Stages? Stages!

[Margm]

I don't know where to put this where everyone will see it, and since I am not sure everyone will like it like I did, I just cannot forget it.  It might not mean anything to some of you, and maybe it might mean a little to some of you.

http://new.www.huffingtonpost.com/megan-devine/stages-of-grief_b_4414077.html

[R.Everit55]

There is no set grief roadmap for any of us.  Those stages are true but they recycle over and over and not in that particular order as well.  

[Patty65]

I sent a text off to my therapist last night about a possible partnership that may be forming for me with my business (!!!)  A woman who volunteered when Ron was in Hospice really loves the business and is coming into some money that she does not need, and wants to be part of a business she is passionate about.  It is great news, and it is throwing me deep into turmoil about moving on without Ron.  I "am excited" although that doesn't really exist in me anymore.. as excited as I can manufacture, knowing it's a good thing, we are compatible, blah, blah. I want it, need it, and it's tearing my heart in half.

Anyway, back to the "stages"... part of my text was telling her how I am, or more correctly, how miserable I was, since, after all,  I was at home.  It's always the same there. I told her Ron was everywhere and in everything I did and saw yesterday.  And the pain of trying to move on was just overwhelming.  I asked her if I should succomb to the sobbing that was in my throat or try to distract.

She said there is no wrong thing there, either choice is ok, the only thing wrong would be to deny the feelings, and I wasn't, she thought. Denial of feelings though is different than the denial phase of grief, at least how I interpret it.  Denial was the only stage I didn't understand before I experienced grief myself.  I thought that it made sense for those who did not witness or were not close to the loss, and of course it made sense for sudden loss.  How do you accept such a sudden drastic loss as real?  But I saw him, I watched him go.

And yet, I found myself in "Denial" (and not as the first stage). I'm not even sure I can explain it. It is kind of the "wake up from the nightmare" thing.  But it was way more than that, it was, and sometimes is... "He HAS to still be here"  it was emotional backpeddling, it was "WAIT, stop, WHAT?" a month or two later... it was a crack in my reality.  Maybe even my sanity.  It was double-takes.

These are the points I found so poignant, of course Copyright to Megan Devine and the link you posted to Huffington:

 

• Sometimes you will be tired of grief. You will turn away. And you’ll turn back. And you’ll turn away. Grief has a rhythm of its own.

• Grief can be absolutely crazy-making. This does not mean you are crazy.

• There is no way to do grief “wrong.” It may be painful, but it is never wrong.

Remember that there is no “closure.” Grief is part of love, and love evolves. Even acceptance is not final: It continuously shifts and changes.

The truth is, you will seize up in the face of pain and soften into it, again and again, both things in rapid succession, and both things with silence in between. You’ll find ways to live inside your grief, and in doing so, it will find its own right place.

Your love, and your grief, are bigger than any stage could ever be. The only way to contain it is to let it be free.

 

Thanks for sharing that Marg.

 

 

[Margm]

I found it all was all so me and I could not deny it. Thank you for reading.

[KarenK]

Interesting article, Marg. I don't think I've ever given any thought to what stage of grief I have been in or may be in now. After all, when you have a million confusing thoughts flying around in your head, who has time to ponder this. For me, it is just a matter of getting through each day unscathed. I would welcome "moving forward", but it has not happened. I am certainly not the only person to ever lose a spouse and a child close together. Just when I was beginning to see a glimmer of sunlight, I was slammed again. I always think of a woman here in the valley who lost her ex and her three children in the blink of an eye. He was flying out of town on vacation with the kids in his small plane and somehow flew into the side of the Superstition Mtns. How could she possibly cope?

[KATPILOT]

I remember that accident Karen. I remember what I thought when I heard who was on board. When you've lost someone you feel immediately for the one's left behind. You think differently now. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have been slammed again.

[Margm]

Emotions are complex. According to some theories, they are a state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence our behavior.

I do not know about "stages" per se, but I can tell you about emotions.  I can tell you about emotions after taking legal amphetamines for seven years.  I can tell you about the words of Kristofferson's song "the going up was worth the coming down."  I took them to stay awake at night so  I could stay up most the day and take care of my kids and also  bring in a paycheck for working the "graveyard" shift for seven years.  I would drink wine to bring me down from working all night in an emotion that got my work done fast and furious.  My emotion was sharp, friendly, too friendly, but my personality was fabulous.  I thought.  Then the emotions of going cold turkey.  Tough on everyone around me.  It took years, but I lost my craving for the drug.  Drugged emotions. I was a hospitalized emotional wreck.

I knew happy emotions.  I knew sad, anger, disappointment.  I knew depression most of my life, just a chronic emotion.  But I knew happiness most of all.

So, these stages we call them, stages they are.  They are also emotions.  I won't belittle them and call them just emotions.  It is the difference between having a cold and having the bubonic plague.  Semantics again.

This article did not cure my "stages" and it did not belittle my emotions.  It did not tell me I would get over them.  In my analogy, and this is mine alone, these stages are like having an open wound that is too big for a bandage.  No matter what antibiotic we put on it, it will not cure it.  And, I don't think time can pull the edges together either.  If people notice your open wound and question you or give advice on how to heal it, perhaps they  need to be told to heal their own open wound, the one between their nose and chin. 

I am blessed.  I had Billy for so long.  I did not want to give him up.  I want him back.  Sometimes reality hits me in the face and I look to the heavens and I cry to Billy and Jesus (because I know they are friends now) and I just say "I don't know how."  I don't say "I can't" because, I can, I just don't want to.  I don't talk to my dad and God because they both are supposed to be punishing entities.  (My religion, not yours).  My problem, my faith, mine alone, and if it is way out there, just consider the source. 

[kayc]

It's interesting you say that about your father and God, Marg, because I've been taught that how you view your father is how you view God, I guess that's true in your case.  I hope you can see the softer side someday as well.  (((hugs)))

[Margm]

Kay, my dad was raised by a strict father that nearly beat him to death at 17.  My father was no coward but he was brought up to respect his dad.  Can you imagine a 17 year old letting his father nearly  beat him to death nowdays when he is  bigger than the father.  Respect was a word my daddy did not understand.  He used to whip me and tell me I might not love him, but I was going to respect him.  Even as young as I was, I knew the difference in respect, fear, and real love.  This was not respect, this was fear.  I am sure I am not the only child raised in the south, and other places that had this kind of discipline.  I am supposed to forgive my dad and instead I just feel sorry for him.  He did as he was taught.  But, he was a good man. He did raise a daughter that used to hide under the bed or table when he and Mama fought (Mama fought), and I begged him, "hit her Daddy, just hit her."  Cain killed Abel, we were not the first dysfunctional family.  I used to chase my sister around the house when I was about 10 and she might have  been two.  She was scared of "buzzy beetle" and I would pull him around just to scare her.  A bit of meanness even back then.

Gotta go face the world this morning.  Lots of business.  Billy, I'm scared.  "Margaret, you always did it by yourself anyhow, I never went with you."  I have my "family jewels" in my $70 purse.
 

[kayc]

I don't think we can beat respect into people.  I'm sorry this is something you grew up with, it had to be hard.