela]

Nikki,

if you already checked your email today, please check it again - I've sent you a correction, I've made a stupid mistake in my first email, I really should read what I write BEFORE sending ...