Grief Part #38279

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Grief is messy. And to be quite frank, I just don't like it. I know for me that writing is part of my therapeutic process and some of my best writing comes from a spot of emotional vulnerability. Yet, I sit here, almost forcing myself to say something because I need to in order to process where life is right now. In general, I am OK. I am functioning reasonably well. I am sitting in a weird place trying to figure out how to grieve. In short, I don't understand grief. 

When my dad died 30+ years ago, I was certainly sad and upset which is totally reasonable. Yet, most of the actions and decisions I made after he was gone wouldn't indicate that much had happened in my life. I didn't talk about him. I would squirm away if someone brought him up because I would feel emotional about it. I went to school the day after he died because I had some homework due. I don't know that I was trying to avoid the funeral planning that was going on, I truly felt like I needed to get that done, not understanding that my teachers would probably cut me some slack for this one. I had an experience shortly before that in which the principal of the school threatened my transfer to the high school I wanted to go to for missing to much class. I was in 8th grade and I was 14 years old. That threat cut deep and I believed it. (Trust me, my mom intervened on this one.....)

It would be years before I felt like I could talk about him without having a huge emotional response. I still feel sad that he is gone; however, talking about him now brings up fun memories and offers my niece and nephew to know what he was like. In way, I waited for years for that gut-wrenching response to go away when anyone talked about him. If there is a "proper" way to grieve, my method probably was not it. Counseling would not have benefited me because I would have been 100% unwilling to speak about much of anything. I wanted to run and stay away. That's what I did.

In the subsequent 30 years, I started to understand that changes in my life and not just death caused me to grieve. I wasn't aware of that. When I forged close relationships with people and we moved on to the next phase in life, I was devastated. When my friends in the classes ahead of me graduated and I didn't see them anymore, I was so lost. Things were so happy before that. What happened? Why did it have to change? I started, then, to distance myself from people because the change was coming. High school isn't forever. College isn't forever. There are still several relationships that faded that I still think about. 

A family friend spent lots of time talking to me as my divorce was processing. She alerted me to the fact that I was grieving. Initially, I didn't think she was right. I had asked for the divorce. I wanted things to end. I wanted to move on. "You are grieving that relationship and the future you thought you would have." Oh man, that one hit me right in the gut. The problem, though, is that I didn't grieve. I drank. I avoided a lot. I didn't deal with much. 

In these past two years, the losses have been sudden, tragic, and completely out of my realm to associate any good reason for these things to happen. When I have written about grief in the past, I said and still say, one loss brings up every loss. It's overwhelming and upsetting. Gratefully, I don't have the urge to drink it away or feel that anything related to my sobriety has changed. I simply don't like it. I don't want life to be different in this way now. I don't want other around me to be in pain. I don't want to be in pain. 

Of course, I am well familiarized with the stages of grief. When I look at that path, the only thing I think I grieved "correctly" (if that even exists) was my relationship with alcohol. Life had to change drastically to support sobriety for me. One of my blog entries is a good-bye note I had written to alcohol and it was helpful. I don't know if I could write a good-bye letter to anyone else without a near breakdown. I go between denial and acceptance somewhere between 20-30 times a day it feels like. At times, I feel like I am truly crazy. Denial is certainly seems like a happier place to be. Just block everything out and act like nothing has happened. Well, I kinda tried that method already and it lead to 18 years of hardcore drinking. I honestly don't know what to do.

Grief is so hard to talk about. Again, I don't really understand it and I experience it a lot in various avenues of my life. I am sad and upset that people are gone out of my life either by distance or death.  If I don't feel sad or upset about it, I feel like I am abandoning that person or situation. If I am happy or OK, does that mean I stopped caring about you? If I accept that you are gone, what happens? Do I forget about you? Of course not. At the same time, being OK or even happy feels like I am not paying proper respect. I know this take on this is not correct. And it is exactly how I feel. I know that my dad would not want me to feel horrible and depressed. Yet, the lack of an excessive emotional response when I talk about him seems like I am dishonoring him. I feel very similar about other losses as well. 

One of the stages of grief is anger. Anger is a danger emotion for me. Anger is a great way to keep people at a distance. If someone has wronged me, I can hold on to that for a REALLY long time. A good 90% of the time, I am not even willing to think about forgiving and/or forgetting. Let me tell you, that can make life pretty lonely. Holding every relationship up to perfection and never making a mistake is a pretty quick way to never have any quality people around. I have made some improvements in that arena. I can accept an apology now. I can be more forgiving because geeeezzzzz.....look at all the people who forgave me for egregious behavior that I spewed out into the world. Sober or not, I am no where NEAR perfect. I have hurt people without intending to. I made mistakes. The very least I can do is be the same in return. 

So, when it comes to anger in terms of grieving, I think I kinda park there. I am mad about the change. I am mad at my God for making that decision to take that person. I remain upset about relationships changing. I turn into a three year old having a meltdown. "But I don't want to!" I don't want to change. I don't want to have to figure out life now. I don't want things to be sad and upsetting. I don't want these people I loved to be gone. I don't always have a great direction to release that anger. Things should be the way that I want them. One steadfast trait of alcoholics - we don't like the way things are and we don't like change. Especially the latter part. I don't want change that I didn't specifically agree to. 

I received a book about grief and when I am a little more ready to face this issue, I will be interested in reading it. I know that loss is a part of life and nothing is forever. I know I can get to places of acceptance since my sobriety depends on it. Right now, I don't really want to accept much with regards to loss. I want to stay angry. Anger makes me feel like I have some power and motivation. Anger is like a drug though. It works until it stops working. Then is starts to take everything. I have been in that place with anger. I certainly would like to avoid slipping back into that emotional place. At the same time, I don't feel overly willing to think about acceptance. I want to honor people I have lost. Part of me hopes that maybe some of those relationships will return. And to accept either one feels final. Sort of like - "Well, I have accept that you/this relationship is gone. Now I move on. See ya later!" For whatever reason, that feels disrespectful. As of right now, that is what I need to reconcile so that I don't forever sit in denial and anger. That only leads to me hurting myself in the short-term, and everyone around me in the long-term. 

Take good care of each other and tell those you love....that you love them.
​J