I'm doing a grief book right now.
One of the questions is who we want approval from after a loved ones dies. I wanted people at work to accept me. I wanted them to think i was good at my job so I shut out my own grief to become a drone. I worked and worked but I wasn't focussed or organized. I am disorganized at the best of times but after mom died I was a disaster zone. I stopped working out because I didn't see the merit in it. The people I did value their opinion (my friends who loved and cared for me at the gym ...) I pushed them away after awhile because I didn't want to face them. I needed people to think I was fine but I wasn't you could see that by the weight gain, the tiredness and the lack of focus. My boss told me one day that she was surprised that I was still grieving. I should be over it by now. Her friend was still grieving after her father died and she found that surprising and (I heard the tone or I imagined it) that she found that weak. She was my new boss and I decided right then and there I needed to stronger and less weepy. I hid my grief then. My dad wasn't able to talk to me about my mom (hence this blog where I started after she died) I respected my dad's wishes not to talk about her as he was trying to keep himself together.
I didn't tell B because my crying made him feel terrible and lacked the ability to fix me. His job is a professional job where you go to him and he gives solutions and then you do it. I wasn't fixable but he kept trying to give me solutions that I wouldn't take or couldn't and it made him so frustrated. We have learned in that time that he is a solutions manager and I am a fixer. We both have strengths but grief makes it almost impossible to break down those walls because they are invisible. My roommate at the time had already lost her mom and she didn't talk frequently about her mom. I regret that I didn't ask her more if i was respecting her privacy or making another wall of approval by not asking her if she wanted to talk and could I talk. I should have gone to grief counselling years ago. I am surprised I waited this long.
So here I am again. I lost Grandma and now Dad. What have I learned about who is responsible?
I am. I can talk. I can stand up and say "Hey you can't give me solutions. I don't think I can hear them right now."
B told me last night that although I think he is a control freak -- I am right now. And you know what? I think he's right. It wasn't malicious it was a fact that I was ignoring. OF course I want control. I feel so out of control. I want people to think I have got it together. I want approval again but maybe I just want to stop the cycle from the last time. It was so hard to let people tell me how to grieve and not tell people that I was hurting and lost.
I am not eating as a crutch. That makes me irritable. Books have lost interest for me again. I lost my secret worlds. I can't find a game to play online. I lost something that is mindless. I lost my family. This is not negotiable but I am trying to balanced with that idea. It's painful and it's ok.
So now I print this out and go to my counselling session.
Sigh.