Thanks, ALL, for this place of "sanity and safe haven" !!!

[Ronni_W]

Hello all, and just a big THANKS!  🙏 ❤️ 🙏.

I have just had to endure another very kind-hearted, well-meaning, totally misguided, dear friend tell me <acckk!> how there are so many other people on this Earth suffering way more than I am.     And she didn't take it very well when I explained that I am not in competition with them...I can fully honour, explore and express my own sense and feelings of loss and grief and trauma while, at the same time, also fully and properly acknowledging and having empathy and compassion for them and for their loss and trauma. I don't need to ignore, pretend away or minimize my own just to be empathetic and compassionate towards others.

So...my own ramblings aside (if it's not, already, too late for that 🤣). Thanks to all of you in this community, for just helping to keep it all real, and significant and important and as if it counts for something, for me. I totally get that, for others, theirs is more significant, important and traumatizing...for them.

As a token of my gratitude, I thought to share a link from my other grief-support group: It's a blog entitled 'Grieving During the Holidays'. <https://blog.aftertalk.com/category/grieving-and-holidays/>. (Not sure if I know how to link the link to the text, so doing both, just in case not. <LOL>.)

For me, the three articles/blogs that stood out are: Healing Your Holiday Grief; Dealing with emotional triggers after loss:weddings, birthdays, and other events; and, Holiday Sorrows and Precious Gifts.

Love and hugs, and Comfort and Strength, to one and all.     Ronni

[KayC]

15 hours ago, Ronni_W said:

how there are so many other people on this Earth suffering way more than I am. 

Wow, good way to devalue what you're going through, totally inappropriate response from your "friend."

[Laura Vence]

Sorry you have to listen to that. I guess I should feel blessed that I have very few family or friends who even talk to me right now. People can be so insensitive. I do feel quite lonely, though, without my amazing and mostly silent but supportive partner sitting in his chair reading the paper. 

Thanks for the links!

[KayC]

I'm sorry you feel so alone, Laura, many of us do...and are..

[Ronni_W]

On 11/29/2022 at 8:09 AM, KayC said:

Wow, good way to devalue what you're going through, totally inappropriate response from your "friend."

On 11/29/2022 at 6:10 PM, Laura Vence said:

Sorry you have to listen to that. I guess I should feel blessed that I have very few family or friends who even talk to me right now. People can be so insensitive. I do feel quite lonely, though, without my amazing and mostly silent but supportive partner sitting in his chair reading the paper. 

Thanks for the links!

Laura Vence, I am most happy if you'll find something useful/helpful in those articles! I've been reading and re-reading them myself, and just realized that one of the 'pieces of the puzzle' that I've not yet -- but am now starting to -- put into practice is to try to become more aware of where I do feel "joy". And, it does fill me with joy (even if only temporarily - because soon enough everything else "lands on me" again), but still it does fill me with joy, and a sense of 'meaning and belonging', when I am able to help one (or more) of someone who is also in grief and mourning. So, thanks for taking your time to mention it. I do very much appreciate it, and it is meaningful for me; you helped, encouraged and supported me. <Angel wings>.

I also don't have too many "real life" or "3D" people who want to talk to me right now. (I was told, by a real-true friend who found the balls to be honest, brave and courageous enough to tell me that I get "too serious"...the unexpressed part being "I get too serious for what they can handle or feel comfortable with or want to deal with". So then I find myself wanting to have empathy, compassion and understanding for their own (emotional) limitations and lacks, and inabilities and lack of capacity. (I find it difficult to just get or stay pissed off at them.)

I have a document that is an ever-growing 'eulogy' for Ray -- because, every 3 days I realize something new about him, that is/was wonderful and awesome about him. If you won't mind, I'm going to riff off what you said, "...my amazing and mostly silent but supportive parting {"parting" = Freudian slip} partner sitting in his chair ...". Mine was so also like that! ❤️.

KayC, yes a devaluing of my own current feelings and sense and experience, but not intentional or deliberate on her part. So...and I really don't know if it's constructive for me, or non-constructive, or ultimately destructive for me; but, at present time, I'm just trying (doing my best to try) to hold understanding and compassion for her, and still see her friendship as valuable, real and supportive, instead of putting "friend" in quotes. That is, I get the part about being self-compassionate, and what she said was not at all compassionate towards me...but.... But. Heckuvva, it's just all hard and difficult!

I really would appreciate the perspective of others, when it comes to how I'm doing things. Which is another reason why I typed "thanks to ALL". I appreciate everything about this community. Love and hugs to one and ALL.   Ronni

Edited December 2, 2022 by Ronni_W
Freudian slip

[William M]

Yes, Ronnie, I agree. group has been a life line for me. Especially those first few months, when I thought a was loosing my mind!  Between getting returned love from "our" 2 precious little dogs,( My baby girls!) and support from those here that just  "got it" and "knew", saved me from. well, who knows what!  I'm still not whole, but I least I'm still here

[Ronni_W]

Williem, interestingly enough. Yesterday or earlier today, I found myself asking myself what do I actually-really-truly mean when I talk about "being whole"??? I'm still only at the beginning of all of that 'inner exploration', but have already realized that it doesn't, in Reality, mean my not feeling sad, confused, not always self-confident, etc.

So then I went, "Okay, if I don't know what 'being whole' means, what do I think "Cosmic-Divine Love" means? -- Would I know it's Vibrations and Frequencies even if it did come to me? How would I know for sure?", and various assorted questions along that line of questioning.     Problem for me, I don't know any people who are willing to delve this deep into their own Self and their own psyche. Almost everyone is willing to say, to one or another degree, "I am not whole; I need to heal", but no-one can then, or wants to then, have a further conversation about what they currently think-believe about it.

Sometimes I just get so frustrated. But. At least I'm still here.     Love'n hugs, Ronni.

[DWS]

Earlier today, a friend of mine made a suggestion that he thought would be helpful to get me out of the house. His suggestion seemed logical for sure but it's not something that appeals to me right now. This particular friend has been a bit more understanding than others in my life because he, at least, still acknowledges my grieving, sad state but it made me think of Ronni's topic of thankfulness for this site...a safe haven. I can't fault my friend's continual attempts of getting me to heal and feel "better" but when I have suggestions tossed my way, I can't help but sense an underlying notion that they feel I'm not even attempting to feel "better". In my view, I'm coping as best as I can with this tragic loss and I have been dealing with what life has thrown my way throughout this time. Yesterday, the strong winds brought down a large branch in my backyard so I cut it into smaller pieces, cleaned up the mess and took it away to the dumping site. That was life and the universe getting me out of the house. Thankfully, I know that the great people here understand. 

[KayC]

Getting out can be helpful but not if it's not what you want right now.  For some it's a time of cultivating self, I feel that largely most of the time and have learned to pay attention to what I'm really feeling.

I, too, have found so much emotional support from my little Kodie!  I have him registered as a service dog but to me he is mostly emotional support, he's very in tune with me.  He's been a lifesaver.

[DWS]

3 hours ago, KayC said:

For some it's a time of cultivating self...

I find words can hold so much meaning and comfort right now. I need ways to adequately describe my pain and the ongoing messiness of me dealing with the loss of my partner. "Cultivating" seems like such a great and loving word for this time. I like and use the word "processing"...as in, processing what happened...but that is what's needed at the start of the grief journey. There's shock and confusion, emptiness and debilitating sorrow so that requires processing. 

But cultivating suggests preparing, gathering and re-building as in cultivating a garden in the spring. With such tremendous loss, our gardens were blown up. Processing means we view the damage and try to assess what to do. Cultivating is the time of wanting to be isolated but starting to do some work, maybe picking up a rake to start clearing the soil, move some things in other areas temporarily while we figure out where things can go. And we are entitled to go about cultivating at our own pace. Others may think we're not doing much but cultivating our self and identity requires a lot of time.

 

[Ronni_W]

On 12/5/2022 at 11:51 AM, DWS said:

I find words can hold so much meaning and comfort right now. I need ways to adequately describe my pain and the ongoing messiness of me dealing with the loss of my partner.

I've also (only fairly recently) started to ask myself, "What do I really mean, want, miss, wish for, when I say <this> or think <that> or 'feel' <the other>???"

Through a different grief-support resource, I've been liking the word "transition" -- many phases of a single transition, and then also just many separate/unique transitions, each of their own. But, DWS, now you've got me thinking about gardening, and how they 'graft' or 'splice' together this flower species (just for example, a flower), 'splice' it with its 'cousin', to cultivate, or create or recreate, or generate or regenerate, a hardier, more resilient species of flower...but that still has its genesis / foundation in/from the original.

At the minute I'm hooked on "transition"...also because it suggests (to me, at least), that this isn't necessarily my 'forever, written-in-stone' permanent situation. That is, I'm still 'in transition'; cultivating, grafting, weeding out, formulating, generating and recreating. And, even as much as I'd really like them to be able to, my loved ones, true friends and family cannot even begin to see all of these inner processes, and cultivations, and recreations, that I am doing -- or, at least, trying my best to do for myself -- even though none of it seems to be evident to any of the people in my outside world. God Love and Bless them, one and all!

[KayC]

Transition, that's another good word.  It implies it's not static.