Processing Bad News

I haven't seen this topic written about at all.

But receiving news that is upsetting or awful or tragic or frightening?

How do we process this?

In different ways?

Grief is weird and awful. When someone close to me has died I take ages to process it. When my father died it involved flying to Ireland with delayed overnight at Heathrow and a complete blank of what happened after Heathrow, the journey to see my dead father, the wake, the funeral, the reception at a hotel with the entire family and friends. 

Then over coffee with a few friends in downtown Cork the following day - four days since I left Canada - was where I finally burst into floods of tears and had to be carted off to the nearest washroom and mopped up and comforted for a very long time.

I was only in my twenties when my mother died from a horrific form of cancer and I hit the bottle savagely (giving "bottling it up" a brand new meaning) and it took me years to walk away from that and get the help and counselling I desperately needed.

I bottled up all the deaths of nine close friends in the space of a year and half about six years ago and it was only when my doctor told me I was falling into massive ill health as my blood pressure was through the roof and my kidneys were failing and then asking me what the hell was going on when I told him, after some difficulty articulating it, about all my dead dear ones. He immediately referred me to a grief therapist and I will be forever grateful for what followed. Six months of therapy. I was up to that point in my life completely unaware of how unrecognized depression and darkness and grief can impact someone physically even mortally.

I received really bad news about a family member in the last few days and I am crying freely and often about it which is a massive improvement from the old me. Bottling it all up and tamping it all down.

How do you process bad news or grief?

Miasma

Gosh people, it is time to face my reality. Some things I don't write about. Some things I don't share.

And why not?

Because of labeling. Because of fear. Because of the old admonition "be careful who you share with."

But change I must. For today in meditation?

It struck me that I am always sad. Have been for a long time now. Maybe 18 months or longer with a brief respite for about six months. Until Ansa died. I observe life at a distance and often through a veil of tears. Pardon the pun but I'm actually in a vale of tears while behind this veil. Constantly it seems.

Overly dramatic? You're not living where I am.

I can pretend for a while, an hour or so. I can even laugh or plumb my innate Irish wit to make others laugh. But then.

I'm stopped, sliding around in one deep muddy spot, avoiding the swamp that will suck me down.

So the meditation?

I wrote first to my friend Ross who is dying, doing the "next right thing" which is my philosophy of life in a nutshell.

I wrote to my friend Pad who has kicked cancer twice and is a mutual friend of Ross's.

And then finally, I reached out for help myself and wrote to Dr. Patrick my grief counselor who was so helpful in the past, two years ago now and for about 6 months of sessions. I need a current assessment of my mental and emotional and spiritual condition.

For I can't go on like this.

This Much is True

Still life lunch. Alas, no, none of it grown by me.

I've come out of the shadow of darkness. Everybody keeps telling me. I look better, sound better, talk better, respond better. That's good.

A major part of this was letting go. Of so much I can't begin to tell you. Not just the 3 beloveds who died, but also my past, my missing daughter, and on.

Finding a new purpose(s), taking care of my health which is not terrific, being honest, distancing myself from those who harm me. Taking stock. Feeling pleased with the inventory. Finding some new projects, one over dinner last night with a long time client who's visiting St.John's for a conference and is expanding her core business and wants me on board for a while with this. Fortuitous.

July is heavily booked with my PGs, the anthology just about ready to go to print, a 3-day (free!)vacation planned with a dear friend to visit another friend's newly opened gallery about 250km from here, with side-visits to other places of interest.

And I spent some time designing a new afghan for a beloved niece. And was excited to get it on the needles this morning. Quite a few have said I should make a little industry out of this too, maybe I will.

All in all, I do love this quiet place in bright sunshine I find myself in. I think we only appreciate such contentment when we have wrestled for long stretches in the dark with shadows and hurt and pain.

And a huge bonus is knowing, truly and deeply, who one's soul friends are.

And it can be delightful to discover those who really care.

Along with stopping the cartwheels for those who couldn't give a tosser.

I am so grateful.

I truly feel reborn.

Dis 'N Dat

We finally got some summer here. Seriously. Temperatures were so low I had my fire going up to a few nights ago. Today is sunny but around 11C. A joke really.

Tourist season is busy so far. Good bookings for June. Many bookings for July and August. Earning my crusts for the winter. Guests who Airbnb are very interesting. My observation so far (which I've shared with a few) is that only very contented couples go for the Airbnb experience as their relationships can be under intimate scrutiny by other guests and by the hosts. Just my thoughts. I mean if one is civil and respectful to one's partner over an early breakfast the happy couples exam is passed with flying colours. And I read human beings well. I can detect the false exteriors, the phony smiles and the passive aggressive underpinnings quite easily.

I seem to be on the go much more than I'd like. Today is my first day for ME in over a week. I took naps, from exhaustion, a few times in the morning after the PGs left. I've never done that before. Could be my energy is not as good as it was due to health issues or age. I did mention this to my doctor but I get the raised eyebrow of "what do you expect?" which is not helpful.

Friends from Ontario have bought a gorgeous house here and held a little dinner party Friday night and served Lobster Newburg.

A friend has been experimenting with woodpiles and built me two of these. They are in the German tradition and called Holzhaufen. Huge advantage is they dry very quickly with the wind running through them.

I met an old blog friend and her husband for dinner this past week. The previous time we'd arranged it in Ontario she had health issues, but this time they were touring Newfoundland and we met up. Absolutely delightful in the flesh, so to speak, it is extraordinary how the internet has changed the way of forming friendships. I can honestly say, having met quite a few bloggers, that the friendships in real life "meets" are warm and always feel as if we've known each other a long time. Thank you Tessa and Martin!

My wonderful grief counsellor is giving a workshop in our town community centre tomorrow. Looking forward.

Looking forward is what it's all about. Truly. And that was my father's secret in life. Always looking forward. Happy Da's Day, old man.

Wherever you are.

Shifting Sands

Something has shifted. Don't know what, how, where or when. It could be the weather. It could be taking myself off some pills which were doing me in with constant coughing (with an 8 week afterlife, good gawd Big Pharma, you're killing us!). Still coughing 3 weeks later. Nighttime is the worst. But it's not getting me down or anything or making me feel hopeless and sad and you know, that depression thing.

I reported what I'd done to my doctor yesterday and we shifted meds again. Doctors are awfully disappointed when meds and patients don't play well together. Especially when it's a now a couple of meds that don't agree with me at all. I felt his disapproval. A personal failure on my part. Sorry doc.

I actually look forward to a doc visit. Not for the doc. It's the waiting room and next door pharmacy which are like social clubs. I meet neighbours and chat and get caught up and the doc or the pharmacist become almost incidental. I was pleased when a stranger (to me) walked in and looked at me and said "Oh, you're ____'s mother!" And I said "How do you know?" and she said "Oh, you're so alike!" Daughter was the head off her father for years and years but as she ages my gene pool seems to be taking over.

My crying jags are less frequent, grief takes its own journey, patience is essential along with acceptance and letting it all out somewhere safe like in my counsellor's office.

It is gorgeously beautiful here so I got out and about and took some photos. A camera in my hand makes me happy.

Safety

I ran into an old friend yesterday. I hadn't seen him in a while and he asked me how I was doing. I said it had been a rough time and he asked me why and I gave him the briefest of versions of the past year in my life and it was the oddest thing. Without a pause or reflective comment or even sympathy, he launched into this long narrative of how he was so much worse off. Ten minutes later I broke away from him. I felt like I'd been slapped.

I had a session with my counsellor an hour later - previously scheduled - and told him what had happened. I recognised that I needed to be even more careful with whom I share anything with for I can feel far worse afterwards. That crying in the wilderness thing.

My counsellor had me focus on the gifts that have sprung from my losses. And there were many. Not least of which is reevaluating my life now in light of these. He also had me talk about Missing Daughter and revisit that with the heart numbing thought that I am "dead" to her and may remain so. It's a fresh way of looking at this and I am grateful for that.

Healing is the underlying scaffolding of all of this. I keep thinking I'm ready to brace myself against the real world and then find I'm not. I'm unable to live superficially, it's a gift given to many but alas, I didn't make that particular cut. Many, many times I wished I was light and fluffy and could fiddle-dee-dee life's trials, both yours and mine. Or stay mum and wait for them to pass or even bury them.

The last few days have been rough, that Black Dog thing. I know there's an end in sight, I wish I knew when. Change is always nerve-wracking and emotional, even the changes wrought by intensive counselling sessions with the healing acceptance of the losses of former confidantes combined with the rejection of those I hold most dear.

No one gets a free pass, particularly as we age. It comes down to the tools we have to just deal.

I am grateful for those.

Gifts

"What a gift it is," he says, "When all that is required is a shift in lifestyle, paying more attention to the details of day to day life with the promise being that life will get better."

I explained to my counsellor about my specialist's findings. How alarming. How demolishing.

I reflected on my three dear, dead friends. I feel he knows them intimately now. Along with my family of origin.

What an opportunity it would have been for them to change direction, make some slight adjustments to the sails and tack into a different direction on the great ocean of life. But alas their deaths had no such advance warning.

My gift indeed.

"Who do you talk to? Intimately I mean?" he asks me.

"You," I said after a minute, "Only you, there is no one else. Truly."

"But there is room for others, is there not?"

"I suppose. But shared history, depth, no way that can be replaced."

"I agree. But your spirit needs nurturing and maybe this freedom is giving you another gift in that you honour the memories of these beloved friends by opening up the space left inside you and use your last few precious years to explore your own creativity further."