what i realized tonight that i wish i didn't
i have to be honest: what i want from therapy is not really fair to, well, therapy. i wanted a magic bullet. or if not an instant fix, then a way to accelerate the process. tonight the therapist asked me towards the end when i thought i should come back. i told him i would come back every night if i thought it would get me through grief faster. and then i realized that he felt there wasn't much more we could do there. ugh.
the whole hour, the feedback he gave me was, that's so healthy that you're doing that, that's just what you should be doing, keep doing that, that's a really good insight. i'm instinctually moving through grief, and my instincts are stellar, and there are no shortcuts, and there's not much more he can add, and all i can do is keep going. so i feel deflated - i wanted therapy to fix things, but it's not doing anything for me that i'm not doing for myself. dammit.
i cannot excel at grief. there is no merit award for "best griever" or "first place finisher of grieving". i cannot outperform grief. dammit.
i'm tired of grief. i'm tired of being isolated by it. i'm tired of being left vulnerable and oversensitive by it. i'm tired of all the changes caused by it. i want it to be over, or at least going somewhere, for pete's sake. grief is so stagnating. the only stagnation i want is for a couple of hours on sunday afternoon when i want to take a nap.
i still made an appointment with the therapist, in two weeks. i don't know if i'm going to keep it.
*****
note to justin: i'm listening to the "fresh air" interview with amy palladino, the genius behind "the gilmore girls", and i'm reminded that i still want the first and any other seasons now on dvd as a present, should you feel so inspired sometime. i'd also like a cool lunch box; i'm tired of putting my lunch in target shopping bags. hey - you could kill two birds with one stone and get me a gilmore girls lunch box.
the whole hour, the feedback he gave me was, that's so healthy that you're doing that, that's just what you should be doing, keep doing that, that's a really good insight. i'm instinctually moving through grief, and my instincts are stellar, and there are no shortcuts, and there's not much more he can add, and all i can do is keep going. so i feel deflated - i wanted therapy to fix things, but it's not doing anything for me that i'm not doing for myself. dammit.
i cannot excel at grief. there is no merit award for "best griever" or "first place finisher of grieving". i cannot outperform grief. dammit.
i'm tired of grief. i'm tired of being isolated by it. i'm tired of being left vulnerable and oversensitive by it. i'm tired of all the changes caused by it. i want it to be over, or at least going somewhere, for pete's sake. grief is so stagnating. the only stagnation i want is for a couple of hours on sunday afternoon when i want to take a nap.
i still made an appointment with the therapist, in two weeks. i don't know if i'm going to keep it.
*****
note to justin: i'm listening to the "fresh air" interview with amy palladino, the genius behind "the gilmore girls", and i'm reminded that i still want the first and any other seasons now on dvd as a present, should you feel so inspired sometime. i'd also like a cool lunch box; i'm tired of putting my lunch in target shopping bags. hey - you could kill two birds with one stone and get me a gilmore girls lunch box.
posted by laura at 7:55 PM
2 Comments:
lauralu -
You are speaking the words that I am thinking. This is what I fear of therapy. I mean...grief just takes time. If I go talk to someone about it, is that going to make me grieve faster? Sometimes I just think of this slump as part of grief. It's a package deal, isn't that nice? I feel like I think this and talk this and write this issue I face into the ground. If a therapist said to me the feedback yours says to you, it would just piss me off. Thanks for the encouragment, bud. I got it. Ugh. I share your frustration and am tired of grief too. This is a tough club to be a member of.
What I got from grief therapy initially was similar feedback, and because Laine and I went together we also were able to figure out that we were okay as a couple. I found the confirmation that I was grieving normally comforting, plus it was good to have a place and time set aside to talk for awhile and then we moved on from the therapist and got on with grieving. There are no shortcuts, it is incredibly tiring and the rewards are so small at first that it seems pointless, and then to top it all off you don't have a choice about doing it. It is crap, totally unfair and not fun, but you will get through the worst bit and stop circling back to the same place and eventually feel that you are becoming less about grieving and more about other things. I remember quite clearly feeling like I would never smile again and mean it, never see any joy in the world, never feel like anything but a grieving mother but I did and I do and you will too (both of you!).
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