Shields Up!

First let me preface this post by saying this is neither a Pity Party nor an invitation to feel sorry for me. What I write are observations of myself, my situation, my feelings, and my thoughts from whenever I sit down to write.

All things considered, I have a good life. I am healthy, I have a loving family and good friends who care for me, I have two great jobs that I enjoy, I have a roof over my head that I call my own (even if the rats think they have part ownership these days), and I have a little money set aside for travel whenever that becomes a possibility again. So bear that in mind as I continue to muse on recent changes.

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I have a lot of time on my hands when I am not at work and I spend a fair amount of time reflecting on things, remembering the good times in my life, pondering the effects on my life that resulted from losing Chad. With all of that, I have noticed over the past several weeks that my previous life had started to feel a little unreal. More like a good novel I had read than something that had actually happened to me.

I talked about that with my grief counselor last week and she noted that she had felt similarly for a time following the loss of her daughter. For her, it was like recalling a good movie she had seen several times. We both did some research and talked again this week. Apparently, this is something of a temporary defense mechanism when the brain has trouble dealing with a sustained sense of loss. We’re not really designed to grieve so deeply and it affects every aspect of one’s life when it continues for an extended period of time.

So the brain creates a barrier of unreality to help the bereaved gain a little distance in time from the loss. It’s something of a mental band-aid that will eventually fall off, but it’s there to cover the wound from repeated harm while the healing starts.

That’s not say that the sadness has gone completely. There are still tears. There is still pain. It just somehow feels a little less real right now. And, to be honest, I’ll take it. I know it won’t last but it’s a relief for right now to be able to walk around and get through each day without feeling as though I have a large hole driven through me.

The loss will be with me always. I know that and I accept it as the price I pay for having had the loving life that I shared with Chad. But I also know that the sharp sadness I know now will diminish into a softer sense of that loss, an acceptance of Life’s unknown path for each of us, and that I will be able to continue to live, love, grow, learn, and change as a person.