Grief Bubbles

 

Grief is such a weird and complicated emotion.  I don’t even think emotion is a good word for this often life changing emotional roller coaster.  We, as Americans, suck at grief.  Our society doesn’t recognize the extended and complicated process it often entails and instead allows for a nice stepwise progression that has an established time period associated with “healing” from your grief. 

Grief is a cornucopia of emotions and time lines, and nothing about it is linear.  The only thing that can be said is that it does get easier with time.  You don’t “heal” from grief.  You don’t “get over it”.  You don’t forget or really ever quit hurting with the remembered loss.  What you do is find a way to live with this new flavor of life and the living with it gets easier the more you do it. 

As a veterinarian and a life long animal owner I thought at my somewhat advanced age that I was actually well acquainted with loss and the emotions that go with it.  I have experienced the “normal” losses a person goes through with saying goodbye to lots of pets, grandparents and I lost a couple of dear uncles.   But, when my own personal BIG loss came I was devastated in a way that I didn’t think was possible for me.  The devastation was so disorienting that it made be question so much about who I thought I was and what I thought I was capable of.  The depth of the pain was crippling and all I could think about was that I wanted it to stop.  I was not suicidal and did not want to hurt myself at that point but for the first time in my life I understood how someone can feel that is the only way for them.  I knew deep down that if I stopped breathing and my life ended it would be nothing but a relief. 

As time passed and I got some professional help to deal with the trauma of my loss I began to breath in a way that allowed me to carry the weight of the grief without so much struggle.  I will never forget the first time I laughed spontaneously and actually joyfully after that event.  It was weeks after the trauma.   It felt so foreign and it was followed not by relief but profound fear that I wouldn’t figure out how to be normal again. 

Now I’m in my second year of this new life.  Most of the time I feel what I’ve learned to call my new normal.  I laugh and enjoy life most of the time.  But what I keep experiencing that I haven’t ever heard someone else talk about in grief is a phenomenon I can only call grief bubbles.  They are happening with decreasing frequency but they still surprise me.

 These bubbles of grief most often stem from periods of serenity, happiness or thankfulness.  It’s movements in my life when I am practicing counting my blessings or finding joy in the smallest and simplest pleasures that the old grief bubbles up and suddenly I find myself sobbing like it all happened yesterday.  Luckily these bubbles are really brief and if I’m doing something during which sobbing is not conducive to societal norms (like buying eggs or pumping gas) I can suppress it until I can find some privacy unlike when my grief was so fresh I couldn’t control it at all.   These bubbles leave me bewildered.  It’s such a complete disparity of emotions to go from happiness to grief without any warning.  I don’t understand why when I’m feeling good about life I suddenly have to be immersed in the old pains but I have some theories. 

One theory is that for a while when I was really struggling I didn’t think I would ever really be happy or joyful again.  I walked around like a zombie for months experiencing things without actually feeling them.  So, gratefulness and true joy are still such a wonderful feeling in comparison to the zombie feeling that it reminds me on some level of how I’ve improved and reminds me just by contrast of the pain that was there.  So much so, in fact, that it bubbles the grief back up for a minute until I can breathe through it again. 

Another theory is that in joy, thankfulness and serenity we lower our natural defenses.  When we allow ourselves the opportunity to sit in these positive emotions we are our best selves.  But that doesn’t imply perfection.  Our true and best selves carry the scars and baggage and trauma they have survived; not in any sole crushing way but just as the complete package that we are as we move through this life.  This is why the notion of “getting over” any grief or trauma can be such a difficult and damaging concept for any one in the struggling phase.  It’s easy to hate yourself and your weakness for not moving forward fast enough, complete enough or well enough to “get over it”. 

Early in my grieving when I was at my lowest my best friend shared with me the advice she had been given to make friends with your grief.  I had no idea what the heck that meant at that point but I was sure that advice was not for me.  As I continue to move through and understand this process I think I now know what that means.  Grief is the gift of love and human suffering.  It is the darkness that makes the light seem so bright.  To fully experience the vast array of human emotions we have to experience the lows as well as the highs.  You must cry to know how good a smile can feel.  I would never want to walk knowingly into grief again if I could avoid it, but I am thankful for the things I have learned through my pain.  I have a deeper empathy for those that are suffering.  I have a greater appreciation for the many small blessings we experience daily.  I’ve learned to infuse my life with moments of serenity, at first so I could deal with my grief process but now as a valued method of restoring my sanity and peace of mind. 

So, when I am happily bopping along humming to myself and feeling grateful and a surge of a grief bubbles boil up, I take a minute to acknowledge and breath through my grief.  I take a moment to appreciate the things around me that bring me happiness and joy.  I take a moment to remember those loved ones I have recently said goodbye to and the ones I didn’t take the time to properly grieve in my younger years. ( Grief is also oddly compounding so that one loss can make you relive a previous loss.  As if this process wasn’t complicated enough!) But, what I previously viewed as a weakness of character I now recognize as a strength.  To love deeply is to one day lose deeply because that is the way life works.  I wouldn’t trade the love for pain of loss even at the worst times.  I do wish I had had a better understanding of the grieving process before I was knocked off my feet.  That’s why I hope talking about it helps others experiencing the myriad of emotions lumped into moving through grief. 

So, if you are walking your own grief journey and learning what this new life looks like for you, I would like to offer these three things:

1.  Breathe and let the tears flow when they come as often as you can.  Even if its well past when you should "be over it".  

2.  Find your one thing that brings you peace even in your pain.  Use that to recenter yourself as often as you need.  

3.  Talk about your process with someone who has walked the path before.  All the weird grief experiences that you think are just you may turn out to be more common than you think! (Grief hair!  I didn't know it was a thing!) 

 

I have been putting P's on mountains to honor two losses in my life.  It's a great way to carry my loved ones with me while I practice my serenity and peace seeking.