Living Grief

Grief is such a profoundly complicated thing. Many of us spend our lives avoiding negative emotions such as sadness, anger, or fear, so when we find ourselves in a place where we need to grieve, we're not only at a loss on how to cope, but we are overwhelmed by the emotional turmoil we find ourselves unable to escape. At 30 years old I've lost multiple great-grandparents, one of my two grandmothers, a great uncle who I adored, some classmates from high school, an assortment of pets, and a pregnancy. I'm no stranger to grief.

The situation I find myself in now is quite different, though: I have to work through the grieving process for a person who is very much still visible in my everyday world. I don't want to downplay the grief we feel in the time of death of those that we love, but I'm a way it is so much simpler for us to enter into the stages of grief when someone dies because, well, they are gone. We eventually have to work through the loss and deep down we are aware that we can't undo death. What I can't wrap my brain around right now is this, though: how do we let go and grieve the loss of someone in our lives who is still alive and well? How do you not try to continue to try to mend the torn tapestry of a friendship when you have to look at the damage nearly every single day, right in front of your face?

When I was in the intensive outpatient program at my local psychiatric hospital, we would close out each session with The Serenity Prayer. I keep going back to the opening phrase of the prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change." I am well aware that we simply cannot change the minds of others, nor can we change the past. Yet I impulsively and foolishly keep trying to bring this friendship back to life despite the obvious signs that it is forever dead, like a scene in Grey's Anatomy where they continue compressions while everyone else stares, knowing that it's useless. My therapist had the best analogy: she said that continuing to push for change or desperately trying to fix the friendship is like going into a hardware store every day trying to buy milk: I can keep trying but I'm never going to get the result I want.

So what's the grocery store in this instance? The dialectical behavior therapy term is radical acceptance. Radical acceptance means completely and totally permitting life to be as it is with your entire being, mind, body, and soul. It means letting go and allowing a situation to happen without feelings of resentment, anger, or blame. It means no longer fighting reality. It does not mean you agree with or support the event and it does not mean that you'll be free of any pain, though the pain will be less without resistance. It also does not mean that change can never happen, it just means you aren't fighting for change in the present moment. And everything in DBT is about the present.

My amazing therapist says that radical acceptance is critical for me in this situation, but that the process of acceptance means letting go of control and experiencing significant pain. As Marsha Linehan says, "The path out of hell is through misery. By refusing to accept the misery that is part of climbing out of hell, you fall back into hell." And right now, I'm in hell nearly every damn day. I miss my friend so much that it causes physical pain, days of crying, and lots of impulsive behaviors. Subconsciously I've convinced myself that fighting reality will protect me from the pain, but I don't actually think that's true. Fighting against reality is just leaving me stuck in the suffering, unable to escape or improve my life. Refusing to let go means that I am continuously using distress tolerance skills to attempt to keep myself from relapsing into self harm.

Why can't I let go? Why can't I accept that this friendship is over? I am terrified of failure. I am convinced I don't know who I am without this friend. This loss is a big trigger for my fear of abandonment, meaning I'm waiting for everyone else to leave too. But what I really want is to be stable. I want to move forward. I want to recover and climb my way out of this hell. I want to walk the middle path, to be mindful, to have a life worth living and being present within. I must make this choice, to accept that this loss does not mean all is lost. It's going to be completely miserable for a while I have no doubt. I will have to tell myself, to force myself to accept this fate, repeatedly for months or even years. My only hope is that I can survive...and that my therapist won't give up on me in the process.