Mourning

Many years ago, my therapist told me that it was important to mourn my losses. I didn’t even know what that meant!

It is significant to note my complete inability to identify how I felt when I was wounded. Before I could mourn, I needed to become present with my feelings. Grieving came after the long process of protecting myself, having my experiences validated, and expressing my anger. First, I had to heal enough to “hold” my own feelings.

Without bringing our injuries into the light, acknowledging them and feeling them, we are unable to mourn and move on to the life we deserve.

For me, this was no easy feat. When our feelings are denied as children, we develop an emotional disconnect. I became detached from my sense of self and self-compassion. In order to banish that which was too painful to endure, I dissociated.

Like many other victims of childhood abuse, I learned that my survival depended on being tough enough to handle anything. Although I was acutely aware of – and compassionate to – the pain of other people, I was blind to my own suffering. Long into adulthood, I “powered” through every situation just to survive. I never learned how to process my own pain. Undoing a lifelong mechanism is a very difficult undertaking. In order to grieve – I needed to “unlearn” the way I learned to ignore my agony. Then I needed to re-learn a healthy method of expressing my sadness. It was very important for me to learn to cry for myself and to share those tears with others.

Each time I thought I had finished mourning, another wave of heartbreaking losses emerged. However, as I peeled away each layer of pain, I grew increasingly stronger.