On my blog entry entitled In a Weird Place Today, a reader posted an excerpt from a blog entry entitled The Truth About “Feeling Sorry for Yourself”….. I am so grateful to have learned about that blog entry because it has really helped me clarify where I am emotionally right now.
The following paragraph summarizes the blogger’s position on feeling sorry for yourself:
When experiencing hurt, anger, frustration, sorrow, depression, dissapointment….etc. there is a natural urge which leads towards healing. If we were to “go with the flow” on feelings alone, most of us would probably feel really sorry for ourselves for a while, comfort ourselves, and then, find ways to feel better, and eventually get back into the game. ~ Illusions at Powerful Intentions
I think this explains very nicely where I am right now. I have felt the need to withdraw from most people in my day-to-day life, but I haven’t been able to articulate why. I am coming to realize that I need to “be” right now. I need to “be” with my feelings of grief. I don’t want anyone else cheering me up, distracting me, or trying to fix it. I don’t want to analyze what happened in the past, what I should or shouldn’t be doing now, or what I need to do in the future. I just want to “be.”
My therapist advised me many times to learn to “sit” with my emotions. Don’t try to stuff them down with food, drown them with wine, or control them in any way – just let them “be.” Perhaps I am finally understanding this on a heart level.
I have been frustrated by gaining five pounds since the latest flashbacks surfaced. I am not binge eating, but I am doing some comfort eating. Reading that blogger’s article helped me to recognize that, while I am not wild about the weight gain, it is coming from a place of compassion and comfort.
I am still not very good at knowing what I need or how to nurture myself. I have been trying to follow whatever feels right in the moment. I have played the piano more in the past week than I have in the past year. I have watched TV and eaten cookies. I have written when I felt like it and refrained from writing when I felt like it.
I have been trying not to label where I am right now as “good” or “bad” – it just is. However, reading that article has helped me to see where I am in a more positive light.
When I have head cold, I know there is nothing I can do to make it magically go away. I accept that I am going to feel lousy for a few days. I eat some chicken soup, nap, and watch TV – little things that I know will comfort me until I feel better. I don’t think where I am right now is much different, only the pain is in my spirit instead of my body.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Grieving is done alone. Grieving something where loss is shared may start with others it is done my ones self.
No one grieves for my loss I do. They grieve for their loss. Using the Penn State rapes as an example many involved say they grieve the loss of the victims and their families. This is disrespectful. Perhaps a way to deal with the loss of the delusion that Penn State not what they wish to believe. A way to get back to their delusions.
Taking the “this sucks” from an earlier thread I went with wrong. What I experienced was wrong and how I have to heal now is wrong. That seems to be something that I can accept and then grieve.
One of the aspects of growing in a abusive relationships is that there is no go away off by yourself knowing you can come back. There is nothing to come back to. You are alone.
I can tell when my children need to go away from me and what I should do is be there when they come back. This was true in their childhood.
Stuffing emotions is a good thing and needed. It is the not getting back to them that is the issue. Traumatic experiences are not stuffed any more than memory loss from a concussion is stuffed. For me the same is true with dissociation. I no more dissociated from the trauma than a person dissociated when they have a concussion.
I feel that yesterday I experienced being soothed for the first time. I do not think I sooth with eating rather it is an attempt which fails and that is why I do it over and over again. I made two marbles. I can not explain it yet I know it was soothing and it was a new experience. In a way I may be learning to dissociate for a while. I will enjoy the marbles when they are cooled. If they were to somehow get lost I still would have been soothed. In a real way the marbles are a bonus.
i wasn’t sure where to write this so i’m just going to put it here.
i have been reading your blog and found the link to isurvive. a whole new world of support and not feeling alone any more has opened up.
i wanted to say thank you. for sharing your story and helping me to help myself.
M
Hi, feral55.
I am so glad you found your way over to Isurvive. It was my lifeline during my early years of healing.
– Faith
I agree, grief is something very solitary, at least for a time and in the depths of it. It seems if we… let it be what it is and don’t try to short circuit in order to be “acceptable” socially, we work it through to more peace, but if we try to be what others want in the midst of it…it remains, hidden and painful and taunting and waiting until we come back to it. Forgive me…the “we” doesn’t mean I expect this of anyone, it’s more the “we” that is the multiple “me” if that makes any sense.
Learning to live free of protecting myself by being what others want is both freeing and very hard. It has been especially important though in walking through the spirit-deep grief of the memories of childhood ritural abuse. Please continue to let yourself “be.”
sitting with you in friendship if that’s ok,
ruby
Thank you for this blog entry.
I feel I am starting to do that as well. To just “be” with me and that is all.
I’m feeling sad and grieving…but at the same time (oddly) am experiencing kind of a warm & fuzzy feeling too.
…like I am finally coming home to myself.
Maybe this is what loving yourself is supposed to feel like.
Hope you get what you need from yourself.
Much love and blessings,
mia
I often say to myself and my wife, sometimes deep grief is between you and all that is love and strength within you ( the God within if you may). Here I can see the true me and heal beyond the pain (the pain is not me). I always support my wife in silence when she is in this space.
*Silently lives in love*
[…] have shared before that I am trying to learn how to “be” with my feelings. I am trying not to analyze them or avoid them. My therapist advised me to do this years ago, but […]