Let's talk about Grief & Loss

Hi @Silenus

I wrote a reply and although it autosaved I lost it - now why did I do that - it's almost as if I should not get all philosophical

So I will quickly write something different

I do not agree with some of the premises you present here - because I believe in a Higher Power - and I would die for your right to believe what you have written

I do agree there is Reality - and I am sure there is a Grand Plan - but what are these? I don't know

Still - our lives are stories and these make up the World's Story and this is about ordinary people whose lives and realities and stories have beginnings, middles and endings - as does the story of Reality

Studying philosophy sends us asking questions - and I would love to write more - and I think I will

Because bad things do happen to good people.Why?

Some things are the results of natural disasters

Some are consequences

And some are random

I also do have a concept of a Grand Plan and do not believe there was a Clock Maker God who set the whole thing is process and left it to play off on its own. We have not been abandoned to our fate -

So I did get into philosophy

There is a Grand Plan - although I cannot prove it - it is something I believe - and there is nothing as unshakable as Faith

But great ideas

Decadian

To me "Everything happens for a reason" means we are being blamed for the bad things that happen to us.

When like Silenus says - there is no reason.

I wonder @pip if you read the article? Because it is a beautiful insight from a man who does life very tough Living with cerebral palsy and epilepsy. He makes sense of grief and the grieving process and talks about how shutting it down early is deleterious to our health.

My "mouth -foamingly mad" comment stands - "Everything happens for a reason" is unempathetic and victim blaming. It is up there with "Suck it up princess" and "God never gives us more than we can handle" as silencing and ersaure.

I appreciate the time you took to reframe according to your world view, though.

I am so glad to find Tim's talking about something that is usually minimised, eradicated and silenced. Things happen. Trying to retro-fit the reason are the contortions we make to avpid our own or other's grief.

The child abuse that happened to me, the years of drug and alcohol abuse, the sexual predation and adult rape, the living with a violent partner, the manipulation by fundemental Christian group when I was a very vulnerable young adult including 'excorcism' for 'demons' when in fact I was mentally ill, the years long guilt I have felt for not being a 'good enough" daughter when truth be told I was never going to be good enough because I was adopted, not born into my family. The loss of my only daughter third trimester.

All the years and tears and fears I went through trying to self-medicate, the back injury that left me with cauda equina syndrome and being left with chronic unrelenting pain, the mental illnesses that have me shut up at home being half a person.... all of it - The loss of my best friend to a horrendous car accident.

I am just starting to see I need to grieve and so do others - we are never given the chance to grieve before some well intentioned person says - "Oh but look what you have made of your life". or "everything happens for a reason" really?

No thanks. What happened to me (and others) is more than a little bit shite and I will claim it as such, not try to make it a glittery-poo and plaster over it with rainbows and silver linings.

Grief is hard yards, and we have to go through it.

Mouth foamingly mad? Deeply disspointed in life, hurt beyond repair. Claim my right to say it.

As Tim said in his article...

Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.

First @Former-Member I was not at all angry at you .. tho you may have sensed anger in that post ... I value this thread but ... it can get contentious as it goes deep to the heart of our psychic & emotional pain .. I thought my anger more under the surface, but you are probably getting to know me pretty well .. I felt I was asserting for me ... and also concerned for the new poster as I didnt feel the advice given to @wambool was totally appropriate ... We are all different ...

@Silenus I quite liked the way you wrote about projection .. you are very eloquent.

The logical part of me sees both causality & randomness in the world. I havent come down to a firm position. I dont know. I look at youtube talks by some physicists like Sean Carroll who are atheist and other physicists who believe in a Christian God .. and then there are so many other cultural veiwpoints.

I resonated a lot with @MoonGal's comments. A lot depends on the way things are said .. and the intention behind the comment.

I have said "everything happens for a reason" at times .. to justify the actions of apparently mad people (cos all my close loved ones had a label) ... and try to get to the reasons why they are expressing themselves in a seemingly irrational manner. Eg to better understand my father, mother, brother & sister. In some ways I have finally figured out all their stressors to the point I can see why they acted in the ways that they did. I often question the concept of a single "normal" but understand normative content as overt but also often a subtext in our social world. I tend to think of the world as complex and full of different realities ... so no, I do not believe in a Grand Plan ... but there are mysterious forces at work in our lives that strongly effect our spirits.

I thought some of @pip 's discussion fitted into the understanding of causality. However, often people do say everything happens for a reason .. implying blame or karma ... or there is a deliberate lesson rather .. than a random heartless and cruel event ... that we can grow from .. but that it is not due to god's design ... we should be careful about invalidating the suffering caused. I actually think @MoonGal is pretty cool, not that bitter and very generous with her sharing & insights. But then I may such a sourpuss I wouldnt know vinegar .. actually .. I am getting into various types of vinegar .. cleaning, salad, and natural with the mother ... for detox .. so bitter aint all bad. Will look at that Tim Lawrence website. Too much serious harm is done by unthinking platitudes.

There is a small book by a NY Rabbi called "Why bad things happen to good people." Worth a read.

I had a very presumptuous pdoc .. who told me that "everything that happens is perfect" .. rather than get a proper history and actually ask me what had happened to me, he didnt even know how many recent deaths I was grieving (in that year) or work through my abandonment issues. Mostly he was telling me about his own philosophies ...

---

@MoonGal wrote:

To me "Everything happens for a reason" means we are being blamed for the bad things that happen to us.

When like Silenus says - there is no reason.

* * * * *

My "mouth -foamingly mad" comment stands - "Everything happens for a reason" is unempathetic and victim blaming. It is up there with "Suck it up princess" and "God never gives us more than we can handle" as silencing and ersaure.

---

@MoonGal

I have found many such heartless comments made in the name of God's Will and reasons - and they are heartless and thoughtless to say the best - cruel and demonic at worst

When a neighbour's son was stillborn after a long labour - her husband told mine that it was God's Will and I was furious - God's Will would never take a child like that - and a first child too - I find nothing of comfort there.

It was not God's Will, nor was there are reason. Some people will find a reason for the hard things that happen - it takes insight and strength to do that - I have done it - but the reasons may only be there in rare and complex situations. How can there be an anti-mortem reason for the death of an innocent child?

This is a provoking and challenging subject - I hope we can learn from it - and if nothing else - can these articles prepare us to educate people who think they have all the smug and pat answers?

I rather doubt that - but for those who seek truth - yes - we can be educated

Decadian

@pip - I am sorry you have had such a hard life. AM very glad you have found a way though it whole and healed.

This topic of Grief is new to me - I have never grieved properly. Just hitched up my socks and gotten on with it.
I am grieving now. In fact I think I have been grieving for a long time but did not know what the 'feeling' was. Having been surrounded for much of my life by people who say things like 'Suck it up Princess" or "get over it".

The litany of things that I laid out has not left me bitter in fact it has left me empathetic and insightful about conditions arising in myself and others - that is why I do not want to gloss over anyone's lived experience and certainly not engage in upmanship. We all suffer, we all had it tough we would not be here if we did not. ANd how we deal with it is entirely subjective.

You said "I could go through life as bitter and twisted and full of self blame as you appear to be."

I am actually amazingly whole, insightful and have my happy days too. I am creative and clever and loving and funny. I am anything but bitter, for the FIRST TIME I say this laundry list of terrible things with a sense that maybe NONE of it was okay and let's not pretty it up and make it "Okay" when it patently wasn;t.

So perhaps you can see, if you reflect for a moment that MY life lived and the list might be better and whole and healed as yours appears to be by actually taking the time to identify none of it was okay and to grieve the many losses.

In my day to day life I seek to put down anger, put down rage, put down self-blame and blame altogether. What happened to me was a car crash of other people's disinhibited and violent and twisted behaviours and just plain "life' happeneing.

What pressed my buttons was that I had shared something that resonated with me and thought WOW! Look grief is permissible, and someone else feels strongly that saying "Everything happens for a reason" is hostile and minimising - where I felt that I could lift the covers and peek underneath and say wow, maybe I can grieve for my life lost, in fact MORE than that for me it was LOOK - maybe unprocessed grief is at the heart of what ails me... and you came in in your own terms saying "looking at it objectively" and then proceeded to look at it entirely subjectively.

So peace, @pip - I have uncovered a major thing that will help with my healing - I have NEVER deliberatly accessed my anger, hurt and grief about my life - it was too big and too scary and too life-threatening and what I disclosed is just alittle of my lived experience.... this man, Tim Lawrence gave me permission to open that door. I will to not shut it again.

When I wrote this poem, below last week - I mentioned grief, but it has become evident to me since that i HAVE NOT GRIEVED for my life and now I will, I will discuss this with my Psychhologist.

_____________________

I have lived nineteen thousand lives.

Every Day a Life Time.

I have spent too much time in

Regret, grief and guilt.

I may have only one more life/day to live.

I may have many more... Who knows?

So,

I will put down my roots and concentrate on

Making leaves, and blossums and fruit.

And like all things living,

The seasons will come and go.

Allow. Allow. Allow.

The awesome power of Nature.

Everything passes,

Everything dies,

Even Pain and Misery.

I will to lift my eyes, my heart, my mind

And Be, a part of Nature's Way.

I set my feet on her path.

A daily devotion to her majesty and power.

*Nature's Way.

Let me be as good a friend as others have to me.

A lover of Love.

I have lived nineteen thousand lives

And today is the beginning of one or a thousand more.

Be at peace.

Create.

Help.

Offer thanks to yourself too.

Let go of difficult conditions arising.

Accept. Accept. Accept.

Walk in Courage. Eyes full of Love.

We are all small. We are all infinite too.

_______________

Me. 19 October 2016

*No gods for me - just sap rising, birds singing. green light through leaves... and... Love as an act of the will.

So...

Make the most of this day. In this place. In this time.

_______________________________________________

Thank you @Appleblossom & @Decadian - too for stepping into this conversation. Being honest, open and ameliorating, appreciate it.

---

@MoonGal wrote:

This topic of Grief is new to me - I have never grieved properly. Just hitched up my socks and gotten on with it.
I am grieving now. In fact I think I have been grieving for a long time but did not know what the 'feeling' was. Having been surrounded for much of my life by people who say things like 'Suck it up Princess" or "get over it".

* * * * *





I have uncovered a major thing that will help with my healing - I have NEVER deliberatly accessed my anger, hurt and grief about my life - it was too big and too scary and too life-threatening and what I disclosed is just alittle of my lived experience.... this man, Tim Lawrence gave me permission to open that door. I will to not shut it again.

---

Oh Darn @MoonGal

I posted the quote before I wrote my own message - so sorry about that

About grief - it can go underground and take up residence there and wait - ready to strike out again in the future - so rather that pull up stakes and continue - it is better to confront the loss that has strip us of something or someone valuable at the time

But there are things in our lives which counteract the ability to do this - eg - our position in the world around the person who has died suddenly and our own background

As against what we now accept as Anglo-Celtic Heritage - it is not so long ago - half a century - when it was Anglo-Saxon stiff upper lip stuff - and the loss of the young man I worked beside was something that I could not grieve at home because the stiff upper lip was too ingrained and ag work - I was - at 21 - the Senior Girl - and everyone looked to me for an example of how to behave - and that day went underground

The young man who died was my age - not my boyfriend - but everyone's friend - and we shared some work as well as having our own - and our desks were beside each other - we worked a 40 hour week and so in each other's company more than with anyone else in our waking lives - a huge investment of time

He was killed in a car accident - on holidays - and when I heard the news I was rocked - nearly fell - a couple of the young girls in the office were sent home - and I was teaching a new girl that morning - and she told me I had to cry - and I remember swallowing my grief, my shock - a host of strange and scary emotions - and saying "I can't. I am the Senior Girl here - every young woman is looking at me - they are taking their permission from me to cope in whatever way will get them through the day"

So a subdued day passed with everyone doing whatever they did to pass through a day of work - and I could not grieve at work - I could not grieve at home - that was not allowed - and my grief went underground and stayed there for 22 years until my son died - and then along with my son I had to grieve my work-mate - dead for so long and remembering the day I heard of his death - I wonder what changed in my life - and also - what changed in other people's lives

At the end of that terrible day my boss called me into his office and thanked me for holding firm and working quietly that day - and for my example. I think back with new eyes and not for the first - or maybe the 101st time - was that right? And yes - whatever we do in such a situation - is right - for we are the product of our own nurture/nature heritage -

We had no support at work - now people have that - I do not remember if there was a sign outside our office to let other people know that there had been the sudden death of one of the most popular members of our number - this was over 50 years ago - and sitting here on the spring morning I remember the young man and that day when the office that was normally so noisy was so quiet.

And I remember the pain of swallowing my grief - and how it resurfaced when my son died

The ways we were taught are not necessarily the right ways - and allowing ourselves to grieve is a normal part of allowing ourselves to be who we are

I have read all the conversation and I am glad to add my thoughts - and we all have different thoughts on this subject

Decadian