Any one of those feelings can be crippling. All of them swirling together are scary. With the wrong mindset, it can be devastating. Those feelings don’t hit me all at once often, but when they do, it is easy to try to figure it out myself. That never works. When I try to fix something alone, I just make it worse.
I can never do anything alone. I’m an imperfect being. I will almost always fail. So I remind myself of one of my favorite verses of Scripture:
Careful in the KJV means “anxious or nervous”. Don’t be nervous or anxious about anything. Instead, in EVERY THING – and I believe every thing means every thing – go to God. He knows the outcome before we do. The key is to take things to Him and TRUST that He’s got it.
So just like every day, today I go to Him. He knows what’s on my mind. I will trust that He hears my prayers and He will get me through. He will give me what I need to be the person I need to be for family and friends. He will provide.
I wrote a fun blog already today, so now I need to get this down in writing before I lose it.
In therapy the past few weeks I’ve been working through some pretty deep stuff. Death has been at the forefront of my mind lately, probably due to the many deaths that I have seen in the Facebook feed over the past couple years. Whether those deaths were caused by Covid, cancer, heart attack or whatever, I have certainly felt it hit close to home. Just this week, a friend lost her fiancé and another school friend lost his mother.
This week, we dove into the subject of death itself and people in my life who I have lost. We looked at the loss of my grandparents and the loss of my mother specifically. My therapist asked about the first death I every experienced (my grandpa when I was 11). She asked what I felt when that happened. I wasn’t sure. So we moved ahead to my mom (when I was 36). What was I feeling then?
How was it so hard to come up with what I was feeling? Am I blocking feelings?
I came up with: sad, confusion, fear (scared), helplessness, regret, and guilt. I am guessing that there are many more feelings associated with death, but those are what I pulled out of the top of my head.
So I have a homework assignment. I am to look at each of those words and see how they play into things. How did the deaths affect others in my house?
Basically, it seems that grief is a theme in many of our sessions and we are going to examine it further. We’re going to try to pinpoint what event has brought me to where I am today. She told me that there is a phrase that says, “When your hysterical – it’s historical.” There is usually something “back there” that can lead to the way you react and behave.
Why can’t I accept and get past things? What may be hanging around in my brain? What am I protecting myself from?
I don’t know any of the answers.
After therapy my wife asked how it went. I told her I was still trying to process it. I knew we really struck on something, but I didn’t know what. I also expressed how it scared me. Have you ever been afraid to proceed, because you are just not sure what you might find out? That’s where I am at.
Hopefully, we are working toward some sort of resolution and not something that will mess up my head even more!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 