I have been so very sad the last couple of months, grieving for all that I have lost within and as a result of the violence of my marriage - years spent "surviving" when they might have been "spent" on love, experiences within daily life that have been less complete and interesting because of my resulting tendency to dissociate, different kinds of isolation that are linked by being rooted in persistent fear, anxiety, and problems with thinking. (So, for example, someone might say something but my mind is not altogether functioning at the time. I say something back, but it is not what I would have said were I not suffering with cognitive deficiencies so deep. Then I feel like I do not really "own" what I have just said - like it doesn't really reflect who I am and what sort of thing I might have said, if I were healthy again. Then I feel like I'd rather be alone.)
I think that I have learned that it is necessary and healthy to grieve for our losses. My problem is that while healing from PTSD requires allowing ourselves to grieve and learning to separate the past from the non-traumatic present, I feel like my traumatic experience with my husband continues in the fact that he has physical custody of our son (as some of you may have heard too often in other posts of mine). Each day, I face the new sad fact that this day is another day in which this vicious man raises my son and I am not there (my son and I talk twice a day on the phone, but this is not the same). Anxiety about being able to protect my son was a part of what caused my PTSD in the first place. And I had seen myself as a good mother, with my role as a mother playing a central part in my own identity - not the only part, I had a career that was very important to me as well... And, well, I love my son and miss being "home" when he finds time apart from school and his thankfully active social life to be there too.
Well now I'm rambling unhelpfully. I thought it might help to share with you that I am grieving and how much grief hurts. And why I'm afraid, with fresh losses arising each new day, I may be grieving for a very long time.
I think that I have learned that it is necessary and healthy to grieve for our losses. My problem is that while healing from PTSD requires allowing ourselves to grieve and learning to separate the past from the non-traumatic present, I feel like my traumatic experience with my husband continues in the fact that he has physical custody of our son (as some of you may have heard too often in other posts of mine). Each day, I face the new sad fact that this day is another day in which this vicious man raises my son and I am not there (my son and I talk twice a day on the phone, but this is not the same). Anxiety about being able to protect my son was a part of what caused my PTSD in the first place. And I had seen myself as a good mother, with my role as a mother playing a central part in my own identity - not the only part, I had a career that was very important to me as well... And, well, I love my son and miss being "home" when he finds time apart from school and his thankfully active social life to be there too.
Well now I'm rambling unhelpfully. I thought it might help to share with you that I am grieving and how much grief hurts. And why I'm afraid, with fresh losses arising each new day, I may be grieving for a very long time.
