Grief…Life…The Continued Experience

It’s been 7 weeks since Dave passed away and while talking about him dying is getting easier, the living without him is getting harder. I knew that I would hit this stage at some point and looking back of the last month and a half I realize that I have been numb and just moving through what needed to be done. I had been ignoring my own feelings trying to make sure that the kids were okay as were those around me. This is the trouble with being an empath. You forget about your own feelings as those of others often get in the way, but when you do finally address your own feelings they can be exceptionally overwhelming and draining. We don’t really know how to be with our own feelings, so focus on helping others through theirs. It doesn’t work very well when dealing with this type of trauma.

I had been feeling like I was doing well until I attempted to return to work. It was to be a graduate return to work, but the first day set the tone. I immediately felt disrespected and treated with a lack of sensitivity related to my trauma. I am a practical person and know that it’s not the responsibility of my employer to ensure that my mental health is taken care of, however, I had an expectation of consideration that wasn’t there. I do not fault my larger employer, but the person in charge of our office. Comments like we made the change that was best for the office made me feel disrespected as part of the office. It actually made me feel like I wasn’t wanted in the office as in no way did I feel considered as part of the change.

I returned to work to find out that the program I was now supporting was Neuroscience. In any other place I would have been fine with this, but as I had just experienced the loss of my husband to a neuro related illness I felt the change was exceptionally insensitive, and bullying. I immediately felt set up to fail in my return to work, expected to take on the challenge of building new relationships, expectations, understandings and just the challenge of the program itself related to my own personal experience. I am not there yet!

Additionally, being very tersley informed that my office hours would be changing, without any sense that there was room for discussion and compromise, really made me feel unwanted and again bullied into not returning to work. I love what I do, and miss the connection with faculty and students, but while I had expected change, I had not expected to face the intense challenge of a new program to support when I did return. I did not expect to return to an environment where I didn’t feel like that one particular person wanted me to return. I felt treated like a new employee who was also new to the workplace. I have 12 years experience within this office and more than that as a working person. My work ethic has never been questioned in this way or challenged in this way ever since I started working at 14 years old.

It made all of the grief and loss I was feeling come directly to the front of things and made me realise that my support network, while strong, wasn’t the same both at work and especially at home. My rock, pillar, supporter, and partner was gone. While I still have people I can vent to, it didn’t feel the same. The way in which I could separate work from non-work wasn’t as clear. Some of this comes from working from home, which I have enjoyed immensely, but the rest came from missing that intimate partner who just gets what you are feeling. While others can feel angry or frustrated for you, it’s just not the same.

Along side this I have to be careful about what I share with the kids as Dax keeps trying to take on the role of his dad. He is 11 and shouldn’t have to take on the emotional support for his mother like this. He worries that I am not doing well. This frustration also spills into how I interact with my kids. My emotional reserves are so low that I don’t have much capacity for others and when this happened I noticed that my patience with the youngest in particular slipped.

I am angry at how I have been treated when trying to return to work. I don’t know how to proceed in returning to work when I don’t feel like I am wanted there. I am not asked about what I can do, or where my capacity is, but assumptions are made about what I can do, which really frustrate me. Yes, I didn’t know where I was at when I attempted to return, nor what I would need to be successful as I haven’t been through this experience before. I am an experiential learner, I need to try things before I can figure out where adjustments need to be made. I had been working in a collaborative environment, or at least what was what I was led to believe. Returning after being away for 3.5 months made it feel like this was no longer that case, which has left me feeling sad. Work was a secondary support network for me, which also feels lost now.

In addition, the children have been also feeling the loss of their father more keenly over the last couple of weeks and started to act out a bit more when I did return to work. This could have been because my capacity was extremely reduced and they felt it. It could be that they felt the reduction of support and my availability for them. I am not sure as I haven’t asked, but they did make comments about wanting me to be happy. They want me to laugh, so act crazy thinking that will make me laugh becuase it makes them laugh. Only this doesn’t make me laugh just gets me more frustrated because it takes the focus away from what they should be doing (school work in particular or cleaning up).

I don’t feel prepared to return to what feels like an unsupportive environment. I don’t feel prepared to take on new challenges as I am already taking on the challenge of being a single parent when I never expected to be one. Taking on being both the comforter and the discipliner at the same time when I never had to be and was supported in those decisions, it’s lonely. Having someone you can tap out with, to be able to say I don’t want to be an adult and it’s your turn is a blessing that I am missing right now. Feeling so overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done to just live every day.

I know this is normal, this grief and feeling of pressure. I know that not every day will feel this way and I don’t.

Father’s Day was particulary hard, which I knew it would be. The kids didn’t seem to really notice that it was Father’s Day and we didn’t focus on it much. They realized it near the end of the day and wanted to call my dad to wish him a happy Father’s day, which we did and he appreciated.

We all struggle with loss in our own way and in our own time. Sometimes the hurt doesn’t come until much later when you are faced with other challenges or even just the challenges of trying to return to what normal was. However, normal has changed. It is different and what you might need for support and understanding is different from what it might have been before. To expect that someone returning from this type of loss, specifically a spouce, to be as flexible as they once were is an assumption that is hurtful, inconsiderate and insensitive. I didn’t chose to lose my husband. I didn’t chose to become the sole provider for my household. It’s something that I now have to live with and figure out how to make it work.

It’s the second voice supporting the way in which you want to live. The second voice that agrees with what you have chosen to do, say and be. The second voice that calls you out when you have gone too far. The second voice that mirrors yours. The second voice that just was always there. Now it’s one voice that is trying to be as loud as two. One voice that stumbles through the dark. One voice that hurts because the second is missing. One voice that breaks but there is no second to fill the void. One voice that feels lost without the second, but must keep being just one voice.

That is a partner, that second voice. There are other voices from your network, but none as strong and consistent as your partner. Parts of the network increase their strength at times, but none are always as strong as your partner. Some people are strong enough to be a solo voice. Some are forged to be strong enough. I have always been strong, but enjoyed the partnership. I miss him, he was my partner in everything.