Am I Crazy?? Same Event, Two Contrary Emotions
Am I going crazy??
Do I have some kind of impairment??
What is wrong with me??
NO! You’re not crazy. I promise. You’re grieving. This is normal.
Last Wednesday night we had our weekly Widow Connection Community meeting and we went around to each member to do a check-in, you know, let’s just catch up and see what everybody’s up to and how-are- ya- doin, kinda thing. And it was really pretty awesome!
I asked 2 questions to each member:
1. What’s one thing you really struggled with this week?
And
2. What was something really good that happened this week?
The first member that I called on to share told me that her biggest struggle was that she had gone out of town to see family.
Her cousin had a baby and asked her to be the godmother! This is a good thing! It’s a happy occasion, full of joy and laughter and family and fun, BUT, she said “my husband loved babies and kids and he would have loved to go to the christening and be there this weekend. He would have loved all of it and he would have been so excited to be there. He should have been there too”
She said it was such a struggle with not having him by her side. It’s just like facing the holidays, when we have to face those special family occasions that come up, and attend on our own for the first time.
Then I asked her, “What was something really good that happened this week?”
Her answer was “Well, it was being there and being with my family and holding that baby and being there for the christening.”
Same event…two contrary emotions.
She went on to tell me that she was so proud of herself for flying alone. This was the second time that she had ever flown alone and she was so proud that she did that! That was a really big accomplishment and something scary that she had to push past. But she did it! And that’s amazing!
How many of you have had an experience like this?
Where we feel an onslaught of emotions. It’s a bittersweet occasion where we go from feeling so happy to so sad, from so high to so low, all in the same few minutes of each other.
I’m pretty sure all of us could answer YES.
That’s grief.
And that’s normal.
I call it the “grief monster”. It’s like the grief monster steps in and starts pulling all the little puppet strings and I’m just along for the ride. We feel so out of control.
I remember having a similar experience at my niece’s christening. My niece was born in September 2011. Brent was killed in October of 2011. Her christening was in March. It was a big family occasion and everybody was there. I sat in the church in the middle of the service and started to have a panic attack. I could feel it coming on. I was trying so desperately to keep my you-know-what together and not lose it in the church. I was trying so hard not to cry and to breathe normal. But I just kept thinking “He should be here. He should be here. He should be here. I’m here alone.”
Which I wasn’t, but it felt that way. My brother was sitting next to me and noticed me having a hard time and he held my hand.
Then, a minute later I was happy. I was holding my beautiful baby niece and it was such a beautiful moment and she’s such a little miracle!
What a rollercoaster!
The second lady from our community meeting last week spoke up. We were still going around sharing our struggles and our highlights of the week.
She told me that her biggest struggle for the week was that her husband was always the “outdoorsy” one and that he would always take the kids on the family adventures. Like doing outdoors things and sports, like skiing. And that mom was the “indoorsy” one. She was saying that she didn’t want her kids to miss out.
She didn’t want them to stop doing those things they used to do with their dad.
He used to take them skiing every single weekend. And sometimes it would be day trips where they would get up super early and head up to the mountains and then come back that night. But the thought of doing that stressed her out and having to get out there with all the gear and everything.
BUT, this last weekend, she did it! She got up early on Saturday, drove the kids up there, she even took ski lessons herself! So she felt such a sense of accomplishment that she could do it and she did do it! She said she has small goals of being able to get on the intermediate runs with her kids and being able to keep up!
She said “I know I can’t be mom and dad. I put all of these expectations on myself to do all of it, but I just need to make peace with the fact that I can’t be both. And not to be so hard on myself.”
Again, here’s an example of the same event, with two different emotions attached to it.
Sadness that her husband isn’t the one taking the kids on these adventures and also happiness and a huge sense of pride for stepping outside of her comfort zone and tackling things she was afraid to do before.
Such a rollercoaster!
So for those of you listening and asking “how is that possible that the same moment can be happy and sad? How can I be so devastated and also feel pride?
If that is you, and you’re dealing with this swing of emotions that we go through sometimes minute to minute. And you’re asking, “is this normal? Am I normal? Do I have some kind of impairment? Am I going crazy?”
The answer is No, you’re not going crazy and YES this is all normal. I promise.
I wanted to share those two examples with you today. And I know I have many, MANY more I could share from my own experience, but I just thought it was interesting and an interesting insight from last week’s meeting that the same event, the same moment can be a struggle AND a joy!
Well played, grief monster. Well played.
If you have had an experience like this one, I would love to hear about it!
Email me at jen@widow180.com
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