When you grieve in a grief group

Photo by Alif Ngoylung on Unsplash

Yesterday was a hard day. Perhaps it always will be-

So, I take care of myself the only way I know how - with meditating and prayers, being sober, writing to process and going by the water.

I live near enough to go to the Land Between the Lakes, large natural lakes, so I drive up there and sit by the water when I need calming and re-centering.

I did that also because-

Yesterday evening, I went back to the grief group last night and though these women - mostly older women who are widows - are very kind to me -

Sometimes, it feels more isolating and alone.

It’s not only because I’m the youngest person there.

I listen to their stories and hear their loss -

And I know it hurts. I know it’s painful. I honor and validate that -

But, also, from my vantage point - I envy them.

Because they get to hold [more] space for the joy and the love -

Their love for their person and that relationship does not have to be entirely shaped by how the person died.

Now, let me pause and say -

I do hate that I feel that way, I really do.

And I don’t entirely agree with it.

I often times have read and even have encouraged others who have lost someone by suicide to know - to believe - that their loved one is more than how they died.

And I do believe it. Cognitively. Rationally. Logically.

Still, as much as I try to de-stigmatize suicide, and I do believe it also a disease -

There is still this core truth that they died at their own hands - it grips your heart and soul, and I wrestle with how much of it was / could have been will - perhaps driving that desperation is also the haunting notion of whether or not it could have been prevented. Some degree of survivor’s guilt still churning over in myself.

Maybe it’s also hard to break free from the stigma, because you constantly hear that they “committed suicide.”

Even to their grave, their method of death is marked. Tainted, so often by our language.

We don’t do the same thing with poor management of health that leads to heart disease or smoking for decades that results in cancer.

We don’t say they committed themselves onto cancer, it’s on them.

They committed a heart attack, even if it is large their fault.

But we do this with suicide.

It’s the really shitty thing about what we have to hear about those who lost someone to suicide -

As if it’s not hard enough to lose someone to suicide, you have to constantly be reminded that society and culture and religion have normalized this language to make it a crime.

Your loved one is not only dead at their own hand but they are likened to have committed a crime in death, so anytime you discuss how they left this world, undoubtedly someone will remind you -

And - To commit also means to perpetuate and to carry out a crime.

I get that is can also mean to bind someone to something - but still, even, so much more a serious, grave, permanent word that the grace we allow others to be free of, releasing them from their poor choices in health that may have led to their deaths.

That’s what stigma is. That’s why we still have need for mental health advocacy.

Maybe that’s part of the reason -

But also, I was reminded - I don’t get to feel entirely the same, in solidarity support, with these people -

I have no true peers in support - there’s no suicide group for multiple family members to sign up for - I recall when I went to the one and they all looked at me like I had two heads when I claimed two in my family.

It often makes me feel even more isolated and alone.

I feel bad saying this - sometimes, my presence in this group, also makes me feel comforted, encouraged and supported, even though that is the point-

Sometimes, it makes me feel even more isolated and alone in my grief.

Why do I go then?

I go because I am trying to manage intense, complicated grief which I was never able to properly, because there were too many, I was in shock, I drank the feelings down, and I didn’t have all the therapy and proper medications, I hadn’t yet had the mental health help and support.

I am trying the best I can to address my grief and to allow my emotions to flow through me.

In doing so, however, I realize why drinking was preferable, at points.

Because sometimes this heartache and gnawing pain in my soul feels like it will cause me to collapse in on myself. To crumble into a pile, burn into ashes.

I felt that way yesterday, after the grief group. So, desperate, I drove to water, which calms me.

I listen to music that reminds me of my family members.

I journal.

I wonder why - both Dad AND Jeremie?!?!

Though, I try not to embrace the self-pity mindset. It’s not a healthy place for me to be and it’s a slippery slope. In AA we say, ‘poor me, poor me — pour me a drink.”

But sometimes when I look back on my life over the past ten years, even in a neutral mindset of simply taking stock - I must say -

It is rather astounding. I baulk, still, to be honest with you.

Was that even real? (This is the trauma, talking.)

Not even always in a - why is this my burden to carry- sort of way -

Although I have certainly grappled with that many times.

But, moreso, has all of that really happen?

That THIS really is my family’s life story?

(I just wrote my life story, and then deleted it to write that instead above. I’m growing.)

I am reminded that emotions are meant to be emoted, that is, they are meant to move through the body.

And when you keep them stuck, they fester. Metastatize.

I have no choice -

I have to feel it all.

But I have to tell you, it’s really helluva intense as well.