“Deep sadness is sometimes almost like a certain place, a coordinate on a time map. When you stand in this forest of grief, you cannot imagine ever finding your way to a better place. But when someone can assure you that they've stood in the same spot and now moved on, it sometimes brings hope. " ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
I had a turbulent and interesting relationship with my father. He was a strong, proud man both in spirit and physical appearance. In my younger years, I knew my father as the last disciplinarian, breadwinner, and patriarch of the family. From a young age I felt separated from him and disagreed with his tough parenting decisions.
While I don't want to speak too badly of my late father, to put it lightly, he wasn't always the most sensitive person to other people's feelings or thoughts.
Perhaps it was my father's past that was deeply struck by abuse and alcoholism in childhood. Perhaps it was the manipulation techniques that he had learned as a psychologist to control people. In any event, abuse, especially emotional abuse, was rampant in my home.
During my senior year of high school, he was diagnosed with a serious, life-changing illness. When his job fired him because of poor health, his decline became even steeper. My father, the man who was the epitome of control and strength in my family, lost control of all body functions and became very fragile and fragile.
Tasks that were seen as elementary or simple became very difficult because of his illness. Activities like unbuttoning buttons, writing a letter, or eating became very difficult. He had severe, deep hallucinations and his weight began to drop rapidly. These are just a few of the many symptoms his illness has caused.
The year before his death, I took a break between high school and college to help my mother take care of him. For this reason, I experienced his journey through illness and death very closely. This year was the "year out of hell".
Not only did I help care for a dying parent, but we also had an enormous bug infestation in our house and a flood that wiped out our entire first floor. It was one of those years that got me on my knees. My mother, the only person who had this experience with me, often wonders how we got through this year alive and / or healthy. It was that bad.
I saw things that broke my heart and belittled my spirit. I picked up my bleeding father when he fell. I witnessed his severe hallucinations. One night he got a scary look in the eye and yelled that there were people in the house with guns that would kill us. I hid in my room with the door locked for fear of him.
My most painful memory was seeing him shortly before his death, walking back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness. I've never seen anything like it. The memory still haunts me.
When he died during my freshman year, I thought I would be fine. I had spent a year watching him go down so I could just get on with life as usual, right? The grief wouldn't hit me. I had already worked through it all. Boy I was on a wild ride
I had spent the last year having an incredibly difficult experience and based on what I had been through my maturity was well above the normal eighteen to twenty year old. I struggled to fit into a college party school setting. The things college kids cared about at this point seemed so trivial to me. I was busy thinking about the impermanence of life and the burial plans. My friends thought about rush hour.
I fell into the deepest depression of my life. I was in so much pain that I felt that the only way out was not to be present on this earth. I would pray that when I went to sleep that everything that existed "up there" would take me with it and that I would never wake up. Getting through the day felt like running a triathlon. The only time I felt solstice was when I was sleeping.
How did I get here? How did I get from the depression I ever experienced to sit here in a cafe and type peacefully?
I want to share some of the most important tools that have helped me on my grief journey and depression. While they may not all work for you, I hope that at least one of them will help you find peace. Most importantly, I want to keep emphasizing that you are not alone. At the end of the tunnel there is a light, as clichéd as it sounds.
Be gentle with yourself.
As I worked through deep trauma and grief, I was surprised at how my body reacted. Little did I know that my subconscious was processing the experience as I processed what had happened on a superficial level. Because of this, I was incredibly tired and emotional the whole time. It took me so much sleep and decompressing time.
It was incredibly important to give my body and mind the time I needed to process what I had been through. Mentally and emotionally working through difficult experiences is not a sprint. It takes time. In the long run, being gentle with myself and not rushing my healing journey has been very helpful.
Find a qualified psychologist as soon as possible.
My partner recently asked me what is the best thing that has happened to me in the last ten years. I told them it was my mother who got me an experienced and powerful therapist when I was sixteen.
I know that there is therapeutic shame in many circles. I've seen people in the mental health field refuse to receive therapy. While they believe in other people's mental health, they believe that they don't need anyone to help them even though they struggle deeply.
When I speak as someone who has lived their entire life researching mental health and wanting to make a living from it, I want to say this once and for all: Everyone, no matter how healthy or "woken up" you are Having a qualified psychiatrist can benefit from seeing.
The ability to share your problems with a trustworthy person who is trained and trained to deal with trauma and difficult situations is incredibly healing. Therapists give you techniques and tools to move through your difficult situations and are a non judgmental place to make room for you as you come through painful life circumstances.
Still, I often tell my friends that finding a therapist is like finding the perfect sweater. Not everyone will fit. People have different techniques, energies, and listening styles. Let yourself be researched into what is best for you, and don't be discouraged when some people have to find a positive fit.
Share your story.
The power to share your story is profound. Being able to claim something that happened to you and express it to people who have room for you is an incredibly healing and cathartic process. When I was able to express what I was feeling, I felt that those feelings no longer had any power over me. I felt liberated.
As a caveat, I learned that it is important to carefully consider who to share my story with. I chose people who I believed had a right to hear my story. So if I knew Aunt Sally was brushing my story aside or telling me that my feelings weren't valid, I wouldn't share my story with her. She didn't deserve the right to witness my experience.
My journey through life and experiences are beautiful and valuable. I am honored to share it.
Depending on your environment and your support group, you may want to get creative with who to choose. I know that not everyone has a group of supportive friends or family members. If you fall into this category, I highly recommend looking into other ways, such as B. after grief support groups, national helplines, group counseling, talking to a mentor and / or contacting a counselor. No matter the situation, you are never alone. There are people out there who are trained and ready to help.
Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.
When I found myself in the deepest pit of grief and depression, it seemed impossible to feel gratitude. I really felt like there is nothing in my life to be thankful for. My friend recommended that I write down ten things that I was grateful for every day when she heard how much I was struggling.
I didn't write down any big things. I wrote about the little joys in life. No matter how stupid things were, there was something that made my life easier every day. Sometimes it was the fluffy blanket that was put over me to keep me warm. Or the trashy TV show that made me laugh. Or even though I declined, the invitation my friend sent to ask if I would like to have coffee with her.
The other thing I got into in the morning was to write the three things I looked forward to every day. When I was in my deepest point of depression, sometimes things were incredibly small. Writing down what I was looking forward to, however, kept me moving, even when I felt overwhelmed. This may seem like a small thing; However, practicing gratitude on a daily basis is still one of my most helpful tools in stabilizing my mood.
Be open to alternative forms of help.
I was always resistant to taking anti-anxiety / depression medication. This was due to some illiterate prejudice in my past that I was working through at this point in my life. However, coming to terms with my father's death and the grief that followed while studying was incredibly painful. I remember getting so depressed in the morning that I would stare at the ceiling of my dormitory and pray that I would just die. It was even more difficult to get myself out of bed.
My therapist suggested that I take depression medication, but I was resistant. Finally one day my mother said to me, "Angela, if your best friend was in so much pain and medication could help her, would you shame her not to take it?"
"Of course not", I thought. “I would absolutely encourage them to take it. Who knows maybe it could help? "After saying these words, I knew what to do.
I went to a psychiatrist and he put me on a low dose of depression medication to make me feel good. You know what? It helped a lot. If I hadn't taken this medication, I don't know if I would write this article for you today.
I am writing this in order not to urge anyone to take a certain type of medication or to try certain forms of healing. However, I encourage people to try new healing methods based on their experience. If you have had an extraordinarily painful experience, more intense action will sometimes be required to return to a new normal.
Find a sense of community.
If this experience or even 2020 taught me something, it is that we should not live this human life alone. It is incredibly important that during difficult times we surround ourselves with people and environments that we can rely on and who can support us.
For me it meant dragging myself to a grief support group every Wednesday even though I was drowning in homework and had so many things to do in my life.
It meant pushing myself to go out with my friends who loved me, even when I didn't really feel like it or felt too sluggish.
The fellowship made me go to Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday. Sure, I didn't know anyone and sat there alone; However, I felt very comfortable in a room where people only focused on spreading love.
If I needed time alone, I definitely took it. However, it was incredibly important to purposely spend time with people who made me feel comforted and loved.
Remember this is a time of year and your pain will subside over time.
I remember when I was at my worst point with depression I really didn't think it was going to get any better. I was in such a dark place that I literally couldn't even grasp that I was going to feel like me again. People would tell me that I would be happy again and that I would roll my eyes. They didn't understand how much pain I was in.
The pain told me that there was no way I would get through this experience. I would feel unhappy forever. I was permanently changed. I felt like I had fallen so deep into the box that there was no way out. I felt helpless, stuck, and alone.
Four years from now, however, I want to say that the people who told me it would get better were absolutely correct.
Sometimes, while working with deep depression or deep trauma, the brain can play little mind games with you and tell you that things will never get better. With everything I have and everything I am, I promise that someday you will see the light again. You will be so glad that you got through the pain and appeared on the other side.
A note on the grief of a poisonous person in your life
Sometimes when we see the death of a toxic or abusive person in our life, we have mixed feelings. This is something that is not talked about and something that I really struggled with on my healing journey.
Let me be clear, I didn't want my father to die and I didn't want him to feel pain. I wouldn't wish that to anyone. However, he has caused tremendous pain in my life, and this in turn has led to sometimes conflicting emotions as I come through his death.
Sometimes when I miss him the memory pops up that he hit me in the face. Or when he kept manipulating me emotionally to get what he wanted and I finally gave in, exhausted from the games. I still find it difficult to process these experiences and talk about them.
I want to emphasize that if you have a similar experience with a dying person who has been a painful person in your life and has mixed feelings, you are not alone. You are not a bad person. Or bad. Or sick. You have received trauma from a perpetrator, and it is natural to be angry with them, whether they are dead or alive.
The emotions and feelings that you process are valid and, above all, okay. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I've figured out all of this. To be honest, the complex wedding ceremony I'm still working on. However, what I can do is share your testimony of your feelings and remind you that whatever you are feeling is not strange or a reason to be ashamed.
With the closing of this article, I want to express that I am still implementing all of the above suggestions in my life, although I am no longer depressed or feel a lot of grief. The things I learned to help me navigate my way out of grief, trauma, and depression help me be a happier person now.
Maybe I had to have this experience to learn this, or maybe I would have found out at some point without her. You will never know. However, I know that I have never felt so liberated in my life, and I am really grateful for these painful years. You led me to my beautiful life today.
About Angela Lois
Angela Lois is a professional musician and recreational trainer. She tells her stories about personal struggle and growth to make people feel less alone in this world. If you'd like to connect or sign up for their newsletter, send an email to [email protected].
Typo or inaccuracy? Please contact us so we can fix the problem!
