This grieving stuff is difficult. Denial, feelings of sadness, anger, and then bargaining - thinking of things I can do or should have done to make it all right. When the hell does acceptance finally get here?
I don't know if I have ever grieved with awareness before. I think I suppressed the emotions, ignored them, or numbed myself with sugar, television or alcohol.
But this time I'm driving through with eyes and heart wide open. And ouch it hurts. I do have faith though that I'll be a better person when I finish with it because I will have learned something about myself.
I had read about the grieving process and the work done by Kubler Ross years ago. About how grieving goes through stages. What I didn't realize is that the stages all sort of happen at once. I'll feel angry for awhile; then I'm sad; then I think of an idea about how I can make things right. I want to call her and ask how her grieving is going or if she is grieving at all? I go around and around.
I'm happy though that I at least can recognize and identify what is going on in me. That helps a lot. And I'm not in denial. Or at least I don't think I'm in denial. If you say you are not in denial, doesn't that suggest you are in denial? God this is all so confusing.
And I'm not grieving constantly. That comes and goes too. It does help to share it with you all so thanks for reading
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One man's effort to develop a spiritual practice
About Me
- Michael Ryan
- Westerly, RI, United States
- That's me chillin on Ipanema Beach Rio de Janiero.
A recent televison appearance on WJAR
Current meaningful quotes
'Don't talk, don't trust, don't feel'
The ACOA motto prior to recovery
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt"
Bertrand Russell
The ACOA motto prior to recovery
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt"
Bertrand Russell
"Every obnoxious act is a cry for help." Zig zigler
"It's a life's work to see yourself for what you really are and even then you might be wrong. And that is somethin I don't want to be wrong about. " Cormac McCarthy from No Country for Old Men
Currently reading or have recently read
- March by Geraldine Brooks
- A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
- No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
The Problems identified by ACOA
- We were dependent personalities, terrified of abandonment, willing to do almost anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to be abandoned emotionally. We keep choosing insecure relationships because they matched our childhood relationship with alcoholic or dysfunctional parents.
- We often confused love with pity, tending to love those we can rescue.
- We lived live from the standpoint of victims.
- We learned to keep our feelings down as children and keep them buried as adults.
- We had come to feel isolated, and uneasy with other people, especially authority figures.
- We got guilt feelings when we trusted ourselves, giving in to others
- We either became alcoholics ourselves, married them, or both. Failing that, we found other compulsive personalities, such as a workaholic, to fulfill our sick need for abandonment.
- We became reactors rather than actors, letting others take the initiative.
- We became addicted to excitement in all our affairs, preferring constant upset to workable solutions.
- We became people pleasers, even though we lost our own identities in the process.
- We would mistake any personal criticism as a threat.
- Having an over developed sense of responsibility, we preferred to be concerned with others rather than ourselves.
1 comment:
Mike,
When does acceptance finally get here? Initially, it came for me when I finally got sick and tired of fighting whatever it was that I was supposed to accept. I couldn't keep going round and round in my head, it was exhausting. Obviously, the first major thing I ever had to accept was my alcoholism. There have been plenty of other things since then, including the end of relationships. It ain't easy, as you well know and grief is one of the hardest emotions because I sometimes just don't know what to do with it.
Hindsight is 20/20 and there isn't one of us that has not thought about what we could have done to change things in a relationship after it was over, or how we could make it "right". I, too, wanted to call my previous boyfriend and would try to think of an excuse just to call. But then I stopped myself and examined my motives for calling. Am I calling to satisfy my ego? (good, he's hurting too). Am I calling to tell him that I can change (that's dishonest, then I wouldn't be me)Don't get me wrong, change is good if I am doing it for myself, not someone else. Am I calling because I was comfortable in the relationship and I would rather be in a non healthy relationship than no relationship at all. Usually if I examine my motives, the answer comes to me and I realize that I have no good or healthy reason to call. When I am tired of driving myself crazy, I accept that it is at an end. The grief lessens with time, as you know, the problem is no one can say how much time. I am glad to hear that the grief comes and goes for you and you are not in a constant state of pain.
I wish I could take some of the pain from you. I don't like to see you hurting, but we both know I can't. What I can do is maybe share some more things I have learned (not that I have this grief thing down by any means)about myself and how I try to change.
You mention in a previous blog about some characteristics these women shared. At some point, not tomorrow, not next month, maybe you can look at that list and dig deeper, and try to find some patterns that these relationships shared. Did you find yourself more attracted to them as you dicovered they may need to be "saved"? Did at some point a little voice in your head say that maybe this is not a healthy relationship and you ignored the voice? (I did that and it ended up with more heartache in the end)Patterns are comfortable and they are resistant to change unless I examine them, find out why I fall into them. The answers are not come by easily, it took me time, and I still don't think I have a complete handle on it, but it is the effort that counts. And it the effort through which I learn more about myself and why I did the things I did. Once I am aware of a pattern, it is not easy to ignore it and I can't go on the same way I always did.
It is all part of the journey, part of the discovery. Again, I am not suggesting you do these things tomorrow, but maybe during the period of time that you are spending single, you may want to look at these things. I found that first I had to be comfortable being alone, comfortable in my own skin. I had to like myself first and realize I was looking at this stuff to help me, not tear myself down or beat myself up. One of the patterns I discovered about me was dating and continuing to date men that didn't want to commit. When I discovered that pattern and studied it objectively, I realized it's me that doesn't want to commit. I think I have figured out the reason why, but I would have to start my own blog for that one!
You probably already know alot of this and forgive me for being repetitive, I just want to continue supporting you as you travel along. I know I had to have alot of different people tell me the same thing until it finally sank into my skull and I really understood it.
Just remember, our journeys may have potholes and roadblocks, but if we remain calm and not get bogged down in our emotions, we can always find a way around them. Maybe not the path we want to choose (acceptance) but there is a path.
Lin
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