Blog Feed

Posted on

Gratitude – Part Two

Man, I did not intend to have an entire post just about my cat. But I really couldn’t condense how thankful I am for his addition to the fur family.

Like I said in that post, adopting him was the beginning of a lot of really great things.

It wasn’t long after I decided to adopt him that I met my current partner. I had called it quits with my ex 7 months prior, and I was just getting back into the swing of socializing. I have learned so much from my partner about how it feels to not have your relationship as one of your top stressors. Despite a “language barrier” (he is a native Korean), I have never found communicating to be so simple.

I have met a partner that saw me for me and not just a “potential” for who I could be. He accepted me at the state I was in on my mental health journey. He held my hand through the tough bits, and patiently walked with me through it. I am so grateful to have a person that wasn’t pushing me to transform and heal at that moment. He is in this with me and experiencing growth just as I am.

Most importantly, my partner has helped me re-discover fun. Even the most mundane of things is fun when we’re together. Going to Costco, eating burgers at a local burger place, taking the dogs to the cafe, or just hanging out at home doing our own thing while sharing the same space can be fun. I’m looking forward to the time we will have together in the future, however long that may be.

Yes, even that time my cat almost severed tendons in my hand became something we laugh about.

This past year, I fell back in love with my job. That isn’t to say that I do not have periods of burn out, but I had spent so much of 2019-2020 completely disassociated from my work. I no longer remembered why I came back to teach in the first place.

I am so thankful to have a job that doesn’t abuse my willingness to help out. While the hours and the work can be tough, I have never really felt like I was nothing but a body. Over the last year, I have had a few situations (see photo above) regarding my physical health that have required understanding and extra care. I was accommodated and cared for during those times, and I am so grateful to have an upper management team that is actually attentive and caring about my wellbeing.

It’s been good to be able to focus on teaching the best that I can without worrying about abusive colleagues. We get in, we teach, we have some fun, and we clock out at the end of the day. This is how a job should be.

This isn’t to say it’s perfect, but it is just what I needed after years of not having the right environment to thrive in.

Posted on

2 Years Out of a Toxic Workplace

It has been over 2 years since I walked away from one of my longest relationships I ever had… my first workplace in Korea. They helped me grow and learn in so many ways, and I am always going to be grateful for that experience.

I recently just renewed my contract at my current school, and it had me thinking about the other contracts I had prior. In between every year, I took a break. One break was over a year long. At the end of each contract, I felt beaten down, drained, and completely shattered. I needed the “break.” I always thought to myself, “After a 3 month break back home, I’ll be ready to tackle another year.” It wasn’t until the last year, or so, have I realized that this is not normal.

Now, to compare my current workplace to my first workplace would actually be rather fair. They both are rigorous, have management teams that really strive for perfectionism, and micro-manage at times. So, why am I so much happier where I am now? I found out that a lot of it lies in my decisions and the way I present myself.

I have strong boundaries on what I will and will not do. In the past, I used to work late, come in early, and just spent almost every waking moment at school doing work… or not doing work. I showed up because there was an expectation of me to do so. It’s what the others in my position had done, and I was expected to follow this expectation. What was written on my contract didn’t matter to them, and when I brought up that boundary, I was pressured to sign an addendum that altered my working hours. Here, I do not budge on my working hours. My contract says I clock out at 6pm, so I am clocking out at 6pm. I get in right before 9am, as per my contract. I do all of my work during the allotted prep time and there is nothing more. My supervisors understand this and respect me for it as long as my work is done. Perhaps it is a bit of me learning to not feel pressured into giving in and also having very understanding management.

I will always remember how replaceable I am, and how replaceable my workplace is. The relationships I forged were some of the most difficult things to let go of. Even after leaving my previous workplace, I still tried to maintain a connection to people that were still working there. I even made a visit back to say hello to some of my former colleagues. During that time, I was still struggling with the loss of the place and the connections I made. In the end, time has seen many changes. It has been two full years since my departure, and things continue to be the same. People work there and when their time is done, they leave. Just as I had. I, myself, have worked in two different places and left. Each time, saying good-bye became easier. I am replaceable, and so is my workplace. My health and my soul, however, are not.

I have learned that I work to live, but I do not live to work. I am working to afford a life that brings me happiness and fulfillment. My work is not my personality, and my time there helps me earn the money I need to live a full and satisfying life. I do enjoy my work, and I do derive joy from helping my students grow and learn. But at the end of the day, I am so much more than Ms. Yvonne, the teacher. I’m also a friend, a wife, and a caring parent to my fur children. I’m a daughter, sister, granddaughter, and niece. I enjoy movies, true crime documentaries, traveling, and yoga. The list can go on, and I must make room for all of those parts of me to flourish.

This is now two years without feeling completely shattered at the end of a contract. Two years of seeing a future ahead of me. Two years of being content with my life and workload. I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more.

Posted on

Late Night Thoughts: Changes – Unexpected Triggers

TW: Mentions of death, euthanasia of a pet, & grief.

It has been one hell of a year for me. I actually haven’t exactly faced every change that I have gone through until I had to explain some recent traumatic life changes that my cat went through in the last year.

I took my cat to the vet today to try to pinpoint a cause for his sudden (kind of) habit of peeing in my bed. This, in itself, was already a trauma trigger for me. I haven’t been to a vet since our last visit where we put Dobby to sleep. I didn’t realize how triggering being in this setting would be. As I sat in the waiting room of a completely different vet’s office, memories came flooding back. I remembered stroking Dobby in the waiting room before our first visit. I remember thinking, “It’s going to be just fine after this. We’ll figure it all out and we’ll go home. You’re going to be fine.”

It started to get a bit hard for me to breathe as I replayed the memories of her last few moments. We sat in a waiting room, much like this one, holding onto her as she struggled to keep her eyes open and breathe. I was with my partner then, and we had each other. He wasn’t able to come this time, so I was so thankful that, at the last minute, I decided to bring Misha with me as well. Her calm expression and demeanor made it easy to ground myself enough to get through the visit. I felt myself shaking as I ran through the possible scenarios that could play out with Butterscotch. His inappropriate peeing could be a UTI or, worse, a urinary track block that’s causing him immense pain and suffering. I shuddered at the possibility of something life threatening.

When the vet asked about any disruptions or changes in life that could lead to stress for Butterscotch, I recounted the year of changes that both the cat and I went through. I started with the fact that we had moved twice in the span of 6 months. I also mentioned getting married and living with my now-husband full time probably adding stress. He adores my husband, but it was a change nonetheless. Then we got to Dobby’s passing. I choked up a bit and muttered, “He lost his best friend, my other dog, at the end of April. Yeah, I think he started peeing inappropriately a month or two after that.” I felt so stupid for not thinking of this sooner.

The vet looked back at me with the kindest, most understanding eyes. All I could think of was, “Oh shit, I’m choking up in front of this stranger. He must think I’m a weirdo.” I turned away to look at Butterscotch, who was trembling in the carrier and clutching the sweater I put in with him. The vet replied, “That is a lot of change and stress for a little cat to go through in such a short amount of time.” I know and understand that my cat doesn’t feel grief and loss in the same way I do. He probably doesn’t feel like his breath gets knocked out of him from time to time as he feels the weight of Dobby’s absence. What I do know is that he feels stressed, disoriented, and no longer secure in his world.

Over the last, almost, 8 months, I have been feeling an odd sense of disconnect. I spend large periods of time completely dissociated with my emotions. My co-teacher that I work with closely asks me, “Are you ok?” nearly every day. At those moments, I snap back in and I tell myself, “Man, you really need to get your shit together people can tell you’re not ok.” While I am happy with all of the things that have happened recently, and happy to be able to make more memories with my husband and fur family, I feel a constant feeling of loneliness and disorientation.

It’s a weird place to be when you’re looking forward to the future, but still longing for the past. How can I be happy while being absolutely shattered? It’s all very confusing. In order to get through and do the everyday tasks I need to do to survive, I dissociate & disconnect to survive.

Posted on

Season of Gratitude – Where I’m At

The last few years, I have written a series of posts during the month of November about things I am grateful for. It’s usually a collection of things, and sometimes it’s the exact same few things.

Here’s a listing of the last few years’ posts: Thankfulness and Gratitude, Gratitude – Part One, and Gratitude – Part Two.

November has come and gone, and it’s already Thanksgiving. There really isn’t enough time in a month, week, or day. I have had a lot of time to think about the things that I am particularly grateful in this season of life.

I am so grateful for a slow shift toward “normal” life. It has been an adjustment. Overall, Korea is still taking COVID-19 seriously, but it’s shifting slowly toward a “living with COVID” mentality. I didn’t realize how much I have missed. We went to a few festivals last month and have been visiting cafes and going out on dates more often than we ever did when we were still dating.

I am also grateful for continued good health. I have not come down with anything terribly severe this year. No ER visits! No crippling pain. It’s been a mild year. Despite getting COVID in March, I have been very well and strong.

I am so grateful for all of the time I have had to spend with my beloved pets. With the passing of Dobby in April, and then, more recently, Yuuki’s passing in October, I have been feeling so grateful to have had the opportunity to have such amazing animals in my life. It’s been a hard year, and I wish with every ounce of my being that I didn’t have to say good-bye to Dobby or Yuuki. Even so, I am so grateful for the years I have had with the both of them. I cherish every single memory, and I revisit them often. In addition, I have been making so many wonderful memories with the pets that are still with me today. Misha went to the Nakhwa Nori Fireworks Festival in Haman. She loves spending time outdoors and with us. We also made a stop in Changdong, an art neighborhood in our city, that has fake snow every hour in the evening on weekends. She wasn’t that excited about that, but we got some cute pictures.

I’m also so thankful for being able to reach the milestones that I have reached alongside my partner this year. First off, we moved into a small apartment together in August. It was a whirlwind of a move. Like I mentioned in Life Update + Grief Journey, between seeing the apartment and moving in, it was less than 10 days. Then, after the Chuseok holiday, we went and registered our marriage. At this time, we do not intend on having a wedding due to my family being so far and not feeling like we want to celebrate with a huge group of people. Nevertheless, this has been an exciting change and start to a new chapter in both of our lives.

I so very thankful that I will be seeing my mother at the end of the year. She is making a trip out to Asia and stopping in Vietnam first with my aunt. They will circle back to Korea and stay a little over a week with us. I am so excited to see her after 3 years of being stuck in Korea. It’ll be amazing to be with my own family again.

I am thankful for an amazing husband and in-laws. Over the last year, I have really been able to spend a lot of time with my partner and his family. They have been so welcoming and loving despite the language barrier. We went on a few wonderful trips this year to Jeju Island and a fishing trip in Masan. I am looking forward to having a family to spend major holidays with, and to feel more connected to others. Being a foreigner in a different country can be isolating, and I am so grateful that I am a little less lonely this year. And of course, I am so happy that I continue to be loved and cared for by the best husband. Thank you for meeting me where I’m at, and always thinking of me in everything that you do. Thank you for always making me laugh and becoming a crazy fur parent like me.

There’s a lot of gratitude to go around this year. It is a great reminder that I am fully allowed to feel more than one thing at a time. I am allowed to be heartbroken from grief, and appreciate what I have. I am allowed to celebrate accomplishments, milestones, and holidays while I hurt from loss. It’s been a very emotionally complex year. At times it feels like the worst year yet. At other times, it’s been the best. Looking forward to the next year with cautious optimism

Posted on

Life Update + Grief Journey

I have been absent for nearly two months on the blog, and it has been a necessary pause. I wrote with so much joy last year as I was wrapping up my contract at my previous job and preparing to move to my new/old city. It was an exciting time full of possibility and lots of amazing news. I had a whole plan on topics I would explore and news I would share, but that all came to a crashing halt when Dobby passed away.

I found myself unable to articulate the crushing pain and agony of grief. I didn’t expect that losing a pet would tear my heart into a million pieces and cause me to spend so much time away from speaking about my mental health. But, here I am. I am still a person, and still dealing with the unpredictability of sadness and grief.

A month ago, I was hit with the heart wrenching news that our family’s oldest dog, Yuuki (13 years) received a lymphoma diagnosis. With her advanced age, my family decided that treatment would not be the best option for her to enjoy the last of her days. There is a different kind of sadness when you know that a loved one will pass. It may not happen too soon, or it may happen tomorrow. The anxiety of the unknown is both comforting and terrifying. I know that I will be going on a different grief journey when the time comes, and I am so grateful that I had all of the years of love and memories with Yuuki.

I have been learning how to carry the memory of Dobby and my grief with me while trying to look forward to the future. I have been trying my best to allow myself to feel two different things at the same time. There always is a dull ache of sadness and longing. Time has not helped to make that go away. What time has helped is that it has made me get used to carrying these emotions with me. Allowing myself to feel sad and angry when I feel sad and angry about the loss has helped me carry on better.

On to brighter things! In this busy season in life, I have been preparing for a few big life events that I have only shared with the closest people in my life. My partner and I are preparing to start our lives together. We are moving next weekend and we will be getting married next month! While we do not plan on having a big Korean-style wedding ceremony and reception, we are still very excited to be committing to sharing our lives together. This decision has been a long time in the making (almost a year!) and we have been enjoying the process of preparing.

We have been going through the painstaking process of finding housing. The Korean rental market is a bit different from what I’m used to in the United States. They require large key money deposits and charge a smaller rental fee than what you would be used to seeing back home. In the city we are in, finding the perfect place in the location and price point was difficult. We spent weeks obsessively checking real estate postings and contacting real estate agents. So many places would already be claimed by the end of the business day of posting. It really was a competitive market. We are so happy to have finally found a place after a lot of disappointment and frustration!

The most important thing is that my pets will be welcome at this new place. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to my current director, my current building is not pet friendly. We found that out during my first week here. It was stressful, but at the time, I was convinced by my director to just try to keep the pets quiet and mostly out of sight. We have been here for 6 months, and I think the sneaking around has taken a toll on me mentally. I miss the times when I could just walk my dog out on a leash into the hallway and take the elevator. In our new home, which we just signed a 2 year contract to, we will be able to live freely and openly! Less stress!

With that said, I am really going to try my best to finish up and polish some of these queued posts after the dust settles in a few weeks! I have missed having this little project to work on continuously.

Posted on

Feelings I Protect Myself From

We have been taught that there are “good” feelings and “bad” feelings. We want to always feel “good” feelings and never feel the “bad” feelings. In fact, we must avoid “bad” feelings at all costs. We must learn mechanisms in order to, not cope, but to dodge these feelings in any way we can.

Well, the hard truth is that the categorizations of “good” and “bad” feelings are utter bullshit. Feelings are feelings and they are meant to be felt. Sure, some of them are uncomfortable and not fun to deal with while others are addictive and you can’t get enough of them. However, the truth is none of the feelings can exist without all of the others. There can be no happiness without sadness, anger, or fear. There can be no excitement without worry, dread, or uneasiness. The whole array of human feelings are necessary and healthy.

One of the main feelings that I developed, rather unhealthy, coping mechanisms to deal with is disappointment. No one enjoys the feeling of disappointment. Some of us develop such an aversion to it that we make it a point to predict and control outcomes of every situation. I have also been criticized for being overly pessimistic. I always tell myself to expect the worst-case-scenario so that I never feel disappointed if it turns out better than expected. Of course, this has led to a whole bunch of self sabotaging… but that can be a topic for another day.

Another feeling that I tend to avoid like the plague is fear. This emotion is so common for people that suffer from anxiety. The future holds so many unknown factors that it can be hard not to spiral out of control. Often times, we avoid activities or thought patterns that trigger fear. While this is a coping mechanism does not seem harmful, it is actually teaching us to not listen to ourselves. Fear is a sign that something in your life needs to change in order to create safety and security. I felt the most fear during a time when my personal relationships were the most unstable and toxic. The fear I felt was trying to tell me something needed to change and avoiding the cause of my fear was not going to do anything to fix it.

I was taught at a young age that anger is unbecoming on me. As the oldest daughter in an immigrant family, I felt an immense amount of pressure to be successful and a good role model. During times of misunderstanding between my parents and I, I would often let my mask down. I would get angry. The amount of backlash and guilt that I felt after unleashing anger on my parents (who always mean well) was unbearable. How dare I, a child that has been given everything from my parents, ever feel angry at them for anything? How dare I not be grateful? The moment anger crept in, the immediate guilt was too much to handle. I spent much of my early adulthood biting my tongue, pushing down my anger in order to keep peace. Anger causes conflict. Conflict causes stress. Therefore, I must cut out anger in order to avoid all of this stress. Obviously, this has backfired and resulted in plenty of resentment to sort through in therapy.

Lastly, society has taught me that sadness and, especially, grief are to be avoided. I remember the day after Dobby passed away, I went straight to work after sleeping 2.5 hours. I avoided the topic like the plague. There’s no way I would allow myself to feel sadness and bring other people down with it. I assumed I knew that people were thinking, “It’s just a dog, what’s the big deal?” While I know that a majority of those around me would not think that, I just knew that I could not live with the guilt of making others uncomfortable with my grief and sadness.

So, what have I learned about negative emotions? I now know that they are all absolutely necessary for me to feel that positive emotions. Many of the negative emotions serve a purpose in our existence. They are here to tell us that something is not right in our balance. They are signs to listen to ourselves and they should be acknowledged. Most importantly, they should be felt.

In dealing with our negative emotions, we must be comfortable with wading into uncomfortable territory. It takes work and introspection. It takes courage and strength to work through. What has really helped me deal with my negative emotions is changing the motivation behind the activities I do to lift myself out. Rather than distracting myself with exercise so that I can “forget about” the negative emotion that I am feeling, I tell myself that taking care of my body will bring my base line to a better place. By taking care of myself and lifting my immediately feelings out of negativity, I can then be better equipped to go back to my negative emotion and search for the root cause or trigger.

Posted on

Putting Things On Hold

It has already been over a month since we said good-bye to Dobby. As we have been moving through grief, I found myself putting things aside for myself to “deal with” when things “settled down.” It became so hard for me to make plans for anything farther than a week out, because of how hard it was for me to predict my mood and energy levels.

I can’t speak for every grief experience, but for me, grief has done a funny thing. It’s made it hard for me to see a future, even as I continue to move forward and get through each day. Even as I continue to reach that “future” that I have a hard time seeing, I can’t really see much farther forward. Maybe it’s because everything I imagined for my future had Dobby in it. Re-imagining my world without her has been so difficult.

I live each day with a bit of a fog over me. The littlest things send me down a spiral of reliving the moment I had to start recalibrating my life to this new reality. As I have been adjusting to this reality, I feel my boundaries for what I will tolerate in my life shift. I wonder if the people around me feel it to be unfair that now I am suddenly not OK with things I was fine with weeks ago.

Boundaries are important to have no matter the state of your mind, and I think it’s important to realize that it’s OK for them to shift. I am learning to move past the guilt I feel when I say no to things I would have said yes to before. I am learning to that I don’t have to “spare the feelings of others” because the ones that truly care for me want to know how they can support me. I am learning to be gentle with myself and ask for room to heal and recharge.

I am also learning that I can be and feel two things at once. I realize that it is OK for me to look forward to the future while holding my lost one in my heart. It’s OK for me to be excited about my next steps in life, but also reminisce and look toward the past. It’s been hard and riddled with guilt, but I know that Dobby would have hated seeing me neglect the beauty of each day in order grieve and remember her.

Posted on

The Sunday Blues

The Sunday Blues… The Sunday Scaries… whatever you would like to call them. They suck. Credits to my friend, Alison, for spurring this conversation earlier this evening. I was experiencing a pretty rough writer’s block that was a bit confusing for me. I was feeling so much anxiety, sadness, and even anger, but I had no idea how to streamline and organize these thoughts. Then I get a message from my friend: “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.”

I always go through a cycle of thoughts on Sunday afternoon. The first one is, “How the hell am I going to do this for the next 35 or so years?” I am in my 30s now, and I know that I will probably only be able to retire in my mid 60s… it’s a long way from now. There are so many more Sundays that I will probably experience. When will this get better? What if it doesn’t? How am I going to work for the rest of my life?! This semi-existential crisis usually lasts for a while, as I frantically try to think of ways I can cheat this system.

Eventually, I get to, “Maybe I just need a career change. Maybe I am burnt out and I just hate my job.” Sometimes, this really could be it. Personally, I realized that it isn’t really work that makes me feel this way. While I am at work, I feel fine… I might even say great. I am busy and engaged with activities with my students. I feel useful. I am productive and I take good care of myself during the week. I eat well, I exercise, and I feel mostly healthy.

During my discussion with my friend, I slowly came to the realization that I get a bit depressed from the routine. The routine of having to go back to work for another week reminds me of how my life has sort of landed in this weird spot. I have scrambled over the last month to make things feel normal again after Dobby’s passing. Now that things have sort of flattened out and a routine has been developed… I’m sort of in a “Now what?” phase.

The Sunday Sadness is basically a case of anticipatory anxiety. Anticipating the work to come in the week can be daunting, and, for me, the unknown can cause so much stress. Taking the time to rest and recharge on Sundays is so important to me, and I am so thankful that I was able to fully focus on myself today. The Sunday Blues are inevitable, but, at least, I am well-equipped to self-reflect and help myself through them.

Posted on

Memory Loss & Depression

This post was spurred by a recent realization that I had while chatting with my mother on the phone. I do not remember details from the years of 2017-2020.

This sounds severe, but hear me out. I know what happened during those years, and I know, generally, how I came to be in the position that I am in now. I understand how I got to this point in life, but I do not have many memories of how I got here. Perhaps this is a normal part of life. Perhaps this is not as weird as I am describing it to be.

What I can say is, during these years I do not have many memories in which I am experiencing the things I experienced first hand. It feels as if I was told about these experiences and was told that these happened to me. I feel a sense of disconnect when I think about 2019 and the place I was in.

I also remember that I was extremely forgetful. I say was but there are still times when I am forgetful now. The more dissociated I felt, the more forgetful I would be. It started out small. I would forget if I applied shampoo while in the shower and I’d shampoo my hair just in case I did. One time, I realized that I had forgotten to rinse out the shampoo and had started to dry off before realizing that my head was covered in suds. It escalated to forgetting if I had eaten, what day of the week it was, and important appointments.

I sit here, now, and I am trying to recount what I was thinking or feeling during that time. All I can come up with is an image of gray. Perhaps it is from the trauma of dealing with interpersonal relationships that were either abusive or turbulent, but I really do not remember too many happy moments even though I know that they existed.

I guess my point in writing this is: Does anyone else relate to this sense of disconnectedness?

Posted on

The Mask I Wear

I have been wearing a mask for most of my life. I used to live in fear that someone would find out what really goes on inside my head as I go through the movements. I used to move through life without much of a fuss. Ask me how I’m doing, and I almost always respond with, “Not bad!” I mask my feelings by being a functioning and competent person. I always got through everything and accomplished all of the steps I was expected to take with no extensions, no extra time… well… until I was driven to the edge and needed more than just time and rest.

I have come a long way from May 2019. I call that the turning point in my life where I finally realized that I could put the mask down and start putting down boundaries and start to heal. I was met with understanding, at first, but I realized that most people cannot bear to sit with what I really am. What I really am is an actual mess, and that’s not me being too hard on myself. If we all dig down deep enough, we will all find a bit of a mess somewhere in there. While I learned that I need to advocate for myself and ask for what I need, I also was reminded that not many people are willing to be by my side when I am struggling. I remember this lesson so well, that I have that mask at hand whenever I need it… even to this day.

These days, as I work through the grief I have been experiencing with losing Dobby, I find myself leaning heavily into wearing that mask to get through each day. I remind myself that I have a duty to fulfill. I need to show up to my job and provide for myself and for my other two pets. I also am leaning on the sense of normalcy that going to work gives me. It’s something that doesn’t change and will always be there to anchor all of the chaos that’s going on around me. To be honest, wearing my mask of competence and feigned strength has grounded me to a routine that keeps me from spinning too far out of control.

I decided that I need to take off my mask for just a moment and allow myself the space to let out some of these feelings.

Not a moment goes by where it doesn’t feel a little bit like I’m running out of air. Every time I think about how abruptly everything has changed it feels like a punch to the stomach. I have relived that last moment when I stroked Dobby’s head as she left this world possibly a thousand times. Each time, I internally let out that gasp I let out when the doctor informed us that Dobby’s heart had stopped. Sometimes I hope that if I relive it enough that it will finally not hurt as much as it does. But every time, it hurts like it’s happening right before my eyes.

Every time I wake up, the first thought that hits me is that she’s not here. I have to tell myself that no one is meant to be here forever, but it just doesn’t quite make sense to me. I have gone through the stages, especially the stage of denial and anger over and over. These stages are not linear and I have gone through all of them multiple times over. I am, quite frankly, sick of it. But I have to keep feeling and processing because I do not want to be stuck here in the anger stage forever.

For the sake of everyone around me, I keep my head up and I keep on moving. I know that I have every right to continue to feel sad and be sad. But I also know that there may, one day, be a day where all of this will feel a little less raw and fresh. I really do want to look toward the future, as Dobby would always do. But man, I wish I could stay living in those moments where Dobby was happy, healthy, and alive. I truly would give anything to go on one more walk with her, give her one more treat to her, and get one more kiss from her. But that’s not how life works. No matter how much you love someone or something, there will always come a time where you will have to say good-bye and there’s nothing that we can do once that time has come and gone.

Posted on

Grief – Stuff No One Tells You

This is still so fresh in my mind and being. It will be interesting to see how my grief evolves as time goes on. I briefly mentioned my experience in losing one of my beloved dogs last month in my Life Update: Where I’ve Been post. The grief that has come out of this event has been full of ups and downs. It has been such an experience, and I have come to realize that a lot of things that people say and believe about grief and the loss of a loved one are utter bullshit.

Time does not heal all wounds. If I have to hear this one more time, I may scream. No matter how much time passes, losing a loved one may not “heal.” I feel that people are so adamant about “moving on” and “healing” that they forget about the fact that the loss will never change. Once gone, the person or being that has left this world will never re-materialize in front of us. Sure, the reminders may not sting as much after a long period of time, but it may never stop and that is OK.

I will probably never get over it and this is also OK. Life is not a race to “get over” bad feelings. “Good vibes only” is probably the most debilitating and unrealistic goal that so many people fall into. In today’s culture of toxic positivity, we need to exude positivity and the desire to “better oneself” in order to be of value. I understand that negative feelings are uncomfortable to deal with… especially if it is happening to someone else. Processing and fully feeling your emotions, good or bad, is healthy and normal.

I cry a lot about the situation, and this is also normal. Over the course of my life, I somehow learned that crying was a symbol of weakness. “Crying doesn’t fix anything,” is the mentality that many of my elders have taken on and passed down to my generation. While this is objectively true, crying can be a cathartic way to acknowledge the existence of a negative emotion and allow it to pass through a person. To cry without judgement has been such a gift to me in this journey. Witnessing another person cry or crying yourself should not hold the amount of shame that it does. Sometimes, you gotta just let it out.

Telling me that everything happens for a reason, and that this is all part of a greater plan does not help. If you know me personally, you will know that I am not a religious or spiritual person. Even if I was, it is very painful to conceptualize that the loss of someone so dear and so great is justified because there is a “bigger plan” for me. I will not argue whether or not this holds any objective truth. I will only say that this does not help anyone going through loss. People that are going through loss do not need an “answer” or “justification” to their loss, they simply need a safe space to process emotions, share memories, or discuss their feelings.

I know she was “just a dog,” but let’s stop policing what type of loss is ‘valid’ enough for grief. I understand that the grief I am feeling for the loss of my dog is different. It is just that different. To judge whether or not someone’s loss is “worthy” of the grief they are experiencing ignores the fact that each person and situation is different. It is perfectly fine not to understand another person’s loss and grief. It is not perfectly fine to make them feel like their feelings are disproportionate to what they are experiencing.

I really don’t need to be strong for anyone. I do not need to force myself to get through my emotions for anyone other that myself. No one needs to cover up or hide their negative feelings. If someone asks me how I am doing, and I am not doing well, I really don’t need to sugar coat it. I realize that this will mean that less people will feel comfortable in asking me how I’m doing, and that’s fine.

So these are just a few realizations I have had as I have been navigating life with grief. These experiences and thoughts all came from well-meaning people. I share this in the hopes that others that are experiencing grief or know of someone that has recently been through loss will feel more validated, less alone, and better equipped to deal with this complicated and often messy journey.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started