I have had no positive role models on the grieving process. I never witnessed the process of someone grieving a major loss. When my father passed 21 years ago I grieved for a short time and I remember my mother telling me time to move on, suck it up, that's enough. So I learned to stuff my feelings around grief. Then my mother passed 11 years ago she did not want a funeral so we followed her wishes. By not having the funeral I never got the closure I needed to heal from her death. Funerals are for the living to help them heal. So now here I am again with the grief of the loss of my baby. But this time I will not stuff my feelings. I will wail, cry, scream, laugh, write, go numb, but what ever the feeling is I'm going to feel it. I am going to process this loss. My therapist is telling me that due to the fact that I never got to truly mourn my parents deaths that it is making my feelings around my miscarriage that more intense. I believe it! Right now I'm in some of the most intense feelings I've ever felt in my life. Although I want to stuff them away and hide I push myself to feel and put them out there.
My question is how long does one grieve? But as I'm learning there is no time table and there is no right or wrong way as long as you give yourself permission to grieve.
I am so changed by this experience. I am so a different person now. This has just been such a significant event in my life. As much as I want to do everything perfect. I've learned perfection is over rated. So there is no formula to grief you just feel it as uncomfortable as it may be. I don't like being uncomfortable but I don't think anybody likes it. I do have my days where I stuff it and hide from my grief but then it just sneaks up on me and takes me off guard at bad moments. So I give permission to just sit and feel and the more frequently I do this the less intense things feel. Its a process and I'm working through it. Not around or over but right through the middle of the mess. I will come out the other side stronger.
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Sending you hugs, *big* hugs
ReplyDeleteDear Amanda,You are correct,tThere is no 'time limit' or 'time table' for grief...it is a process through which one sometimes takes a step or two forward and then sometimes seems to get stuck or can even take a step back into a place of re-lived sorrow. It is very important that you allow yourself to cry out the darkness to make room for the light...a light that will eventually shine a little more brightly in the distance to guide you forward. Blessings Galore, dear.
ReplyDeleteHow awesome it is that you are recognizing your need to grieve, and giving yourself permission to do so. That is just what you need to do. Good for you that you are able to see it, and do something about it. There are so many many women who don't even know they are grieving and continue fighting it, denying it, and struggling, but you are on the way to healing when you can recognize, "hey, this is what I've got to do, like it or not." Awesome!
ReplyDeleteIt's such a hard thing Amanda. Grief is one word that covers so many emotions. I hope your cries and hurts and angers and joys carry you through all the while knowing God is working in your heart. May He guide you each day. (((Hugs))) Katy
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