Posted by Racer on July 24, 2005, at 12:53:54
In reply to Re: Don't Like Me, Don't want to be me, posted by AdaGrace on July 23, 2005, at 7:43:43
> yet I have no choice.
>
> PC, the distractions I provide myself are short lived and soon the heartache returns. I feel very stupid and foolish for not being able to go forward. Yet I cannot get rid of the dead roots I still carry around inside.You and I haven't had much contact, so I'm going to try to be very gentle with this, AdaGrace. It's coming from concern for you, not from any critical view, which I really hope comes across.
I think that you're doing yourself a disservice by trying to find distractions. Hard as it is, the best way to heal grief is to face it head on so that you can experience it, process it, and then heal. I use a kinda gross analogy, but it works for me: it's like an abcess. The skin might heal over it, but you'll still have the infection raging until you grit your teeth and have it debrided. Without the debridement, the skin might look whole, but that infection is eating away at your flesh, and your bone, and destroying you inside. It's not poetic, but then neither is the process of unresolved grief.
But just like you wouldn't start cutting out that abcess yourself, you really need some professional treatment to debride that grief. That's where the therapist comes in.
I get the feeling you know that PartlyCloudy is right. Here's my question for you: if you don't take the steps to get the help you need now, where will you be in five years? And what are the consequences of taking that time now? If the absolute worst happens right now, but the therapy works, where are you likely to be in five years? Even if the therapy is only partly successful, you're still likely to be in a much better position to deal with whatever is going on.
Oh, and a word from someone who grew up with a mother who didn't take the time to take care of herself, emotionally: don't say that you're soldiering on for anyone else. The best thing you could do for anyone else in your life, anyone else who cares about you, is to get the help you need now. Don't the people around you deserve the best AdaGrace they can get? And don't you deserve even a fraction of the care you give others?
Listen, I'm sitting here knowing that I've felt as awful as you can imagine, I've heard people saying things to me that all boil down to, "just pull yourself out of it, you *should* be over it by now." Guess what? You'll be over it when you're over it, and not before. The best way to get there, though, based on everything I've read, heard, or experienced, is to go through the full process of grieving, no matter how much it hurts, and then get help recovering from the pain.
Good luck to you, and I hope that things improve for you soon.
poster:Racer
thread:531977
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050719/msgs/532726.html