What in the world is going on? Mrs. I've-got-it-under-control/ I-can-handle-anything-that-comes-my-way has now found herself flat on her @$$. I mean seriously. I feel like I've been run over by a mac truck. I can't make decisions. Even the easiest like- "What are we going to have for dinner tonight?" kind of decisions leave me standing in front of the fridge with a wide eyed blank stare. I can't remember anything. Half the time, I don't know what day it is. And I feel like I am developing behaviors associated with bipolar personality disorder.
So what is going on? Well, I'll tell you. It's called the grief process.
Four days after we closed on our new house and two days after we moved in, my dad died. He had been ill for many years and in October he called us in the early AM to take him to the hospital because he was having chest pains. Eight weeks later, he died at a local hospice facility. He never had the chance to come home again.
I dealt with it the best I could. He died Thanksgiving weekend. The same weekend my husband's father died in a tragic car accident seven years prior on the same mountain road that brings you to our new house. We traveled that road a lot that weekend.
I did not spend Thanksgiving with my dad. He was in ICU and they have limited visiting hours. I spent the afternoon painting at our new house so we could move all our stuff in. I intended to see him that evening. But I didn't. It had gotten too late by the time I finished painting and I had missed the last visitation for the day. I regret it.
Instead, I spent Thanksgiving with my mother at their house. She was alone. It was just us. It was strange.
Christmas came and all our friends wanted to come to our new house for the holidays. While it was good to see them and I was happy they were willing to make the extra drive to come see us, I secretly just wanted to be left alone. It wasn't the same. Things had changed. Lots had changed. A new house,
a lost dream, new surroundings, no dad. I felt sadness. I felt anger.
Fast forward a few months and to a new year. Spring is on its way. The days are getting longer. The air is getting warmer. The initial state of shock and denial centered around my dad's death is subsiding and I am moving into the next stages of grief.
My phone rings as I am driving down the road singing silly preschool songs with my daughter. I usually don't answer when I am driving, but something told me to pick up. It is my dearest and most cherished friend in all the world. Her voice is shaky and I immediately know something is wrong. She tells me her cancer is back. Stage four. It's in the liver and bones.
I keep driving but everything around me stops. I hear no sounds other than her voice on the other end of the line. The world slows. And that proverbial mac truck hits me head on- it's a full frontal collision. And for the rest of the day I am in full survival mode.
When you look at the stages of grief- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, one gets the false impression that it is an A+B+C+D+E= All BETTER NOW! process. Meaning, you go from one full stage into another stage until you have worked through it like an algebraic equation. And when you have reached stage E (Acceptance), you are done and can go on with life as it once was.
WRONG! The stages of grief are indeed progressive, but not formulaic. They are instead organic and there is no expressed time frame for the process to occur. Some people grieve for a short period of time. Some longer. Some grieve for the rest of their lives. You will go back and forth between the stages. Yes, it feels like a roller coaster. But the duration of your grief all depends upon the intensity of the loss and how willing you are to ALLOW yourself to grieve.
The good news is we all go through loss (and thus the grieving process) on a daily basis so we all have had lots of practice. A loss can be as simple as being disappointed or misplacing something of value. Major loss includes the loss of a job or loved one. But either way, the process of dealing with loss is the same. The duration of our grieving depends upon how important the loss is perceived to be.
Where we get unhealthy is when we DO NOT allow ourselves to go through the grieving process. When we try to tell ourselves, "Hmph! It didn't really matter anyway!"- when you know it did. Or when we try to distract ourselves from the grief- "Oh, I need a vacation!"- when you really need to stay home. Or, worse yet, when we try to replace the loss in our lives with something else. "Oh, let's go get a new puppy!"-because our old beloved dog passed away and we cannot stand to be reminded of him/her.
That's when we get into a bad place. You see, the grief process is natural. It needs to happen. Your body and mind MUST deal with the loss at some point. You can choose to deal with it either now or put it off until later, but the funny thing about loss is that it will always be there. Waiting for you.
So be kind to yourself. Cut yourself some slack and give yourself a break. Deal with your loss no matter how difficult it might be. You are going through a tough time right now and your life most likely will not be the same again. But that is not a bad thing. Change is scary. But be reassured that grief does not last forever. Remember, the final stage is acceptance. And acceptance is a good place to be.
