Group Therapy Reflections

I had the benefit last night of going to group but only 1 other person showed up in addition to the moderator. It left a lot of time available to talk about a lot of things. One thing that stuck with me is the stress added to those grieving by others - knowingly or unknowingly. It's been without a doubt the most unexpected and frustrating part for me. Some thoughts from about 2 hours of discussion:

Trying to make others feel better first

Scenario: the random stranger that cries when you share or start crying flips the table and turns into "oh gosh, I feel so bad I made him/her cry now I have to comfort them" or the obligatory "well his mom asked me to do this so I have no choice because this is tough for her" that the other attendee shared; these things halt the healing or minimize the stress of the

Different strokes for different folks

Scenario: after a loss what's hard for the mother/siblings may not be the same thing that is hard for the wife/husband different still from what might be hard for the friends. Not only is the significance of the loss different for each person but the triggers also. Not everyone remembers the person they've lost the same, either. The mom wiped their butt as a baby and stayed up when they had a fever or colic. The wife comforted not that person as a child but the grown man that was having a hard time, cleaned and washed and shared intimate moments with. The brothers and sisters perhaps fought as all siblings do, but ultimately made up and were maybe best buds and confidants for each other. The stories and the memories each shared may be different, the person that was lost will be remembered in different ways, which speaks to the next part:

The hierarchy of loss

Our facilitator shared that with us that a lot of people, try as they might, always label the loss of a child (regardless of young child or adult child) as the "worst". This honed in on what I'd posted recently about Why You Don't Want to be a Grieving Fiance. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't? But whatever is going on with the person you're talking to at the time -- it certainly sucks for them. So why introduce "well this could be worse..." or "at least you didn't lose your..." to them? Why?

She'd also shared that she tries to remind those when training them - someone who says they lost a husband/wife of 40 years to not give them more leniency in grief because of the amount of time. "Yes, that's horrible; remember you did get to spend 40 years with your soulmate...Some people find that person and they grief the past and the present plus the future" Robbed is the word I've used.

If people were more gentle and stopped trying to turn loss into a competition, our compassion to others for exactly what they're feeling and having to deal with in the best way they can would ease the burden of others if just a small amount.

The burden of the griever

I chastised myself (WHY do I do this?!) for it but shared how I feel the need to offer people something in return for spending time with me on a bad day (or any day...) "Hey, how about I bring over dinner for you?" or "Come have a beer on me..." because I have been taught from a few bad instances, by those that are less compassionate, that I am not worthy of being around (i.e. the just-stops-responding caller/texter, the always-has-something-going-on excuse friend, the you-can-talk-to-me-but-I'm-allowed-to-insert-my-two-sense relative, etc.)...

OVERALL---Be gentle with others. I will probably not take this advise for myself, but I say it regardless. 

You Don't Realize

You don't realize how lonely you are until it's the end of the day 

and you have a bunch of things to talk about, 

but no one to tell them to...

The First Dream, The First Nightmare

I don't dream much. I've had one, very beautiful dream a few weeks ago, I woke up crying I was so happy. I never saw his face and ultimately it ended with him leaving:

I was in a large hall with hundreds of people. Everyone was milling around, smiling, laughing, enjoying themselves. I found myself standing behind Ryan, rubbing his back and hugging him from behind. Someone called us all to "attention" in essence and people began to sit down facing the front of this massive room. I sat behind Ryan with my head against his back feeling him breath, my arms wrapped around his waist. I sat there breathing him in. At some point people were being called and were getting up to head off to the right. I thought nothing of it, focused on being with him.

I panicked when I hear someone call "James..." Ryan was about to leave me - disappearing from my arms, leaving me there helpless and abandoned. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his chest, pinning his arms against him, crying into his back and resolving that nothing would make me let go. He would have to poof from between my arms if he was going to be taken. I held my breath, terrified that I would hear his name.

I woke up. No name called. He wasn't taken.

Except he was. The empty spot beside me reminded me I had been robbed.

Tuesday night's dream was, what felt like, 6 hours of complete misery. It took just minutes to recognize this was not going to be pleasant even though he was there. I woke sweating and even more exhausted than when I'd crawled into bed.

I can't decide if it's better to have no dreams at all and to simply re-live the good times during waking hours or to endure what should be a few hours of an empty mind and peace with the gamble of a sometimes good yet sometimes hellish extension of everyday...

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Do Not Give Up

It has been incredibly and overwhelmingly lonely over the last week. The bailing and empty promises and the excuses about (or even no excuses) why others did not respond back continues - I felt very disposable. Broken. Blamed.

Nevertheless, I am trying to set goals...to help remind myself that I am strong, capable, intelligent, driven. Or at least that my old self was, and to test whether my new self is.

A Bad Night's Sleep

I miss your snoring Sweetheart. It reminded me you were there.

I'll be honest - I used to joke with a few coworkers about wanting to strangle you for it. A few female coworkers were talking about sleep and trying to fall asleep before their husbands came in and the log-sawing started. We laughed about it. Chick-bonding, I suppose.

I take everything I said back. I wouldn't strangle you. I'd choose to sleep poorly the rest of my life if I could - heck, right now, most nights I do anyways...

I wish you were snuggled up to me with your chin resting in the back of my neck snoring right into my ear because it would mean I could still kiss you good morning, could fight over who gets to be little spoon, and you would still be there when I came home.

All my love, S

When It Just Hits You

Sometimes, when my day is going along "normally" - including my new norm associating with others who have lost, taking the dogs out myself, living in a place that is not my true home - I suddenly am slammed down to earth with the thought

Ryan is gone. He is dead.

I am not running around actively denying to people that I will see Ryan again, that I will get a text or a phone call or he will wake up in bed next to me (or I'll be woken up from him snoring while snuggled into the back of my neck...) I know, ok? My head knows that he's gone - it's not like a secret or any possibility. Sure, sometimes I still have the reaction to call him, to walk into a room and look for him. These are .001 seconds in time which used to cause break downs and now I chastise myself and shake it off.

The sobering moments are the ones where your heart just figured out the finality of what happened. 

I will move back to going through the motions of the day, taking care of what needs to be done and staying busy when I can. I will still spend time lying in bed, sometimes with sometimes without tears, but most definitely in sorrow and loneliness. There are no triggers for these events and their frequency is unpredictable but without a doubt there is no way to describe the feeling when you're smacked with that reality that he is completely and utterly gone.

Why you don't want to be a grieving fiance

I don't like sharing with people that I lost my fiance. It's not that it's hard to share it but that it's hard to deal with people once you tell them. You will forever be treated differently. Typical scenario:

Well, I lost my fiance 18 weeks and 1 day ago.

Question 1: Oh, wow. I'm so sorry. What happened?
Response 1: Well, his death was a suicide.

Now this typically goes 1 of 2 ways

• Compassionate response not dependent on details: "I'm so sorry, I lost my (insert relationship) the same way (insert time) ago" or "I have no idea but I am so sorry"
• Making things more awkward: *Fumble over words* or *Flag me as a "victim"* or (god forbid) "Did you find him?" <none of your damn business

Almost without fail my very next question if it comes (if they haven't run out of the room yet):

Question 2: So, how long were you together?

*Usually at this point, they also look down at my left hand. I'm not sure why...just to make sure I'm telling the truth?

Awesome. I've just shared with you the hands-down-most-difficult-event-of-my-life. And now the person that is questioning is setting themselves up to assess (in their mind) how difficult it is for me. Ugh. 

There are people married 20 years that hate each other's guts. Time doesn't equate to quality of the relationship or difficulty of grief. 

I opened up to his mother, an absolute Angel of a woman, that in some ways she has the 'benefit' (terrible word) of being a grieving mother in that I haven't heard of anyone asking "how close were you with your child?" or otherwise provides compassion contingent on first deciding the strength of the relationship... Usually, after question 1 it's something like "Oh my god. I can't even imagine..."

Guess what? You can't imagine what my heart and mind are like right now either.

If you want to know how much it hurts: I spent 3 1/2 years with someone that I was overjoyed at the prospect of spending another 50-60 years with. Within the first year of dating him, I was modifying some life goals because I wanted happiness in us more than just me. In the 6 months before he died, I was putting myself in a position to support him - no matter what it took (financial, geographical changes) I would let him decide. 

I lost my emergency contact, my best friend, my confidant, my advisor, my lover, my partner. I lost my Every Day. I marked up on my cell phone bill the number of times I called or was called by him, just in the last 2 weeks he was alive. The page was bled through with pink pen underlined multiple times every single day of the week. I'm now caring for 2 dogs, caring for the house we bought, except I'm doing it all alone. Try and think about how much that hurts before you judge how important he was by the length of time I was blessed to have him...

Wordless Wednesday: A Broken Heart

It's Hurting Again

One of those days...

Wordless Wednesdays: Glitter for the Stupid

Making Ourselves

After a rough, rough night last week I stumbled across this on Pinterest (trying to get schoolwork done for a social media class...honestly).

It was just what I needed. I'm not so sure about the amount of work being the same but I was smacked upside the head with what amounts to a choice.

Trying to pull myself together doesn't mean I've forgotten Ryan or that I'm moving on. I can't forget him. It also doesn't mean that I will never have meltdowns or terrible weeks or weekends. It doesn't mean that I'm ready or looking for someone else. It means I'm trying to reinsert me back into my life.

Am I still waiting for him to walk through the door? Yes, honestly. Yes. Do I know that it's not possible? Yes, I do. But that doesn't stop me from looking or wishing right now. I can't change that anymore than I can change the color of my blood. I understand things like that will lessen in time. I'm not in a hurry.