Facing my grief and letting go

[DreamGirl]

I recently had a pretty dramatic experience in my life - my beloved dog got severely ill and was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder. I almost lost her and I was pretty devastated.

The trip to the doggy ICU happened the day after my Dad's birthday. I was really sad that day, even though I was in a beautiful ski town celebrating friendships and my marriage. I think I've grown pretty comfortable in that sadness. So when this thing with my dog happened, I was just so, so upset.

Emotionally charged to the point of not able to function (I didn't go to work, drinking wine to calm my nerves) - I think I had an insight to what it might feel like to be BPD.  :'(

Anyways, I think that I need to let go of the sadness. It's not working for me and I think I'm losing out. I also think that if I look at the Survivor's Guide, the mourning has been experienced and I have depleted all the emotions I can from it.  

Mourning [Step 14]: This is a step that asks you to recognize your losses and helps you resolve them once and for all. Grieving your childhood losses and mourning the loss of the "ideal" parents will require a great deal of patience and self-compassion. Be prepared for this step to take time. You can't be rushed into healing these deepest wounds from childhood, and the healing won't happen all at once. More likely you will heal the wounds in layers throughout your recovery, coming back to this step several times. You may always have a scar, but the scab covering your painful losses eventually will disappear.

Many survivors tend to avoid this stage after one pass or so, preferring to avoid its dreadful pain ever again. After working through some of the pain in Stage One, you may feel much better than before but still have not fully resolved the grief. You may find that your life has improved but now feel that your growth has stalled. You can get past this block by sharing the most vulnerable parts of yourself with others, thereby turning your fear of being hurt into the building of trust. Ask yourself if you can allow yourself to be comforted by your spouse, lover or friends. Healthy dependency means letting other people take care of you at times like this. You need caring, and you need to be able to accept it from others.

I had this vulnerable moment where I woke my husband up at 3:00 o'clock in the morning. My dog was struggling to find a comfortable place to lay down - and I was panicking with my mind swirling into this doom and gloom mindset.

I asked him to just sit with me. I told him that I "just can't do this by myself". And so he sat with me and assured me that I wasn't alone.

I then did the same thing to the Vet that very same morning, I started bawling and told him "I can't put her through this". He knelt down in front of me on the floor in front of my chair and told me it was going to be OK, he was going to help her. I don't ever let anyone touch me, and when he placed a hand on my knee ~ I welcomed the human act of comfort and kindness. I tensed up, because my body does what it does... . but I felt different.  

I think I'm ready to let go. I don't want to be sad anymore. I don't want to be in this place where I'm hurt, sad, and angry. I'm a work in progress and I'm a good person in the end. My dad played a huge part in that - in good ways and bad. I'm just me and I kinda like me. I also think we both did the best we could.  

I think I'm ready for the next step. I loved my dad and in ways I really didn't like him too. I think that he loved me and in ways really didn't like me too.

I think I finally realize... . that's OK.

Anybody else made it this far? Smooth sailing from here?

[GaGrl]

Oh, Dreamgirl, I'm not sure it's ever "smooth sailing from here... . "

The loss of unconditional love is almost unbearable.  I'm sure you've had both from your father and from your dog.  It sounds crazy, but the loss of our pets, on whom we pour so much affection and care, is devastating (I lost my 14 year old Schnauzer to congestive heart failure last summer).

I think the wisest advice I've ever heard about grief and grieving was from my friend who said, "Just fall into it."  And I learned she was right... . I do better when I just let myself feel it rather than trying to stifle or control or isolate myself, thinking I can "be strong."  Because sometimes, I'm not strong.

[livednlearned]

In Step 14, it says Ask yourself if you can allow yourself to be comforted by your spouse, lover or friends. Healthy dependency means letting other people take care of you at times like this. You need caring, and you need to be able to accept it from others.

You did more than that. You asked to be comforted by your spouse.

Can you keep doing that? I think that's the way to let go of the hurt and anger, though I'm not sure about the sadness. I think we carry a small bowl of sadness around with us when our primary FOO experiences were dysfunctional. And that's ok. Maybe letting go of sadness is about allowing ourselves to keep a little, to be ok with a small bowl of it.

And then dealing with the hurt and anger by asking for comfort, letting others see that we are vulnerable, and telling them we have needs we want tended. Isn't that the way to let go of hurt and anger? We didn't get this from a parent, but we can do this as adults, we can take care of ourselves and feel connected to people in ways we didn't feel as kids.

Also, your dog being in the ICU, being diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder. Being at a celebration for someone that is complex, and meaningful, and caused pain in your life. Those are big things to roll through all at once. And you brought your A game and asked for caring and allowed yourself to accept it.

Maybe the acceptance is really about saying, It's ok that I am not functioning right now. drink this big glass of wine and take a day off work, but I trust that I'll figure out what I need, because I'm a wonder of healing 



LnL

[DreamGirl]

Oh, Dreamgirl, I'm not sure it's ever "smooth sailing from here... . "

Dang it! 

I think the wisest advice I've ever heard about grief and grieving was from my friend who said, "Just fall into it."  And I learned she was right... . I do better when I just let myself feel it rather than trying to stifle or control or isolate myself, thinking I can "be strong."  Because sometimes, I'm not strong.

I don't know why this is so monumentally difficult for me.

Old habits die hard I suppose - I don't like dealing with it, so I don't, and there it sits. Sucking the life slowly and surely until it gets to be so overwhelming that it must be dealt with.

It's also knowing that fundamentally I can and should rely on my husband for support (he likes to take care of his wife) and not feeling comfortable in vulnerability. It's what connects us to other people though and it's a skill that I really struggle with.

Thanks, Gagrl. You've always been such a good friend to me.     

You did more than that. You asked to be comforted by your spouse.

Look at me! 

I think we carry a small bowl of sadness around with us when our primary FOO experiences were dysfunctional. And that's ok. Maybe letting go of sadness is about allowing ourselves to keep a little, to be ok with a small bowl of it.

I think that this makes so much sense and probably where I might have some grey area to work on. I mean happiness is not defined by the absence of sadness, right?

Also, your dog being in the ICU, being diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder. Being at a celebration for someone that is complex, and meaningful, and caused pain in your life. Those are big things to roll through all at once. And you brought your A game and asked for caring and allowed yourself to accept it.

Maybe the acceptance is really about saying, It's ok that I am not functioning right now. drink this big glass of wine and take a day off work, but I trust that I'll figure out what I need, because I'm a wonder of healing 

I appreciate your vote of confidence and I agree with what you're saying 100%.

To clarify, my celebration was the day before my doggy ICU experience. It was my dad's birthday. It was clouded by a big bowl of sadness. Enter the crisis, and I became pretty non-functioning. It was two weeks of non functioning. I lost 8 pounds. I drank more then a glass of wine and I worked 40 hours in a period I usually would work 100. It was a pretty big over reaction on my part.

I was not coping well and I became worthless to myself, my family, even my dog. 

I'm not going to crucify myself over it, but I think my self awareness lends me to know that what I did and experienced was not "normal". It also has become a pattern that around October, and the anniversary of my dad's death, this grief starts to overwhelm me... . and it's been two years now. The actual experience of losing my father (and the brick wall I built around me) affected my marriage in a pretty grand way and we've built a lot of windows to help in that.

I just feel ready to move on. To let go of the legacy and the pain. I feel like it's really run it's course - and the anger exhausted me. The sadness too. It's not a way I want to "exist". 

It's also really helpful to see myself on the Survivor's Guide to gain some perspective of what's going on with me.

Talking this out with you beautiful souls helps me a lot too.