As my wife and I often say, having recently (two years feels like yesterday) lost our eldest son to throes of severe anxiety and addiction, it’s about absorption. How much can we absorb? How much can our hearts, our minds, our self-inflicted guilt absorb until our souls crack?
I believe you are correct. It’s not resilience. It’s work. You keep pushing. You hold on. You harden. You hope some of it dissipates as time goes by. And then, when you catch yourself having a moment when you forget to think about him, the guilt creeps in. The malaise. Like a low pressure day. Your internal barometer is always off.
People tell us we’re handling it so well. We’re bouncing back. They don’t see the machinery at work behind it all. There’s no bouncing. Fortitude snd steeling are good terms for it. I do wrestle with where my faith lies. What kind of faith it is. In the end, I think death and loss, like so much else, is a part of living. There is no normal or perfect life. There’s life. You get at it. That’s it. And it’s good. It is. I do more reevaluating and scale weighing every day to make sure I’m right. To help stay on course. Uncharted as it is. Life is good. We can’t let the monsters take it from us.
Thanks for sharing this one. Heart felt clarity and truth.
Christopher and to your wife and family, I can’t begin to express how I will hold you in my heart. Thank you for sharing your story with me and I hope we can continue to talk about this. I am writing my next episode and it’s hard to get through on the myth of resilience.
I believe it to be true that our bodies absorb the emotional pain we experience. People from the outside like to say “look, you’re handling it so well.”
Do you find that not dismissive of your feelings and what you’re going through? We are not puppies to be cuddled after a thunderstorm, with a pat on the head, “there there.” (Not withstanding how traumatizing thunderstorms can be to puppies.)
I’ve read about the stages of grief having lost my brother about 14 years ago to suicide. It took me two years to accept it was true. He was the epitome of the happy-go-lucky middle-aged man who always had a smile, something fine, and funny to say, and if you were hard up for grocery money or just needed help to replace that flat tire on your vehicle, he would step in and never hear about being repaid.
It took me years to ask: who looked after him? He absorbed a lot of trauma from other people, as well as from a rough upbringing being the least favorite son in a family that made him the favored scapegoat.
The guilt you mentioned registers with me. That moment when you feel the sun is shining and life is good, and then there’s a dinner plate set down and all of a sudden you just lose it.
Sometime later in the year, I will write about grief, as I’m still coming to understand my own. At this stage of my life, I believe the grief is cyclical. It revisits us every year, not always with the same intensity, but sometimes more so and sometimes less.
Please remind others that we don’t bounce back. We are profoundly affected by life.
And if we weren’t, we would be something close to sociopaths. (I’m only half joking.)
You understand, Maria. I believe everything you say is true. Every time grief pays me a visit, it’s as if we’re becoming old acquaintances. Not friends. Each visit is triggered by something else. Each visit takes on a different nuance and is like another shard of glass cutting into my soul. Its edges unlike any of the previous shards. I ready my defenses, based on previous visits, but it does no good. It’s an on going, wearisome battle. It’s not about resilience. It’s about being a warrior. The enemy’s within. We tear away at ourselves. We change. We’re never the same again. But I know we have to fight. There is light.
I am sorry about your brother. I’m sorry you are fighting your own battle. I know your grief is your own. Different than mine or anyone else’s. No one understands that until it happens to them. It’s a sub-world all its own.
We’ll chat again. Keep sharing your insights and truths. They help. Thank you.
Many of us here understand that foreboding shadow of loss. I think grief is a thief. It tears us up from within. One hundred shards of glass emerge and reemerge and it’s impossible not to acknowledge the creeping feeling that the wounds will show themselves at times seemingly unknown and unexpected.
I thought days like his birthday or anniversary of his death would be the sort of thing to steel myself for. Those days are difficult, yes. But we can prepare for them in some ways—to make a plan to be gentle with ourselves.
It’s the unexpected things that I felt and still feel catch me off my guard. I hear a man’s boisterous ribbing of his friend in the aisle at home depot and the tears come out of nowhere.
Yes, our grief is not like any one else’s. Thank you for saying that.
One winter morning I texted my younger sister to tell her that “I miss him too.” Not because it was any special day—but because it was like any other day.
I know his death affects her in moments that I could never anticipate, just as mine wells up at an unexpected turn buying lightbulbs or selecting paint. And bless the poor customer service lady who asks if I need any help.
Omg I never thought about résilience this way. A lot of people close to me keep telling me that I am résilient because of of all the bad things I have been through in my life. But reading this I realize it is so harmful. Thank you for opening my eyes ❤️
Other phrases that people will throw around is: “oh you’re a strong woman,” or strong person.
Many people will say you “got this.”
Their intention isn’t to boost one’s self-esteem, it’s to let them off the hook. It’s dismissive.
They don’t have to think about what you’ve endured. They tell you you’re going to be fine and ask what’s for dinner?
They don’t have to acknowledge your pain, or say, I feel your experience. I see you.
Black Ladies face a doubling of this when inter generational pain and trauma is weaponized against them.
“It’s in your DNA” is another version of this I hear both black and white people tell black women.
We see this most clearly in the medical community, where black women’s pain is ignored, so they are not prescribed painkillers that anybody else would receive; hemorrhaging during childbirth or during miscarriage is not even acknowledged as a problem—leading to triple the maternal death rate of black women.
And that is only one example.
When popular culture tells you that you’re supposed to bounce back and you’ve heard that your whole life it’s hard to say it’s a crock of shit. But it is.
Thanks for commenting and for reading my work and encouraged me along. It helps to know that I’m reaching you.
As my wife and I often say, having recently (two years feels like yesterday) lost our eldest son to throes of severe anxiety and addiction, it’s about absorption. How much can we absorb? How much can our hearts, our minds, our self-inflicted guilt absorb until our souls crack?
I believe you are correct. It’s not resilience. It’s work. You keep pushing. You hold on. You harden. You hope some of it dissipates as time goes by. And then, when you catch yourself having a moment when you forget to think about him, the guilt creeps in. The malaise. Like a low pressure day. Your internal barometer is always off.
People tell us we’re handling it so well. We’re bouncing back. They don’t see the machinery at work behind it all. There’s no bouncing. Fortitude snd steeling are good terms for it. I do wrestle with where my faith lies. What kind of faith it is. In the end, I think death and loss, like so much else, is a part of living. There is no normal or perfect life. There’s life. You get at it. That’s it. And it’s good. It is. I do more reevaluating and scale weighing every day to make sure I’m right. To help stay on course. Uncharted as it is. Life is good. We can’t let the monsters take it from us.
Thanks for sharing this one. Heart felt clarity and truth.
Christopher and to your wife and family, I can’t begin to express how I will hold you in my heart. Thank you for sharing your story with me and I hope we can continue to talk about this. I am writing my next episode and it’s hard to get through on the myth of resilience.
I believe it to be true that our bodies absorb the emotional pain we experience. People from the outside like to say “look, you’re handling it so well.”
Do you find that not dismissive of your feelings and what you’re going through? We are not puppies to be cuddled after a thunderstorm, with a pat on the head, “there there.” (Not withstanding how traumatizing thunderstorms can be to puppies.)
I’ve read about the stages of grief having lost my brother about 14 years ago to suicide. It took me two years to accept it was true. He was the epitome of the happy-go-lucky middle-aged man who always had a smile, something fine, and funny to say, and if you were hard up for grocery money or just needed help to replace that flat tire on your vehicle, he would step in and never hear about being repaid.
It took me years to ask: who looked after him? He absorbed a lot of trauma from other people, as well as from a rough upbringing being the least favorite son in a family that made him the favored scapegoat.
The guilt you mentioned registers with me. That moment when you feel the sun is shining and life is good, and then there’s a dinner plate set down and all of a sudden you just lose it.
Sometime later in the year, I will write about grief, as I’m still coming to understand my own. At this stage of my life, I believe the grief is cyclical. It revisits us every year, not always with the same intensity, but sometimes more so and sometimes less.
Please remind others that we don’t bounce back. We are profoundly affected by life.
And if we weren’t, we would be something close to sociopaths. (I’m only half joking.)
🤗
-Maria
You understand, Maria. I believe everything you say is true. Every time grief pays me a visit, it’s as if we’re becoming old acquaintances. Not friends. Each visit is triggered by something else. Each visit takes on a different nuance and is like another shard of glass cutting into my soul. Its edges unlike any of the previous shards. I ready my defenses, based on previous visits, but it does no good. It’s an on going, wearisome battle. It’s not about resilience. It’s about being a warrior. The enemy’s within. We tear away at ourselves. We change. We’re never the same again. But I know we have to fight. There is light.
I am sorry about your brother. I’m sorry you are fighting your own battle. I know your grief is your own. Different than mine or anyone else’s. No one understands that until it happens to them. It’s a sub-world all its own.
We’ll chat again. Keep sharing your insights and truths. They help. Thank you.
Many of us here understand that foreboding shadow of loss. I think grief is a thief. It tears us up from within. One hundred shards of glass emerge and reemerge and it’s impossible not to acknowledge the creeping feeling that the wounds will show themselves at times seemingly unknown and unexpected.
I thought days like his birthday or anniversary of his death would be the sort of thing to steel myself for. Those days are difficult, yes. But we can prepare for them in some ways—to make a plan to be gentle with ourselves.
It’s the unexpected things that I felt and still feel catch me off my guard. I hear a man’s boisterous ribbing of his friend in the aisle at home depot and the tears come out of nowhere.
Yes, our grief is not like any one else’s. Thank you for saying that.
One winter morning I texted my younger sister to tell her that “I miss him too.” Not because it was any special day—but because it was like any other day.
I know his death affects her in moments that I could never anticipate, just as mine wells up at an unexpected turn buying lightbulbs or selecting paint. And bless the poor customer service lady who asks if I need any help.
-m.
Omg I never thought about résilience this way. A lot of people close to me keep telling me that I am résilient because of of all the bad things I have been through in my life. But reading this I realize it is so harmful. Thank you for opening my eyes ❤️
Miss Quinn,
You’re exactly correct on this.
Other phrases that people will throw around is: “oh you’re a strong woman,” or strong person.
Many people will say you “got this.”
Their intention isn’t to boost one’s self-esteem, it’s to let them off the hook. It’s dismissive.
They don’t have to think about what you’ve endured. They tell you you’re going to be fine and ask what’s for dinner?
They don’t have to acknowledge your pain, or say, I feel your experience. I see you.
Black Ladies face a doubling of this when inter generational pain and trauma is weaponized against them.
“It’s in your DNA” is another version of this I hear both black and white people tell black women.
We see this most clearly in the medical community, where black women’s pain is ignored, so they are not prescribed painkillers that anybody else would receive; hemorrhaging during childbirth or during miscarriage is not even acknowledged as a problem—leading to triple the maternal death rate of black women.
And that is only one example.
When popular culture tells you that you’re supposed to bounce back and you’ve heard that your whole life it’s hard to say it’s a crock of shit. But it is.
Thanks for commenting and for reading my work and encouraged me along. It helps to know that I’m reaching you.
🥰
-Maria