Dolly was a beautiful long-haired dachshund with a personality that we knew from the start would one day break our hearts. After almost eighteen years, that’s what happened. I must tell you about her. In this picture she’s still got the shorter coat of a puppy. She would tip her head as she looked at you and charm you to tears. She’d play under a sheet like a cat, on her back batting at your hand and rolling around as you tickled her through the sheet. She would stand over our our chests and try to kiss us. She turned her head sideways so she could gently surround John’s nose with her jaw. She was two months old when we got her and the only other dog she tolerated was Henry, her Black and Tan older dachshund “brother.” We’d have to pick her up and restrain her to keep her from rushing to go for the throat of any dog we encountered. Henry loved to fetch a stick in a river or lake. She’d only do it a few times as if to show that she could.
You get the picture. We were in denial that we would lose her the last couple years and carefully dosed her with pain meds for her back pain. We even looked into back surgery for her (bargaining?). We weren’t angry over her death, but we were devastated with how it happened. Her back suddenly went into terrible pain and it was traumatic taking her, shivering and distraught, to be euthanized. John still cringes over seeing her go limp. I still feel pain in my chest when I think of her eleven years later. It was hard not to feel disloyal as though she could see me (continuing denial?), when two years later we adopted five-year old Dixie. John, who used to think he didn’t like dogs, is intensely bonded with Dixie and of course I love her unique, gentle and sweet temperament. Like Henry, she doesn’t know much about playing, just lots about love. Grief is a personal and unique journey for all of us. I’ll never lose all the pain of losing Dolly and I’m glad I still have that much of her left in my heart.
Continuing with this objective discussion of the grief process: Anger happens when you actually recognize what you’ve lost. You may have counted on someone to be there for you who wasn’t (Belief # 10). You may be very upset when others don’t share your standards for how to behave (Belief # 3). You may hate a person who gets the job you expected because of your many years of service (Belief #7). If you hadn’t worked hard for the promotion, you’d be angry because you expected special treatment (Belief # 11). You may be angry with yourself (guilty) if you don’t get extremely upset over a loved one’s problems, even when you provide a lot of support (Belief # 6).
Your Adult can help reduce the intensity of your fight-or-flight reactions by challenging the beliefs that keep them fired up. As an adult you can handle more than your Critical and Indulgent Parents tell you in these Toxic Beliefs. Your Adult can look for your Child’s “I can’t stand it when…” and “this is unbearable,” in response to their influence. Adult self-management (mental fitness) can help you calm down and move into the next step of grief.
Sadness happens when you feel the effects of your loss. The previous stages of grief reduce this feeling and even protect you from it. The pressure of your Parents’ Toxic Beliefs can leave your Child very much afraid of knowing how s/he really feels. Our society’s general support for these Twelve Toxic Beliefs supports this fear. Clients I worked with who cried during doctor appointments often left with medication to suppress their grief. Especially for men, it’s still often considered a shameful weakness to be very sad for very long. Anger and denial are generally better accepted for them.
Sadness is called trauma when it leads men and women soldiers to take their lives after what they’d experienced in war. People are traumatized when they are abused as children. Trauma victims may repress their memories for many years, shoving them aside without realizing it. Our human brain-body systems protect us as much as they can, from what they believe could cause life-threatening destabilization.
There’s a difference in the degree of wounding and pain between what is considered trauma and sadness. For both of these our society’s embrace of Toxic Beliefs makes resolving grief more difficult. People often won’t seek help when they need it. They may revisit denial, bargaining and especially anger for years as they fend off their (sometimes buried out of their awareness) fear of what sadness might do to them. However, grief can only be resolved when you complete the whole process. Connecting with people who have a strong Wise Parent, friends, a counselor or a support group can help your Adult when your Toxic Parent-Child interactions overwhelm you with fear. With the right support your Adult can gradually free you of these influences and build a Wise Parent to comfort you and soothe your sadness.
Finally, you could be ready to move into the last stage of grief that’s most often called acceptance. People all need to find their own understanding of how to resolve their grief each time they experience it. One client said she found adjusting to fit better for what she felt. This expressed for her the fact that acceptance doesn’t mean you have to decide that something was fair or just, but simply that it happened and it’s over. This is what’s possible when your Toxic Beliefs about your loss are revised into reality-based versions which are readily accessible from your Wise Parent. For some, especially those who have been traumatized, mind-body work is needed to reset their fight-or-flight sensitivity. Many can only resolve their grief when they turn their wounds into action to prevent similar pain for others. This is called transforming grief and will be discussed in future posts. For a more thorough discussion of the grief process, trauma resolution, and depression, see Claim Your Own Mental Fitness, Part II, chapters 4, 5 & 6.