Grieving Losses In Childhood

[Sammy]

Hmm. I was about 45 when things began to unravel. I know it was because I met a family that just adopted me and I started to see what had been missed. I knew before but somehow it didn't bother me. Mid-40's and it suddenly started to feel so wrong. Now, at 52, I am really realizing the extent of the hurt and "damage."

Not long ago I remembered the death of a pet dog. I must have been about 8 or 9. I found myself in tears, sobbing over the loss of that silly dog. I am sure the sobbing and implosion was grief over a lot more than that dog. Now, facing divorce, I find myself melting down on a regular basis - grieving not just the ending of a 24 year marriage but a future, all the other abandonments and betrayals. I often feel completely overwhelmed but it comes in waves. I am certain my mind just can't deal with it all at once. I am getting better about focusing on one day at a time. Of course, not being able to see a future kind of forces that on me.

Anyway, I think by the time I hit my 40's I was just tired of keeping it all in and pretending I wasn't hurt at my very core.

 

[BloomInWinter]

It's no longer the traumas I fear facing in therapy.

It's the great void left in the space they used to fill.

 

[Tinyflame]

I guess Bloom a void has to be filled with something, so this time fill it with new, good things, thoughts and beliefs- your choice.

 

[BloomInWinter]

It's great to *have* choices, now.

(((((Junebug)))))

 

[maddog]

It's no longer the traumas I fear facing in therapy.

It's the great void left in the space they used to fill.

Wow, Bloom, this really spoke to me. How true.

Maddog

 

[BloomInWinter]

((((((Maddog))))))

 

[Tinyflame]

I think I understand about the 'void', as well.
Yes, I know I do.

-Hey- Bloom you are wise and beautiful. :)
Thanks- xox
((((((Bloom))))))

 

[James B.]

The grief of just what I never had to even lose is hitting me hard these days.

Yes Bloom, I have days like this too and have been hit hard by grief also...

 

[Loloma]

My total breakdown was at 42. I ended up spending nearly one and a half years in hospital. Lost 15 kilos in 5 weeks and went back mentally to the age of 4. Refused to eat, couldn't read or write anymore and after the continual panic attacks that damaged my liver, I slowly started to come back down to earth.

Yes it's true there is something about the forties that triggers the trauma(s) to resurface. Maybe it's the hormones, who knows. Whatever it is it's awful and can linger for years.

 

[BloomInWinter]

(((((Loloma))))

 

[BloomInWinter]

More, from my hero, Judith Hermann...

"Mourning Traumatic Loss
Trauma inevitably brings loss. The descent into mourning is at once the most necessary and the most dreaded task of this stage of recovery. It is an act of courage not humiliation.

Resistance to Mourning

The Revenge Fantasy: where victim and perpetrator roles are reversed. Based on the fantasy of getting even which is not possible. A goal is to transform anger into righteous indignation.


The Forgiveness Fantasy: transcending the rage through a willful, defiant act of love.
Healing depends on the discovery of restorative love in her own life -- not on the contrition of the perpetrator.

The Compensation Fantasy: is a formidable impediment to mourning. Prolonged, fruitless struggle to wrest compensation from the perpetrator or from others, may represent a defense against facing the full reality of what was lost. Mourning is the only way to give due honor to loss; there is no fair compensation. The wish for compensation ties the survivor's fate to the perpetrator's and she is then held hostage.

In the course of therapy, the patient may focus her demands for compensation on the therapist. She may resent the limits; insist on some form of special dispensation. Underlying these demands is the fantasy that only the boundless love of the therapist can undo the damage of the trauma. Unfortunately, therapists sometimes collude with their patients fantasy of restitution. Boundary violations ultimately lead to exploitation of the patient even when they are initially undertaken in good faith.

The only way the survivor can take full control of her recovery is to take responsibility for it. The only way she can discover her undestroyed strengths is to use them to their fullest.

Survivors of chronic childhood abuse face the task of grieving not only what they lost but also for what was never theirs to lose. The childhood that was stolen from them is irreplaceable.

The reward of mourning is realized as the survivor sheds her evil, stigmatized identity and dares to hope for new relationships in which she no longer has anything to hide.

The second stage of recovery has a timeless quality that is frightening.

The survivor may wonder how she can possible give her due respect to the horror she has endured if she no longer devotes her life to remembrance and mourning. She will never forget. But the time comes when the trauma no longer commands the central place in her life.

The reconstruction of the trauma is never completed; new events at each stage of the life cycle will inevitably reawaken the trauma and bring some new aspects of the experience to light. The second stage is completed when the patient reclaims her own history and feels renewed hope and energy for engagement with life."

Source: Link Removed

I do realize...I'm in stage 2 of several of my traumas. Not that I've verbalized them to my T., but the mourning has set in. It's a painful path...but further along the journey than I was when I entered.

 

[Abrasky]

My therapist has been talking about that void left by trauma's when they have been dealt with. She has said that eventually I will be able to find a way to heal. She says she heals by creating a huge garden and adding to it all the time. I'm not sure I'm quite there where the void is. I wonder how I will fill the void.
(((Loloma))).
At the moment I am dealing with my grief by watching Pepper Pig on ABC2. "Grandpa pig we got a bit lost on the way to windy castle" "Did Daddy pig do the map reading giggle giggle giggle" Daddy pig is so cool and is looking through the binoculors and then he snorts. "George is waving at granny and granpa." George is Peppers brother. At the end of the show the whole family fall on the ground roll and giggles" Maybe that is how I will fill my void, I will make a wonderful warm place around me and I will remember to occasionally roll on the ground and giggle.
[DLMURL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZVcMBo8WeE&feature=fvwrel[/DLMURL]