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Originally Posted by here today
Great question, great discussion.
I don't "do" grief. It's complicated. Maybe It's complicated grief, though I was never diagnosed or treated for that. Mostly I think I turned that emotion off, like others, when I was a kid and it got me punished. Kind of like the swat and the saying, "Stop that or I'll give you something to cry about!" Ironically, the swat stopped the whole thing.  Go figure.
So anyway, when my soul mate late husband died, I didn't move on. I knew I "should", I knew it was the thing to do, I tried but I didn't want to at some core level and I couldn't overcome that so I have stayed stuck, just ever so slowly deteriorating. Yuck. Knew 18 years ago it would have been better for me and everybody still engaged in the world for me to
but "they say" it would be bad for the ones I left to do that, so I didn't.
I'm not at all sure that what "they say" is right in this case but my daughter would have glommed onto that as another thing to blame and deprecate me for, so I didn't.
That wasn't so much for me and my ego, though it may sound like it, as because I didn't think that feeling and thinking of her mother as "all bad" or "one down" would serve her well in the long run. So, yeah, I didn't want to be a bad mother. But having this walking corpse still around? I'm not at all sure that's done her much good either. But can't know that for sure either.
Maybe I don't attach exactly either. Did with my late husband but that's about it. Dug around in the swamp with therapists for years trying to find the core of the trauma and "recover" or "change" from that but It's apparently not just not available any more. Last therapist terminated me after 6 years because she "didn't have the emotional resources" to continue.
So, no grief, no connecting with anyone else again, just years and years of walking misery, "doing my best" as that gets worse and worse as I slowly, physically deteriorate.
I think "they" should reconsider what "they say" and allow a walk-in clinic at the funeral home. What's the point in continuing the torture if you're stuck and can't move on? But still, I don't want to "hurt" my kids and can't know for sure that I won't, so. . . |
My friend just lost her elderly mother a month ago, to dementia. Like you, she shut off her grief valve (for lack of a better term) and distracts herself with her work and travel instead of dealing with the loss. She also doesn't 'connect' emotionally with other people although she has a ton of friends, so that part I don't understand. She's just not emotionally available. Ever. But she's a nice person. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother waited until her husband beat my friend to a pulp before she finally left him. Maybe that is why she is emotionally unavailable to everyone, including her husband and friends. Who knows.
Maybe grief isn't possible for some people? Maybe your therapists are not the right resource for you to use, to try to access your grief. When my dad died, I had to go to a grief counselor at college and I saw a spiritual counselor. The spiritual counselor didn't help b/c I'm an Atheist and I don't believe in a deity or deities. But the grief counselor really helped b/c he was trained in the grief process whereas most run-of-the-mill therapists don't have a clue how to help a grieving person other than tell them to take a ton of antidepressants.
If you are artistically inclined you could try to access your loss through a class with some form of art. Talk therapy can only do so much.