Internalised grief : some thoughts

I believe internalized grief can hold us back in so many ways.. The loss or longing for things known or barely conscious can dominate our lives and if we cannot know what we do not know about what is influencing us from the underground emotionally it can be so hard, not only to move forward, but to make the right decisions. We may then also turn against ourselves and blame ourselves for what we did not know or for unproductive ways we used not knowing (at least at the time) a better way.

It is interesting to me when people treat grief as something to be recognized and talked about, I wonder how much different my life would have been if this were so, if I got treatment for PTSD and its impact was EVEN RECOGNISED back in 1979 and 1980 when my sister came unstuck.. Much as I want to move forward now and embrace the present this time of year, when I have one of my attacks reminds me of my sister falling to the ground one afternoon after an internal bleed and then being found by her oldest son.. I am also thinking of how he took distance, he often visited to see his Mum as many years as he could and we have lost touch now after he got angry at me connecting with Scott who he believes to be a scammer, the last communication I got from him said he feared for his mental health having anything to do with me at all…..and that I lived inside a vortex, when I told his younger brother this he just said to me “Deb, he is the one living inside a vortex.” Despite all of this I dont bear him malice or even a bad feeling, yes it made me so very angry and sad for a long time but now I just accept we are all human and all have our own interpretation of events..

I just sat by the lake reading the opening chapters of the book Postscript by Ceclia Ahern, its a novel that deals with grief and of the help survivors of loss may give to others by opening up and talking about it.. in the book the central character, Holly, feels torn. She has moved on from the loss of her husband and does not want to keep revisiting it, but there are those who need the help that the telling of her story could bring.. I most certainly would have been helped if someone spoke to me of their grief in the years I was alone and struggling with it, but honestly I may not even have been able to face that in the years before I got sober.. A lot of my pain over my emotionally absent Dad was playing out in my relationships up until then anyway.. I was always being left.. by one partner after another.. The abandonment of 1990 by Greg was one of my most painful. I had fallen pregnant a few months before and had to have a termination due to an ectopic pregnancy, something he lied to his mother about and had her demonise me for getting upset about when drunk. Of course they all decided I was ‘mad’ and when he broke it off with me he told me so after sleeping with me one last time.. I was the vermin to be discarded..

I was telling Scott yesterday about some of the nasty things Phil used to say to me.. That no one else would want me due to my damage, that he deserved a medal sticking with me for so long.. Scott just said to me “Deb, that just isn’t right!” But he made it feel right for so many years after he left.. then I had my Mum shaming me for my grieving too.

God I have endured a lot.. Its why I hate addicts in recovery demonising themselves for the way they acted due to wounds they played no part in creating.. That said continuing to numb and self sabotage through addiction or self blame which is another way of internalising undue shame and blame is downright toxic for us, but never the less is also WHAT WE HAVE TO DO UNTIL WE SEE HOW AND WHY WE DO IT.

Today it helps me to talk about my grief and to know sharing does not necessarily keep me stuck there if I actually do the feeling, shedding, mourning and letting go work.. I see the failure to mourn in someone I know lately how it keeps them stuck in hate and venom and revenge and I really cannot condone it, that said I could never say because its their path and if they choose to be wedded to the dark and see it as a form of comfort and ‘reality’ so be it if that works for them. For me that is no solution at all and I just know I have to feel and shed the past… I will never be ‘over it all’ but I can ‘come through it all’ if I allow myself to feel and process it.. bringing it up out of the darkness into light.