On Grief

    It’s April. The weather is getting nicer, the days are getting longer. The sun is shining when I wake up, yet instead of happy, I feel… pain. For everything there is a season. For me, the longer days and nice weather bring about grief. Grief for the person I was before the trauma that caused my PTSD. If you have PTSD, you might understand what I’m talking about. If not, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’ll explain.

    Everyone who has PTSD was living their lives before they experienced the trauma that caused it. We were all running around being ourselves - going to work (or school), going home, shopping, spending time with friends and family. Doing all the things people do. For me, I was just out of school, living far from home, and experiencing life as a full-time working professional. It was bright and sunny and I spent my free time exploring my new world. I went hiking in parks, visited museums, went to events, went to the gym, and took care of all the things that came with living on your own. It felt like the first time I was truly free. As you know, or can probably guess, trauma throws a wrench in things. Suddenly living life the way we had been proved itself to be dangerous. Perhaps not even dangerous in the way that we knew we were taking a risk - just the same routine as usual but something went horribly wrong. Of course whatever happened that was so traumatic is something that needs to be avoided, right? That’s what our brains want - they want to mitigate the risk of that awful thing happening again. So it tells you to stay away from everything associated with it.

    But what happens when that ends up being a huge part of your life? For me, that trauma was a sexual assault committed by someone I trusted. It wasn’t a diversion from my routine, or someone sketchy I could blame myself for not spotting in advance. People in daily life became the enemy, according to my brain. It wanted to protect me, so it labeled the opposite gender as necessary to avoid and decided staying home and avoiding the world was the only safe answer, because it’s impossible to watch and guard everywhere at once, especially when “the enemy” is 50% of the population. And so my new life started - with that newfound freedom sucked away by a brain frozen in anxiety, fear, and hyper-vigilance, no longer able to go freely about all those things I had been doing without a thought. The life I had been living was no more. That’s where the grief comes from. All the things I want and wish I could do like before.

    Grief is natural. We lost the person most dear to us - ourselves. Why wouldn’t we grieve ourselves like any other loved one? We grieve for friends, family, our beloved pets, so why should it be strange to grieve a part of ourselves? For me, the seasons remind me of what I lost in myself and lead me to grieve that loss again each year. That grief makes me more irritable, even though I try not to be short or grumpy. I have to remind myself that it’s okay to be sad for what I lost, and that I’m working towards being able to do all those things again. It might not look exactly the same, but that doesn’t make it any less. We should show ourselves compassion when we’re grieving, just like we would to anyone else who lost someone dear to them. We wouldn’t expect them to keep it all in, so we shouldn’t expect that of ourselves. I struggle with that. I feel embarrassed. I feel ashamed that I could do everything myself before and now I struggle going anywhere alone. I don’t want to talk about those things, but it’s important. It’s important to helping me understand why I feel bad - instead of just thinking “I feel like crap even though it’s sunny and people are happy while I think everything sucks.” It’s also important to helping others - like my partner - understand what’s going on in my head and why I’m suddenly moody. “No, it’s not something you did; I’m just struggling internally - I’m grieving for something I lost of myself” - and just like we would show compassion to someone grieving a loss, we should expect to receive compassion in return, and not be stifled by embarrassment or shame. No one who hasn’t been there may ever truly understand, but they can still offer support. Anyone who doesn’t wasn’t worthy of your time to begin with.