Acceptance

[Perro J]

I've had a few conversations with supportive friends over the last 24 hours. One of the topics we have discussed is acceptance. It is something I intuitively know already - that in order to feel better I have to accept things as they are. Yet that is where I am struggling the most. Two and a half months after losing my fiancee to cancer, I only want to go back. I want to undo what has occurred despite intellectually knowing this is impossible. I don't want to accept this. This injustice. This loss. This pain.

Here is something my friends explained to me that may sound obvious to you but had to be explained to me. I share it here in case it helps someone else:

To accept something does not mean to approve of it, nor condone it. In this context, I am saying acceptance is confined to radically acknowledging life precisely as it is.

At times I hear the word acceptance and I think of it in a context that falls along the lines of "If I accept this injustice, I am excusing or endorsing the wrong done". I would never dream of telling a victim of sexual assault or betrayal to accept something with this incorrect interpretation of the word, so why will I not let myself off the hook for my circumstance?

It isn't that I don't know she is gone. She died next to me. I carried her casket with her brothers a quarter mile from her parents home to the cemetery. I watched her tomb be sealed by masonry work before I left that cemetery. The reality of this should be undeniable. Yet it isn't always for me.

At times I feel as if I concede the point and say "I accept this"  then I am also saying "I guess it is OK". It isn't OK and it never will be but it did happen. That is the extent of what acceptance needs to mean for me right now. Full stop. This is what reality is - nothing more. It can still suck. It can still be sad - but to say I accept it need not carry the implication of approval. Life does not wait for my approval. If I keep my definition of acceptance strict, I can speak it a little more easily.

 

[foreverhis]

Your friends are absolutely correct about what acceptance means for us.  And you are correct in your assessment of it.

This is how I've come to say it:  I accept that my husband, my best friend, my soulmate is gone from this world.  I do not accept that it is fair, right, or just because it is none of those things.  You're quite right that we accept reality because we have no other choice.  In time, we incorporate that acceptance into our day to day lives. 

It took me months, more than a year I guess, to fully come to accept that my love is gone from me.  It's not that I was in denial or forgetful; it's that my heart refused to believe what my mind already knew.  That is as much as I am willing to concede and I don't give a rip what anyone thinks about that.

When you fully accept that your fiancee is gone from you (for now), you are not saying that you think it's okay or that you condone it.  And you will do this on your own time and in your own way.  It will not be because anyone thinks it is time.  You have certainly taken the right approach in understanding that it is only reality we accept.

[KayC]

15 hours ago, Perro J said:

To accept something does not mean to approve of it, nor condone it.

I have often reminded people of this, we struggle with the very word acceptance, but I prefer the word "realization" rather than "acceptance" because of the implication of the word acceptance. It's definition: the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.  Or the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable, typically to be admitted into a group.  "Acceptance" in a grief psychology application is more of a realization of, not to be equated with "liking" or "agreeing with."  We've realized this change in our life, and although we don't like it, we know that it is.  We no longer wait for the nightmare to be over, we know this is our life now and begin adjusting to the changes it means for us, such as doing the chores the other person handled, for some that means paying the bills for the first time, or getting groceries alone, or trying to keep the other person's garden alive.  It means trying to reach beyond our comfort zone and eating out alone or calling someone when you need to be with another person.  None of these things are easy, every time we do something different for us, it's like a stab of harsh reality but eventually it gets us where we need to be in our new life so we can survive.  Little by little...one day at a time.

[MODArtemis2019]

You are struggling with a very important issue, and very early in the grieving process. For me, it was around the one year mark that I made a conscious choice to accept the reality. Non-acceptance caused me more pain, because I was mentally fighting reality. Reality wins that fight 100% of the time. 

On 10/3/2020 at 6:00 PM, Perro J said:

Life does not wait for my approval

Exactly. We don't have control. Death teaches us that like no other event. 

Now when I feel pain and grief, I say, "I accept the pain, I accept the suffering." It also helps me put a little space in between me and the pain. Acceptance doesn't mean I feel great about it. It just means I stopped fighting reality. Which in turn means I can be present more fully in the life I have now. 

I think it's great that you have friends to help you wrestle with these grief issues. At the same time it's totally "normal" (whatever that is!) to have trouble with acceptance after less than three months. The process takes time.  

[foreverhis]

15 hours ago, MODArtemis2019 said:

At the same time it's totally "normal" (whatever that is!) to have trouble with acceptance after less than three months. The process takes time.  

Exactly.  It's interesting that you also qualify any use of the word "normal" in relation to our loss and grief as "whatever that means."  I do that too.  It's as if the word has lost it's traditional meaning in my world.  Normal was my husband sitting in his favorite chair just being with me.  It was him teasing me, laughing with me, going through all the ups and downs and everything life threw at us.  It was having adventures, large and small, as we journeyed through life together.  It was all the moments and memories that made us "us."  As that reality no longer exists, neither does the word "normal."

[widower2]

On 10/3/2020 at 6:00 PM, Perro J said:

I've had a few conversations with supportive friends over the last 24 hours. One of the topics we have discussed is acceptance. It is something I intuitively know already - that in order to feel better I have to accept things as they are.

I respectfully disagree with that 110% at least. Sure you need to face reality, but I accepted things as they were and it sure as hell didn't make me feel better. PS you are, relatively speaking, in the very early stages of this rocky path, and IMO some degree of denial is understandable and OK. I think you have a good handle on knowing what's what, so it's not like you're delusional...I guess I'm just saying allow that piece of you that fights it to exist. It's OK, so long as it doesn't dominate your thinking, which clearly it doesn't. 

To me, to not accept something which is so obviously true would be ludicrous. It'd be like saying "I don't accept that the sky is blue." I am not an ostrich.  But that's in general. There is a part of me that will NEVER accept this hell on Earth, horrifically unjust BS. It's too ridiculous. How could anything so insane be true? It makes no sense. And I'm OK with that part of me as it does not rule or dominate my life, but it will never go away. There will always be this part of me that is waiting to wake up from this nightmare and won't give up on that. 

Just some ramblings.

[foreverhis]

11 hours ago, widower2 said:

I accepted things as they were and it sure as hell didn't make me feel better.

Good point.  Better is another word that has lost its traditional meaning for me.  Although after a year or so I fully accepted the reality in front of me every day, I couldn't say, "Well, I'm starting to feel better now."

It's true that the edges of my grief have softened and I am able to see and often grasp bits of light and even pleasure, but that doesn't make my missing him lessen.  I miss my husband every bit as much as I did that first morning.  I doubt that will ever change.  That I'm learning to carry my grief instead of letting it crush me is a good thing.  It's also a painful, slow process.  The only thing that could make my life better would be if he hadn't died.  So I accept the life I have now and I'm trying to learn to forge a life I can live without him.  That doesn't make things better, it merely makes life tolerable.

[Perro J]

16 hours ago, widower2 said:

I respectfully disagree with that 110% at least.

Your 110% respectful disagreement is accepted.

Maybe my use of the word "better" should have been written instead "less worse".

[Lars M]

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference .   

[KayC]

Better is a relative term, normal seems elusive, acceptance is a horrid word to newer grievers, I STILL don't like the word, preferring "realization" or some other instead...the implication seems that acceptance means it's okay by you, which it never will be.

[widower2]

On 10/9/2020 at 6:19 PM, Perro J said:

Your 110% respectful disagreement is accepted.

Maybe my use of the word "better" should have been written instead "less worse".

Thanks, but it wouldn't change my reply, since "better" and "less worse" are really saying the same thing  I guess I'm just saying that I don't think feeling less pain in any way is about accepting this or not. It's more a question of time that gives you opportunity to deal with it, to adapt, adjust, whatever. Acceptance is a given, generally.

And don't get me started on the "5 stages of grief" bit. Even the person who came up with it had to later clarify that people don't necessarily experience them in any order, or experience any given one at all. 

 

[foreverhis]

3 hours ago, widower2 said:

And don't get me started on the "5 stages of grief" bit. Even the person who came up with it had to later clarify that people don't necessarily experience them in any order, or experience any given one at all. 

More than that.  The 5 Stages of Grief had nothing to do with survivors, we left behind grieving.  The study was to see what, if any, specific reactions/stages occurred and whether they typically happened in the same order to terminal patients after they had been given their diagnosis.  I remember the author(s?) had to really make that point repeatedly.  I believe they did some sort of follow up with seven or more stages of grief that many/most of us experience and that they definitely aren't necessarily in a set order.  We can skip over, circle back, etc. on our own individual grief path.  In no way is it ever a straight pathway where it's "Start here" and "End here" before we come out the other side returned magically to the person we were before.  We know that person is gone forever.  In my case (and I'm pretty sure everyone here with their own soulmates), that person died the moment my husband took his last breath.

I found this early on in my grieving:

A New Look at the 7 Emotional States of Loss

I'd argue there are many more than seven for some of us and maybe fewer for others, but her overall approach, based on personal experience and how that led her to try to learn more, is really good.  She makes the point, clearly and more than once, that this is not a straight path, there is no set order, and there is no "right" way to grieve.

She addresses pre-grief, which I'd never heard of until my SIL told me about it.  No one realizes how those of us whose loves had a long illness or even a short one start grieving even before we've actually lost them.  We don't usually understand it ourselves.  We're so focused on care giving, being there, and hoping for/pushing toward recovery that we shove all of that to the back of our hearts, until one day it simply floods out.  I was having a really hard time, not just with watching my husband leave me bit by bit, but with accepting when it was time to ask him the simple question, "Love, do you want to go home?"  I don't cry easily in front of others, not even my husband, but the wracking sobs and buckets of tears (and snot, of course) that I cried in the hospital were stunning to me.  I didn't care who was around; I didn't care who saw me like that (except my husband; I tried, but didn't always succeed, to keep them back for him); and I so often said, "He's dying. My love...he can't die." those last couple of weeks.  Reading about her experience was helpful because it made me feel a little less alone.

She includes a number of poems she wrote along the way.  The first one, in the section on pre-grief, called "Still at Hospice" absolutely leveled me, especially the end because it rang so true.  Having someone put into words the images that haunt me was both terrifying and helpful.  I'm a writer and do poetry just for fun, so when something resonates with me, I really appreciate the emotion that went into it.  Perhaps some will be meaningful to other members.

These are two others I found helpful, if for no other reason than they also told me, "You are not alone.  You may be going crazy, but that's okay because everyone else who lost their soulmate is too."

Learning to be a Widow (or Widower)

(BTW, I hate, hate, hate the terms "widow" and "widower."  Having to check that box on forms brings me to tears and angers me all at the same time.)

Has Grief Made You Lose Your Mind?

And finally, this one that directly addresses the "5 stages of grief" fallacy.

The 5 Stages of Grief and Other Lies

 

Well, it's late here on the west coast, so I'm going to say good night to everyone.  I wish I could wrap you all in big, warm hugs.

[KayC]

9 hours ago, widower2 said:

And don't get me started on the "5 stages of grief" bit. Even the person who came up with it had to later clarify that people don't necessarily experience them in any order, or experience any given one at all. 

It was written NOT for grievers but for terminally ill!  The 5 Stages of Grief debunked

[widower2]

15 hours ago, KayC said:

It was written NOT for grievers but for terminally ill!  The 5 Stages of Grief debunked

Not originally, I get that, but it was since applied to both. And rightfully so. FYI I am not saying it's all bunk; it isn't. It is just often (it seems to me) misunderstood.

[KayC]

Or wrongfully applied however your perspective is.  The debunking is widely posted, I got this from the owner/administrator of a grief website and a grief counselor.  I've read many many people's posts over the years upset about the 5 stages of grief thinking it was supposed to be this way, but again it was written for terminally ill, not people who've lost their loved one.

[widower2]

Well I think the mistake is anyone thinking anything is "supposed to" be any particular way, it isn't limited to the 5 stages thing. And really I think it applies equally well (or not) to terminally ill as well as those mourning them. 

[KayC]

Exactly!  No one can write out for us how we "should" be doing, let alone in order or with some time frame.  We are unique with our grief.

[Perro J]

There is a passage in the conclusion of When Bad Things Happen To Good People that I want to share with everyone. The author cites another book, Suffering, by Dorothee Soelle. In that book, she speaks of "the devil's martyrs". What does she mean by that phrase? The author explains:

We are familiar with the idea that various religions honor the memories of martyrs for God, people who died in such a way as to bear witness to their faith. By remembering their faith in the face of death, our own faith is strengthened. Such people are God's martyrs. 

But the forces of despair and disbelief have their martyrs too, people whose death weakens other people's faith in God and in His world. If the death of an elderly woman in Auschwitz or of a child in a hospital ward leaves us doubting God and less able to affirm the world's goodness, then that woman and that child become "the devil's martyrs", witnesses against God, against the meaningfulness of a moral life, rather than witnesses in favor. But (and this is Soelle's most important point) it is not the circumstances of their death that makes them witnesses for or against God. It is our reaction to their death.

The fact of life and death are neutral. We, by our responses, give suffering either a positive or negative meaning. Illnesses, accidents, human tragedies kill people. But they do not necessarily kill life or faith. If the death and suffering of someone we love makes us bitter, jealous, against all religion, and incapable of happiness, we turn the person who died into one of "the devil's martyrs".  If suffering and death in someone close to us bring us to explore the limits of our capacity for strength and love and cheerfulness, if it leads us to discover sources of consolation we never knew before, then we make the person into a witness for the affirmation of life rather than its rejection.

My lost love was a devout Catholic. She explicitly told me "I do not want you to suffer" and "my soul cannot rest until all of yours are". While my conception of God is different than hers, the truth is that I have been angry at God - have been tempted to abandon the idea of God - have cursed at God - and all of this would be abominable in her eyes. For that reason, I like the above passage because it puts the responsibility of honoring her in the way she would want to be honored squarely on my shoulders.

This charge...I accept.

[KayC]

Beautifully put, Perro, and I have that book.

[jmmosley53]

I looked in the dictionary and the word Accept has so many definitions.  The one that applies to me is 'to believe something is true'.  I believe my husband is gone from this earth.  So I can say I accept his death, but so what !!!!!   Accepting means nothing to me.  It does not take away 1 tear, it does not take away the hole in my heart, or the empty seat at my dinner table.  I suppose there are people that do not believe that their loved one is dead after they have passed away, in my opinion those would be people who have lost touch with reality.

Accepting just means you acknowledge the reality that your loved one is gone.  It is not liking it.  It is not getting over it.  It doesn't take away anger, hurt, pain or anything else.

Just my opinion but, acceptance just means you have not lost touch with reality.

[KayC]

You've summed it up aptly, in my books.

I remember telling my son, "George isn't here, trust me, I looked!"  I literally remember looking in all the rooms in the house, the shop, etc. to SEE if he was not here!  This reality is VERY hard to accept/process/realize!