Actually my kids found the :pile_of_poo: @Appleblossom ....😆
Isn't that what they're good at ? Pushing the boundaries and being contentious ?
One of them spent last year calling the other one "Poo" and landed him with that emoticon .... decided I better do something about that, even tho the lad himself was treating it as a big joke .... not conducive to positivity overall .... and we need to try to stay on that side of the tracks as much as humanly possible.
Love the monkeys quote from @Former-Member tho ... and I think my kids are gonna like it too. I hadn't heard that one before, but I reckon it belongs in our family collection.
I hadn't heard the "grief feels like fear" one before @Former-Member, biput that has provided me a new insight into S2 and D3's behaviour at the moment .... I reckon they are suffering grief over their Dad, and it's scaring them ....
It might not be fear exactly .... but I think their mind is afraid of the grief, that it perceives it as something threatening and overwhelming, so they are trying to run away from it .....S2 by numbing himself out with computer games, and D3 registering it as a headache, or other body aches, and trying to medicate, withdraw, go to sleep ..... all natural responses in fact .... and probably easing the grief in stages regardless .... but I think they need the balance of spreading the grief much more thinly across a wider range of activities and responses.
When I lost my Mum, and I wasn't expecting to .... I found myself trying to run away from the grief I felt .... I couldn't run away physically of course, so I crammed so many activities into the day, and night, that there was no room left in my consciousness to actually feel the grief I was carrying.
I knew it was there .... it was like a wave in the background .... a wave I had to keep running ahead of .....
We were living overseas at the time, and when I ad run the kids to their schools, done the shopping and cooking, washing, floor cleaning, washed every dish in the place, tucked everyone into bed, whatever else I could cram in, I stayed up till 3am every morning reading my favourite author, which I hadn't known was my Mum's favourite author too, until I found some of her books in Mum's house while I was staying there ....
My day started again at 7am, so I was existing on about 4 hours sleep a night. The front of my hair grew white streaks, all through my fringe, in that time .... I was only 37 .... look what grief does ....
I wrapped myself up in black clothing .... suddenly understanding why it was cultural to the grieving process in various parts of the world, including the one I was living in. It was my privacy shield. It said "I'm hurting .... please be gentle with me ...."
Anyway, after about a year I was ready to put away the black clothes. I started to read to not such a late hour. I started to let the grief seep in a bit more, and cry all the way home from the school run in the morning, or all the way there in the afternoon.
I took long, solitary walks in the local hills, letting the beauty of nature into my soul .... listening to the birds .... watching cats stalking around .... Listening to the breeze through the trees .... feeling the cold of Winter and the warm sunshine of Spring. It has taken 15 years for that pain to turn into a low dull ache in the background ....
I have heard people say that grief doesn't actually go away, but it dulls down by degrees, and you become accustomed to it. It is something, I think like childbirth, where once you have experienced it you connect with others who have too.
Hearing your pain @Former-Member ... walking that grief track with you .... keep feeding us quotes .... they're helping to heal you, and us too .....
💕❤️💕
