The real grief, day 2

So I wondered if I was grieving wrong before because I couldn’t feel anything and wondered if the real breakdown was coming. I know now that no, I wasn’t “grieving wrong” but that my brain was protecting me from what it couldn’t handle.

Last night I had trouble sleeping and then when I tried, I had very lucid dreams (alas, no contact with J) and I was noticeably really starving—which I haven’t been in months, maybe years. When I got up, my body was still trying to hang on to sleep for a really long time.

Unfortunately, when I woke up, I wasn’t still feeling hungry anymore. I guess that’s going to be another stage in my healing process and I’m not there yet.

Now I’m feeling everything and it’s not pretty. My sleep schedule is completely whacked out. Even my menstrual cycle is reacting. I say that only because it shows how strong the mind-body link is and I think that similar reactions to major trauma explain some of the reasons for extremely early menopause in other women in my family.

Basically, I haven’t had a period since the week before J died and I chalked it up to perimenopause. But now that I am facing my grief, it feels like it’s coming back.

I’m realizing how powerful denial is and how easy it would be to slip into it. I could have very easily stayed in that state forever and I think it was only that my friend (who’s also working toward becoming a therapist himself) recognized the sadness in my eyes that it snapped me out of it. And now I feel like I’m really beginning the real grieving process.

Not that this is a new wave of grief. Many people say there are waves of grief. No, this is completely new and different. It’s like there was this hard, thick layer of ice around my emotions before and it’s finally melted away. I feel completely raw and exposed to air and everything hurts.

I wanted to do so much today. I need to change the cat litter and clean the kitchen and take out the recycling and get stuff ready to mail and reply to blog comments. And change my sheets and wash my laundry and take a shower. But in truth, all I got done was finished an article by deadline.

I also want to keep writing for Medium but I can tell that I need time and rest before being able to write my next article. I thought I would write about becoming unthawed emotionally but it has become clear that the next thing I have to write is about the abuse J grew up with…again.

I’m thinking more about his life and I am angry and sad about what he went through. That’s such a heavy topic and it’s going to take brain power that I just don’t have right now to write it.

I actually have to sit with it and feel it and think about it. Doing so is incredibly emotionally draining. I will be glad when I do it because I know it will be a purging and it will probably be a good article, too.

But I’m actually having to gear up to write, which is new. I’m starting to understand my creative process and how it works now.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to focus on my writing and my physical and mental health instead of trying to date anyone. It doesn’t sound as fun but it’s what needs to be done.

And now even though I’m not tired per se, I’m just so mentally drained that all I can think about is going to bed early.