Well Cast : The Grieving Process: Coping With Death (Image taken as screen capture from Well Cast video)
"I stacked up the books expecting to read myself through the loss, you know, like the words would somehow take the pain out of what was happening to me. I felt numb. Displaced. Lost in my own skin. And a fraud. Six months down the line and everything on Facebook looks just fine. I'm out Saturday night. Got tickets to a show. You know, happy shots and everything looks just fine in the pictures. Inside I am numb. I feel so disconnected to my body that hunger, tiredness, even the happiness for my best friend getting married - it all feels fake, distant. Like I am not really there or something. I forget who I am".
"The loss of her is... all around me. I didn't know that loss like this would feel so so ..I don't know, flattening? yes flat, I feel like ..a steamroller, you know..on the roads.. has slowly run over me and right now I am under it. I am under it and at the same time I'm at work, I am talking, I am shaving and running and I am making love to my partner and all the time, this feeling is in me. I cry differently now too. You know, when it was the funeral, when she died I cried like it made sense to cry. Now it comes like a bolt, like a jolt in my chest. Empty and heavy all at once. I couldn't sleep for the first few months and now I dread when the tiredness is closest. Just as I am about to fall asleep I remember the hospital, she is taking her last breath or I see a moment, and I think....when maybe I could have done more or had I missed something....
...This is all in the books. What's happening, what to do. Books are for some but..but I feel like I am reading a lecture or being told what feel. Like ok now you are at this stage. I don't need the books to tell me. I need this. I need to talk about it. I need to talk about how scared I am that she is gone, really gone. How scared I am of that irreversible absolute gone. I can't talk about it anymore with my partner, it doesn't feel right and it's too difficult to face my family or...I don't know..I think I need to experience the grieving on my terms. Whatever that means. With no one telling me 'you'll get over it' or 'it's time to move on now' or any of that. I just need to be with my pain, I need to be with the pain of losing her...like.. as life and everything around me moves on and continues on"
- Anon. transcript & with permission /Erich
The included video is linked from the WellCast YouTube.com channel. I highly recommend taking a look at this channel as they have thoughtfully and sensitively set out to support, teach and assist with a variety of Mental Health & Awareness subject matters. Click Here to see more. /Erich