Originally posted as a facebook note 1/2/11 - I am a professional organizer, so I am always looking for the most efficient way to do any task. So this is how I approach my grieving process too - what is the fastest and most painless way to get it "done" and "checked off the list". HAHAHAHA. First of all, there IS NO WAY to combine "fastest" and "most painless" and second, you never "get it checked off the list".
The fastest way through the grief process and on to healing is THE MOST PAINFUL WAY, which is plowing head first into every feeling. Allow yourself to go with the flow of the pain. Think the thoughts when they come to mind - don't block them out or run from them. Go through your head over and over the details of how the death occurred, how you were told, how you reacted, what you did between learning of the death and the funeral, what you did with your child's body. Don't run from those memories, those have to be re-lived to accept them as truth. Go to therapy. Go to support groups. Journal. IT SUCKS.
Oh how I long for a pill or a drink or ANYTHING MAGIC to give me a short cut. I have been told multiple times by people who have lived to find the truth - that if you run from it now, right after the death, that it ONLY GETS WORSE when you finally do have to face it. So "not facing it" is never an option.
The things that help facilitate the fast track make the pain stay on the surface. Let's start with physical activity. When I am doing anything physical - cleaning house, walking, working out, this seems to give my anger permission to come to the surface. I am soon not only doing the physical activity but gritting my teeth and bawling my eyes out at the same time. People look at me like I am crazy when I go to the YMCA, so I have been avoiding that (but that is now my best option because it is so cold outside). Okay, let's switch to getting adequate rest. Sounds easy, right. Lay head down on pillow, optimium relaxation conditions - warm milk and hot tub before bed, comfortable pillow, soft blanket. Close eyes. See Max lying on the side of the road all curled up and dead. Open eyes. Decide whether to block it or deal with it. Either one takes effort and takes the focus off SLEEP. Repeat ten or twenty times before your body gives up and you fall asleep anyway. Dream of Max or have nightmares of Max ... or nightmares of running for your life. Wake up in a panic, with your jaws locked down tight, with a headache, drenched in sweat - okay, ready for a new day, right???????
Okay, something easier ... read a grief book or connect with other grieving parents ... now this is something that truly does help because I learn that I am NOT alone, I am not going crazy, and I can heal eventually if I can find a way to hang on through the hell of the first couple of years. (Which sounds like a freakin lifetime to someone who is trying to survive day by day, minute by minute).
Reach out to friends who want to help. Hmm, sometimes this helps and sometimes NOT. There are many variables that go into whether that works at the moment or not. I am sure this is frustrating for the friend who wants to help, but it is equally frustrating for the person who desperately needs to connect but can't find the will to get out of her pj's to make a coffee date happen. Last week I asked a friend to BRING me lunch rather than meet for lunch so I could stay in my pj.s, and it was a huge blessing. Oh I feel the guilt later of being lazy, but it's not even laziness that defines this desire to stay away from people. I am a mess most of the time. I was at church the other night and Todd & I had been fighting in the car, and I ended the fight by telling him where he could stick his argument, got out of the car and went into the church, crying. So I had a friend there who instantly was consoling me, and 20 other church go-ers who were stareing at the obvious scene I was trying so hard not to create. It's like my "edit" is gone, when the tears are there, they are there - and the STUPID FAST TRACK says it's best to let them come out whenever and wherever I am.
There is absolutely no dignity or control when this kind of a loss hits you. I lost all control when my son died without ANYONE asking me if it was okay, and then I lost all dignity when I had to make decision after decision of what to do with that beautiful body I gave birth to. Now I have lost the will to even care what people think of me, so I suppose that would go along with losing dignity as well. I have lost a lot of what I believed in life. The foundations I was building on were a lie. People go out the door every day and they are supposed to come home every night. THAT'S HOW IT WORKS. I feel like I live in a snowglobe that has been shaken and turned upside down. Okay, PUT THE DAMN GLOBE DOWN and let the snow settle please. I so badly want to feel upright again, that I can trust the ground beneath me.
So for now, I am riding the fast track, holding the strongest threads I can find to Jesus - the one thing that NEVER changes no matter how my circumstances do. I know He has what it takes, I just have to hang on for the ride and trust that He is doing Eternal work in my suffering.
The fastest way through the grief process and on to healing is THE MOST PAINFUL WAY, which is plowing head first into every feeling. Allow yourself to go with the flow of the pain. Think the thoughts when they come to mind - don't block them out or run from them. Go through your head over and over the details of how the death occurred, how you were told, how you reacted, what you did between learning of the death and the funeral, what you did with your child's body. Don't run from those memories, those have to be re-lived to accept them as truth. Go to therapy. Go to support groups. Journal. IT SUCKS.
Oh how I long for a pill or a drink or ANYTHING MAGIC to give me a short cut. I have been told multiple times by people who have lived to find the truth - that if you run from it now, right after the death, that it ONLY GETS WORSE when you finally do have to face it. So "not facing it" is never an option.
The things that help facilitate the fast track make the pain stay on the surface. Let's start with physical activity. When I am doing anything physical - cleaning house, walking, working out, this seems to give my anger permission to come to the surface. I am soon not only doing the physical activity but gritting my teeth and bawling my eyes out at the same time. People look at me like I am crazy when I go to the YMCA, so I have been avoiding that (but that is now my best option because it is so cold outside). Okay, let's switch to getting adequate rest. Sounds easy, right. Lay head down on pillow, optimium relaxation conditions - warm milk and hot tub before bed, comfortable pillow, soft blanket. Close eyes. See Max lying on the side of the road all curled up and dead. Open eyes. Decide whether to block it or deal with it. Either one takes effort and takes the focus off SLEEP. Repeat ten or twenty times before your body gives up and you fall asleep anyway. Dream of Max or have nightmares of Max ... or nightmares of running for your life. Wake up in a panic, with your jaws locked down tight, with a headache, drenched in sweat - okay, ready for a new day, right???????
Okay, something easier ... read a grief book or connect with other grieving parents ... now this is something that truly does help because I learn that I am NOT alone, I am not going crazy, and I can heal eventually if I can find a way to hang on through the hell of the first couple of years. (Which sounds like a freakin lifetime to someone who is trying to survive day by day, minute by minute).
Reach out to friends who want to help. Hmm, sometimes this helps and sometimes NOT. There are many variables that go into whether that works at the moment or not. I am sure this is frustrating for the friend who wants to help, but it is equally frustrating for the person who desperately needs to connect but can't find the will to get out of her pj's to make a coffee date happen. Last week I asked a friend to BRING me lunch rather than meet for lunch so I could stay in my pj.s, and it was a huge blessing. Oh I feel the guilt later of being lazy, but it's not even laziness that defines this desire to stay away from people. I am a mess most of the time. I was at church the other night and Todd & I had been fighting in the car, and I ended the fight by telling him where he could stick his argument, got out of the car and went into the church, crying. So I had a friend there who instantly was consoling me, and 20 other church go-ers who were stareing at the obvious scene I was trying so hard not to create. It's like my "edit" is gone, when the tears are there, they are there - and the STUPID FAST TRACK says it's best to let them come out whenever and wherever I am.
There is absolutely no dignity or control when this kind of a loss hits you. I lost all control when my son died without ANYONE asking me if it was okay, and then I lost all dignity when I had to make decision after decision of what to do with that beautiful body I gave birth to. Now I have lost the will to even care what people think of me, so I suppose that would go along with losing dignity as well. I have lost a lot of what I believed in life. The foundations I was building on were a lie. People go out the door every day and they are supposed to come home every night. THAT'S HOW IT WORKS. I feel like I live in a snowglobe that has been shaken and turned upside down. Okay, PUT THE DAMN GLOBE DOWN and let the snow settle please. I so badly want to feel upright again, that I can trust the ground beneath me.
So for now, I am riding the fast track, holding the strongest threads I can find to Jesus - the one thing that NEVER changes no matter how my circumstances do. I know He has what it takes, I just have to hang on for the ride and trust that He is doing Eternal work in my suffering.
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