Couch 193: The Aurora Borealis Couch

Obviously this guys a graduate of writing skool!

Open house sucked Only 6 couples showed up: all neighbors... So freaking nosy. I hate our neighbors. I feel like they judge us all the time because we're younger. I can't wait to move away from them.

A solace for my nightmare-filled night:
It’s girls weekend, away with my dear friends. When I woke this morning we had coffee, then I sent them off to breakfast without me and went back to bed. When they got back, they grabbed pillows and piled into my bed and we talked for a long time about nothings and big things and silly things.

Then we ate cheese and they dragged me to a junk sale. They are lovely. I am really really blessed.

I think one thing about grieving a therapist is that it is usually a disenfranchised kind of grief. That lack of recognition and understanding can compound the pain.

Why disenfranchised? Are you saying we have no right to grieve over a T?

The term disenfranchised doesn't usually mean that there is no right, rather that right is not recognised within wider society. See also: pet loss, loss of a friend...

What Lost said below. That the grief is often not recognised or seen as valid by others.

Morning, Couch. The next week is hard, but I have to persevere.

For sure and of course it's always ones that bring negative emotions. I don't remember happy anniversaries... like I couldn't tell you the date I adopted either of my dogs but I can tell you the date my dog died and the date he was diagnosed with cancer. Sigh...

I'm not sure, I didn't realize it was a thing until a friend brought it up in chat and then I googled it. It talks about that feeling of being stuck and how you avoid reminders of them etc and talk to to a therapist. Maybe it's treated more like chronic depression.

At any rate, every article I see about it talks about death of a loved one, even the quiz about if you have it, it mentions the death, it doesn't say "loss" so I'm thinking in reality it's something you only get when someone dies.

Otherwise it's just "Regular" grief, which itself is a massive pain in the rump

Yes, exactly. With grieving ex-MC, I didn't feel I could really talk about it with friends other than people from here or else my T. I was feeling really bad the night of the termination anniversary a couple weeks ago and know I could have technically called a crisis line, but I told my T that I was afraid they'd just be like, "You're grieving what???" He understood that concern and how it was complicated. (I suppose I could have just said I was feeling sad or grieving and not gone into specifics, but still...)

Yes, this! I feel so "alone" with this grief in comparison to my dog. I feel crazy about it as well, like it's so stupid and i SHOULD be over it by now.... which only frustrates me more. With my situation, I'm even more "scared" to talk about it even here and with certain online friends because of things we did together that are frowned upon. So I have to be extra guarded which makes me feel even more alone, hell, I'm even guarded in therapy about it.

I know some people here don't believe it but, for me, the only way through my grief about Ex T 1 was talking it through with current T/. Sadly I dealt with Ex T 2 in between and it made the whole thing worse. I felt so alone with my feelings and having a place to deal with them was vital for me.

I believe it. grief is different for everyone. When I lost my dog, my T kept me feeling "sane" and kept me distracted on other things in life... while still allowing me space to talk about him and remember him and cry etc. That level of support was the biggest factor in dealing with that loss as well as I did... but this is different... with being "guarded" about what I said and not wanting any closeness with another T etc, I can't really get anything near that this time nor can I with anyone outside T because no one in my real life knows but my best friend and well, we are basically not friends anymore

Is the effort taken to try and avoid all pain worth it? It would seem to me that effort is misguided in that I don't believe it is possible and one could be enjoying the benefits of other things even though they will ultimately end. I don't think people are so fragile in reality.

We are heading to the observatory to spend the day with peeps from current astronomy classes. Should be fun! I brought my camera, will share pics later this afternoon.

Just washed dishes, kidlet asks what I'm doing that for, since I just did it yesterday. Uhhh, what does this say about my housekeeping?

Same kid correctly used pivotal in a sentence this week. Maybe she's getting good at sarcasm.

Stressed, Sounds like one of my minions got loose! Sorry about that!

In my building happiness is getting a free washing machine in the basement on the weekend the first time you go down.

I love this!

You're not a failure for getting the support and extra help you need. Stressful things will always be stressful and several triggers in one go would be hard on anyone.

Well done! Dinner at yours next week?

Have any of you done "group therapy" and did it help? Can you still do it with individual? I am thinking of. There's a few local ones that might help me but they are lead by women, although this is the only place I'd be ok trying that, since there's a group.

Do you usually have to have a private session with them prior though?

DP, this podcast just came up in my queue and was helpful for me, as in many ways I am dealing with unconventional grief. On Being: The Myth of Closure

Actually, the whole idea of ambiguous loss was helpful. Just hearing the definition resonated in an “Oh!” kind of way.

I don't think you even treat regular grief, because it's not pathological. A therapist can offer support, but I wouldn't call it treatment. With complicated grief, it's a little bit different, I think, because the mourning process does not follow what is considered a normal/healthy trajectory and continues to cause considerable impairment even after a long time. This is obviously not to say that grief ever goes away, just that with complicated grief, I think the idea is that there is a level of functional impairment that can be very intrusive and destabilizing even after some time has passed. I would think the treatment would be figuring out how to adjust and relate to the loss without being overwhelmed by it, and also transitioning to re-engaging in a life in which the loss is only one part. It kind of reminds me of a sort of grief PTSD.