WYG Day 11: Unable to Behave Any Better

 WYG Day 11

Unable to Behave Any Better

HOW HAS THIS LOSS MADE ALL THINGS FEEL SHARP?

I am not sure that this loss has made all things feel sharp exactly. There is definitely a prickliness to this loss, but more than feeling sharp, things feel overly revealed. I have an example.

I was once really into this guy who was all into Eastern religion and meditation. We didn’t see each other frequently, but one time we did get to see each other, we ended up kissing. And while we were kissing, the strangest thing happened. It felt like a pair of hands reached into my chest and took hold of the veil that separated my soul (maybe? Can’t think of a better word) from whatever is out there (God? For lack of a better word?) and I was touched there for the first time ever. A strange feeling ran down my spine and lodged at the bottom of my spine. 

It completely freaked me out and I sputtered some reason for me to go, and I left. I did not sleep that night, due to the energy that was coursing through my body.

That incident where i felt my most innermost self touched is as as close to describing what I feel like this loss is. I feel like this loss stripped away EVERYTHING: my sense of the world being a safe place; my sense of being able to always protect my children; my sense of control over the world.

This naked feeling is hard to live with. It feels like everyone can see all my emotions in addition to all my flaws and that everyone can see that I am not handling this week at all, but really, how should I be handling it? I think not handling it well by the standards of a world that doesn’t understand how to deal with grief is pretty okay.

WHAT MIGHT NOURISH OR FEED YOU–EVEN BRIEFLY–AS YOU LIVE INSIDE THIS GRIEF?

Being seen and heard is the thing that helps the most. This course has been helping because of the comments I have received. It’s good to know that we are all in the same unfortunate boat.

Additionally, I have been lucky to have people around me who are not judging me and are supporting me as best as they can (and their best is definitely better than what people usually get in these situations). I just need to keep surrounding myself with people who can get me and what is happening.

DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT YOUR INABILITY TO ‘behave better’?

Behave better compared to what? There’s a stigma about grief that is so similar to the one around mental health. Like, if you have it, you have to be cured. And depending on the mental illness, it might need to be brought under control, but I don’t think there’s a way to cure or make go away a mental illness. At least I haven’t found a way to get rid of mine. I still have depression, even when it’s under control. There’s till a lens of depression that I see the world through. Perhaps that’s where my melancholy comes from. I haven’t gotten my anxiety completely under control, but I am starting to understand it a bit better as something that I will need to learn to live with because it’s a part of me now. And so is grief.