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Grief and logic

WhiteknightSenior Contributor06 June 2018, 12:45 pm AEST

Grief and logic

A thousand times in our lives we face trauma be it grief, depressive episodes or even general tolerance of life and what it throws at us.

I dont know about you but on each of these occasions during that bad period that seems to come and go so regularly, I dont feel the sun is going to rise the next day. Such is the low level of sadness and mental anguish. I simply dont feel life will get back to how it was when I was functioning ok even a few hours ago.

Isn't it logical though, for a person of reasonable intelligence, to remember that this down period will go away as it has each and every time for the last 60 odd years? My conclusion of it is that depression from grief and trauma is so overwhelming of my brain that it smothers any logic of the process of depression. If this is the case then are we thinking straight on other occasions.? For example- anger or mania? I think so.

As a young man my mania was such that its most apparent symptom realised decades later was impulsivity. I'd buy and sell a car every few weeks and every car was the one I'll "have for the rest of my life"!! So where did logic go then? I was smart, reasonable intelligence, had peer people around me in the Air Force and yes, I was immature. But why wasnt logic present when after a short time of falling in love with a super duper Datsun sss did I want a Celica? My mind like the wind changed and there was no logic as I signed the dotted line, lined the sales people with commission and drove off with my baby in heavy debt.

Back to grief. If we can somehow introduce logic into out lives to remind us that life will go on, it will go back to normal routine and it will not continue on and on...we will handle it better. We will give ourselves the time we need to recover all the time in the back of our minds we will know that its logical to believe we will overcome.

I have a laminated note in my bedside draw. It reads-

"tomorrow the sun will rise, even when today the sun appears it will set forever"

It's my own words. When down and lying in bed I reach for it. I dont choose to just remember the words, I physically read it as it then sinks in.

Logic is smothered in our down times just like calmness is absent in angry periods. We have to find ways of overcoming all that grief for a few moments only, to introduce some logical thinking of reality...that normality will return.

26 replies

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In response to: Grief and logic

OwlunarSenior Contributor06 June 2018, 4:02 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

Hi @Whiteknight

I read your post - I understand most of it - you are a deep thinker - I have read quite a bit of what you have written in this forum -

You are still younger than me - I have lived a bit longer and had grief in my life and really - I don't think we can consider grief to be at all logical - I know the sun will set today and rise in the morning which is experience - I buried one of my children over 30 years ago and I know he is not going to be seen again in this life - that's knowledge -

My experience is that I will grieve at unplanned moments and it lasts for an unplanned length of time and will leave me when I have had enough of it and return in it's own time - and this is experience and from what I know there is no logic

Except perhaps that I would rather not grieve but accept it as part of my life

But I also believe every evening that the sun will rise again tomorrow only to set again tomorrow night and that my grief has a pattern of it's own

Back to you though - it seems to are battling with thoughts as you grow older and there are things that happened in your youth that make no sense to you now

But that was then and you admit to immaturity - were we not all immature once

Perhaps before the acceptance of my age now I had a period of questioning - maybe the grief of losing my son was so severe the questions were related to his death rather than my own confusion about why God should test my faith when it was already strong - but that questioning past too - and then I have had other questions that have been answered - some are still open for my thinking to continue

I think I hear you - maybe I don't understand but I have studied philosophy and logic - I understood philosophy - logic I had to work harder at - but then - that's when we learn

I wish you the best - it does no hard to exercise our minds with questions

Dec

In response to: Grief and logic

Unknown userMember06 June 2018, 6:23 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

Hi @Whiteknight - you aced another great topic. I can resonate with much of what you have said - also a great deal of what @Owlunar stated which I can well and truly empathise and relate to.xx

I would call myself a logical person with acute insight - but when grief or depression gets a hold for too long that's when my perception and logic can fly out the window. It's the nature of the beast to deceive with the pessism of "it will never get better" or "that there is no way out". And that can seem like the logical reality to the person in that deep dark whole. And in my experience that is a very dangerous place to be. All emotions numb.

That is when I have experienced the need of the help and compassion of others to be a light to show me the way out. To place seeds of positive thoughts in a mind that sees nothing but black. Which one can be convinced "as logical", that this is the reality. Te disease and pessism will give every reason why we should be forever sad and worry. That can be the irrational part - as nothing is all black or white. But try and reason that when all one feels is no zest for living or life. No light can be seen - all is reasoned as hopeless.

When in that dark place the only way out for me is having faith. Faith in a good outcome and that all will be alright when the reality seems in ones mind to be the opposite - or indeed when going through traumatic times. One could reason that nothing will be the same at the tI e given the enormous gravity of the trauma, abuse or loss. It took me a leap of faith to defy that and believe all would be well when I felt like I was dying on the inside. If I were to reason those feelings - the negative arguements would trump. I can't rely on how I feel or my thoughts then. Logic only comes with what I see in black or white then, I can well perceive that - but not with my outlook of the future in that dark place. It's subjective logic.

Grief is a great weight that robs all joy - it takes enormous courage to endure to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. Logic cannot see it. Only eyes of faith when that dark in my experience.

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

WhiteknightSenior Contributor06 June 2018, 7:44 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

Hi @Owlunar

Thankyou for your reply. I have bp2, depression, dysthymia and onve had anxiety not realised until 46yo, 16 years ago. I used to cry daily in my young days. It was as intense as grief without an obvious reason.

It turned out in 2009 during a psych session the saving of my older brother when I was 12yo was the catalyst for 3 month not talking and my sensitivity, crying and dysthymia.

In 1979 my brother suicided.

A short time later a prisoner on my watch also went that way and of course I blamed myself etc etc.

Ironically 15 years later while a security guard in the dark, I penned a 4 verse poem that released all of my guilt over those jail warder days. I began to learn how my mind worked, how to release my demons amd accept that life is not smooth.

I cannot schedule my grief as you can. Thats actually a handy ability. I havent lost a child but one of my two daughters is absent from my life, likely permanently. Long story.

I agree grief isnt logical. I'm suggesting we remember, at the height of grieving, that things will return to normal.

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

WhiteknightSenior Contributor06 June 2018, 7:55 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

@Former-Member

You've highlighted your support base, thats true, supporting family and friends are great to have around.

You also have a foundation of faith which frankly, I'm envious of. Having that in your life gives you an ultimate higher level of inner peace and guidence.

You mentioned "emotionally numb". I'm of the view that have a period of grief us not unlike a mini breakdown and that numbness I can really relate to.

Thankyou for your post.

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

Unknown userMember06 June 2018, 7:55 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

So sorry for the tragic loss of your brother and daughter @Whiteknight. Estrangement from those we loved hurts like hell and the grief can be great, depending how a person deals with it and the circumstances. But can be as hard, if not harder than physical death I have experienced. A loss of a child is a loss of child. And grief can at times present itself as depression or mental illness if it's buried deep or we cannot fully accept it 🌹

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

Unknown userMember06 June 2018, 8:03 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

Just read your last post @Whiteknight. I feel humbled.....You would be surprised on what faith we do have within unrecognised when we hit a brick wall deep within and are forced to make a choice. I was an atheist for 28 years. Your threads are so interesting and raw - I just love them

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

OwlunarSenior Contributor06 June 2018, 8:14 pm AEST

Re: Grief and logic

Hi @Whiteknight

I do remember reading that you had been a guard in a prison earlier - and your brother killed himself as did a prisoner - that was a bad draw for you - once is too much - two unimaginable. I have two as well, my son committed suicide in Juvenile Detention and one of my first cousins a few years back - he was much older and it was harder for me to understand - I didn't get it - I still don't.

When I ring Life Line that always ask me if I feel that way inclined and I never do - I have said that two suicides in the family exceeds the quota - I could not do it though after my son died I considered it but put it away for ever

Still - my grief is not scheduled - rather I am prepared for it - it know it's going to happen and I know it will pass - but I do not have that condition with the long series of consonants - ah dysthymia - that sounds like a sentence - double depression is easier to understand.

I am sorry you have had to endure so much loss - the brother you saved years before and then - someone on your watch - even my parents left in the middle of the night

All I can say is that you have either had this load land on top of what you already carry or was has happened has caused it - you are not guilty of anything though - how can you be - people who tkae their own lives choose to do that and if they don't do it when you are around they will do it some other time

They will and we don't have to like it but I do understand better now you have written the story more clearly - I have two anniversaries in my family coming up in the next weeks - I think I get it - I know how I will feel about my son - I think he meant to die but didn't know what that would mean - scatter-brained teenager but my cousin - I have never worked him out at all - and he intended it also

I could say more but none of it was our fault - we are not guilty

Sending my best thoughts

Dec

In response to: Re: Grief and logic

Unknown userMember06 June 2018, 9:20 pm AEST