Comment by PamFitros@boldlybaldwomen.com on November 3, 2014 at 11:32am

BlondeB4bald,

I get what Dom is saying, but I think he's missing a very important piece of dealing with any loss. Time. It takes time to work through all the feelings that are involved with change of any kind. As a nurse, you know exactly what I am talking about. There's a whole bottle of physical and emotional shocks to get through before anyone even gets close to a bottle neck. 

Raw feelings need to be processed. That takes time. And, I don't know about anybody else out there, but for me the process was not a straight line connected from the bottom of the event to the top of acceptance over time. There were three steps forward, two back, one step forward five back. It was a jagged tooth graph like the picture on a heart monitor of a heart in distress.

It is not all or nothing. There is a difference between working through feelings and wallowing in them.

And the process of grief is not like a class that starts when the bell rings and ends when it rings again. My father died when I was sixteen. I grieved then, worked through the grief and got on with my life. Still...one day some twenty years later, I burst into inconsolable tears in the middle of a bright sunny day because my father never had to opportunity to see the kind of woman I'd grown into or to meet the love of my life or know his grand children.

Did I stay there, stuck? No, I took the time I needed to recognize and feel my feelings to make my list of all the things I wish my father could have seen. When my tears were done and I'd said a prayer that somehow my father would know I missed all that never was, I went on with my day. I have never forgotten that day. My husband was kind enough to draw me into his arms and dribble tears and sniffles on his t-shirt without telling me to get on with it or get over it. That kind acceptance helped me allow those feelings to flow through me rather than get stuck somewhere inside.

I think that's the piece Dom is missing. It's not all or nothing. Open or shut. On or off. Feelings are just feelings. For most people they come and they go and they may revisit from time to time, but we know there will be an end to how we feel right now, just like the wind will blow the clouds away and we will see the sun again.

Are there people who get stuck in their feelings and get something out of wallowing in them year after year and using them as an excuse not to get on with life? Yes, I believe there are. Do those folks need confrontation? Yes I believe they do. In some cases a good swift kick in their emotional but (as opposed to butt) could be beneficial.

For the most part, however, I think the most effective way of getting someone through the bottleneck is to show them there is a way out and help them step back from emotion to look at options for moving ahead.

Are there some people who, no matter what approach is used, choose to stay stuck in the bottle neck and cry help when what they really want is to play a round of 'Poor Me Ain't It Awful?' Yes. But that is true all across the spectrum of life's losses.

BlondeB4bald, know that you are doing a beautiful thing in being vulnerable about your feelings, strong in your expectations for a safe place to share them and up front with yourself and your family.

Shine on, sister, shine on.

Pam

Comment by Gabi Bastos on November 6, 2014 at 5:58am

You made me cry.... I wish i didnt feel the same way as you do, but i do sometimes.

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