I am sorry.
Sorry that it hurts so much that it makes it hard to eat, sleep and breathe.
Humans are full of emotions and grief is the strongest of all. It tests our endurance of pain.
It is strange how we have assorted our miseries as pain, sadness and depression and then, there is grief, which is nothing but all of these.
It is a friend that comes when you lose someone. Forever.
No goodbye is as permanent as death. So grieving is frequently associated with death but, it is no stranger to the death of a relationship too.
So if this pain is breaking you down let it overpower you for a while. This feeling is justified.
I want you to know that one day this too shall pass. I can not say when – maybe a week, a month, a year but it will, for sure.
Grief is like an ocean; it comes in waves. It is an emotion so intense that your brain can not afford a place for it, not forever.
So if it is here acknowledge it and wait for it to leave. Just like you do for the annoying guests who love to linger on for more than required.
It is a dark tunnel with a brighter future on the other side.
There is happiness on the other side. There is hope, peace and love. I promise.
There is change as well. For after this has passed, your heart will never be the same. It will become more gentle and aware. Perhaps a bit more guarded and full of gratitude as it will know how it feels to feel nothing at all.
If you are grieving someone right now, I want you to know that universe is looking out for you. You are needed and appreciated. This era of darkness shall pass.
No one can take this pain away but understanding this darkness will make it a bit less scary and navigating through the stages of grief easier.
Shock & Denial
An ordinary event is not capable of stirring the whirlwind of emotions that grief brings along. It takes something you wanted the most, someone you loved more than your life to do that.
The loss is too much to acknowledge. So you cling to the ghosts of hope because it feels unfair to breathe without them.
This hope is an enemy disguised as a friend. You may find it a pleasant refuge, away from the ache but will take you down the trap.
The only way out of this pain is through it and avoiding it will only make it harder.
It takes a lot of strength to accept this and come out of this denial. But the truth is that they have left. You are alive for a reason.
Hope is one of the emotions capable of makings humans do wonders. Don’t let it turn against you. Be hopeful for the things that are possible; happiness and peace. After all, there is a reason you are still here.
If it hurts, let it. Please don’t take refuge in fake hope when you are growing around grief.
Pain & Guilt
When you gather the strength to leave the cover of hope aside, the waves of pain will hit you in full. There will be days when you can not do anything but cry. Worse, there will be days when you can not even cry but yearn why are you the one left behind.
You may feel survival guilt in this stage of grief. I will be lying if I say that my darkest, lowest grieving days did not want me to beg for death instead because that looked easier than enduring the pain.
Luckily I did not give up on hope and directed it in the right direction with the phrase – this too shall pass.
No one, nothing in this world is worth your life. We are here for a reason, even if it means bearing this pain. It is ironic but only this chaos will give you strength. The one that will make you unbreakable because nothing can be as bad as the pain you feel right now.
A colleague once told me when you hit bottom- rock, you go nowhere but up; making me wonder if the pain was worth it. Trust me it was, it always is!
Anger & Bargaining
Grief changes over time.
There is pain, so much of it, you don’t know what to do with it.
So it wears a mask and presents itself as anger; on the ones who left and on yourself for not doing enough to keep them from going.
Your brain is searching for an outlet for this pain and anger and directs it towards you.
So you get stuck on the what-ifs and at-leasts. You regret and repent your actions.
But please understand that it is not your fault. You couldn’t have saved them or the relationship; nothing that is not supposed to happen ever happens.
So darling, be gentle with yourself. You are already suffering don’t add to it.
Yes, you could have spent more time with them but that would have made it harder for you to endure the loss and for them to go, they had to.
Everything that happens is written, already planned you couldn’t have changed it. What happened has happened.It can’t be changed. It was destined. No one had the power to stop what was coming.
So please breathe. Be in the present and cry. Of course, you miss them! There might be a flood of memories, drown in them if you wish but not in what if’s as they don’t exist in the first place.
Depression
If I was to tell someone when is grief at its worst? I would say when it transforms to depression. It is perhaps the quietest state of grief.
You have felt so much that your body is tired now. It is the phase where you break down. You don’t cry your lungs out or have those constant streams of tears down your face because you have probably made friends with the pain, internalised it.
You may no longer feel its presence but are tired of it. This brings along hopelessness, making you feel like there is no way out.
But remember, this too shall pass. You may lose interest in the things you love because of your newfound realisation that everything is so temporary and has to go.
You may want to withdraw yourself and never step out. It may take all the strength but you have to do the things you used to, get back to your daily routine.
Some things may make you cry, go ahead and break down again but do not hold yourself back. Every tear you shed is a tribute to the ones who left. They are gone, you miss them, it pains to be without them but life goes on.
Withdrawing yourself is not the way out. That’s not why you have survived so far.
Acceptance
This is the stage of grief where your brain will finally stop playing tricks on you. You will be able to see things clearly for the first time. It will still pain because the void is still there. That is permanent, just like the loss.
But now you are aware of what you lost and its implications. Though this does not mean that the suffering has finished as this realization itself will be haunting. Something that meant life to you has gone. And you will have to wake up every day and miss them, knowing you can not do anything about it.
Acceptance without courage will not help. So when grief overwhelms you, accept it and know that life does not stop. This one is an equally dangerous phase to be stuck in. Because if you don’t pull yourself out, it becomes all about revisiting the past, which is never a good place to stay.
Memories are good to visit, but always remember to come back to the present again.
Hope
Hope is the light of happiness that will mark an end to the final days of your despair. Now that you are aware of your loss, let this awareness stay with you forever.
But my love, you need to move, slowly in baby steps. Keep going, trust the universe
You don’t need to think about how or when will grief go away. Because it will, if you deserved this pain, you also deserve better things – love, happiness and peace.
Hope does not mean looking forward to moving on to a new partner. It means moving forward towards happiness, knowing that you will be happy, believing things will eventually settle, get better, despite that loss.
Healing is not a linear process. Somedays you may feel like you are finally going to make it through. While the next day, you might find yourself sitting in a corner, unable to move. You might break down at the times you least expect and laugh at jokes you feel guilty about!
But, my love, you have been through a lot. So be gentle with yourself. There are ups and downs but there is nowhere you can go but up from here! All the happiness you deserve will automatically find a way to you just hang on!
#thethoughtchunksgrief, #stagesofgrief