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Am I grieving?? Asking for some help please.
I thought I’d be relieved to finally be correctly diagnosed for my mental and physical health after so many years of things ‘not quite fitting’ and escalating despite cycling through treatments that never worked. Everything mental and physical both attributed to prolonged Complex PTSD and autism, and our worst case scenario coming to light now is an identity dissociation. There was the happy relief at first that was so amazing but was sadly short lived. Getting to ‘be myself but happy again’ after stuff was figured out finally, was crushed with the realization that the ‘myself’ I thought I was, is actually ‘many’ working side by side. And it’s complex and we split for nearly every function in life. There is no ‘I’ here except who we feel we never had the chance to be. My motives that finally got me to my answers were just wanting to be healthy for my daughters and to be the mom they want and need. I feel it’s selfish to feel like we’re grieving so heavily the life we never had a chance to really live, only protect. I know this isn’t a mental health group, but I’ve only ever felt grief or loss incorrectly since childhood and in the form of severe guilt& regret, or apparently simply disconnected from feeling it in the most extreme way. Sometimes we lack it completely. I am forced to feel the loss and grief at times now in the form of giant meltdowns, though they always pass on their own, we don’t know positive coping for grief on any level and were never taught at any age. Even now when it’s felt so strong, I don’t believe it’s getting processed or released bc of the meltdowns. We simply can’t deal with it without some advice. Can anyone help me with positive coping for actually feeling grief and loss, it’s such a strong emotion and it’s so foreign, our system has no tools for this. With so much to process as far as trauma it’s already an overwhelming task ahead. This feeling hits similar but it’s now forced to be felt at times and looking for just some basic strategies for help with this part to try to take some wait off so focus can still be on healing for our family. Even though this is an uncommon situation I’m hoping maybe anyone with real life experience on emotions that are normally felt correctly and have to be addressed, may be able to help…..
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Firstly, the "you" who is speaking now is clear, cogent, insightful, and intelligent. If I can ask, Who is that?
That "I" doesn't sound broken or split. She can "nurture" all the others to be closer together.
The split(s) are a primal protective defense mechanism to keep you from being completely broken down by the trauma(s). (Donald Kalsched).
Since you can't right now pull it all together into full consciousness, you end up grieving in bits and pieces, which is not Flushing out the trauma(s) and freeing you.
Carl Jung worked on healing by making the unconscious conscious, in small steps (alchemy) until the Self could be unified and whole - "I know who I am and can embrace myself, therefore allowing me to embrace others and Life itself."
Jung said the goal is not perfection. It's Wholeness.
Maybe some work with a good Jungian analyst and healing exercises might work, or you can get the books, recordings, downloads, podcasts, videos, and DIY. 🙏
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3 Reactions@shmerdloff
Thank you for the comment back and the advice, support, and insight. My name is Cadence, I’m not sure what my logistical name is and I’m leaving that question up to our system mapper/gatekeeper but she’s talking a break from fully fronting for a few days. I do know my role consists of external communication and decision making and I have an almost perfectionist way of needing to word things correctly which sometimes is overwhelming. but I use what I know of the system to try to ask helpful questions when I front and using a forum we all have access to and will hopefully look back on when needed. I sometimes take some notes for the system mapper for later but am less concerned with the ‘right now’ like she sometimes get stuck on it takes a sec for her to step away sometimes so we can just live but she doesn’t mean to. I’m aware of current situations and know traumatic memories exist but don’t really go back into them, I’m very mindful of present circumstances and our common goal to move ahead with our lives but maintain knowing the past needs addressing at the proper times. I’m not very emotional, through the system though we have little affective empathy, but like all of us I have cognitive empathy n compassion. I write more than I talk out loud. And it’s seams more of this when I’m physically alone. It’s another who coordinates day to day stuff to set up for future things, and another who speaks with our therapist. And many many others. some hold trauma, strong emotions, certain memories, and a number of others specific helpful daily roles of just life and protection or communication functions. I feel there’s good multiplicity going on and currently are doing the best we can by being self aware and still working towards proper therapies and resources to help. We all over explain everything if inquired about I’m sure is longer than what was necessary 🤦♀️ thank you again for the comment and some things for us to pursue!!!
@shmerdloff
And hopefully soon the feelings of grief felt can touched on for us. Trying to ‘take the edge’ off of current emotional and sensory overwhelm to do what we can right now to make the world more tolerable. Since this all will likely take a very very long time it’s all about as much stability. And foreign feelings felt so strong really throw things over the edge.
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1 Reaction@staevievivx6
You make sense to me. You can keep on writing (even private).
Have you read When Rabbit Howls?
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1 Reaction@shmerdloff
I’ll have to look that one up, thank you for the suggestion. If you would like to continue with a conversation you can go ahead and send me a message 🙂