Loss and Grief

Grief is the price we pay for love.

Queen Elizabeth II

Talked with NewCounselor today.  He confirmed what I was suspecting.  Yesterday's post was grieving the loss of what I should have had with my mother but didn't and don't.  How strange that I am over 50 years old and for the first time I am identifying the emotion grief and what it feels like.  I am recognizing that grief feels very different from depression.  Yet, I cried more last night than I have with feelings of depression.  NewCounselor reviewed with me that grief is healthy sorrow.  Depression is unhealthy hopelessness.  Grief, I feel a deep desire to make the world better.  Depression, I felt I was a burden to the world and it would be better off without me.  Grief, I feel an element of healing and peace.  Depression, I felt like I was drowning into nothingness.  I have read enough about grief to know that there are different stages.  I wonder if I have already experienced some of them but didn't recognize it for what it was.  I am learning that part of what a teenager experiences are an array of emotions that are identified and categorized for future reference.  In my growing up years, the only one in our house allowed to be emotional was mother.  With the pedophile, dissociating my emotions meant survival.  I suspect I am finally catching up.

This next part may be triggering for those that had religion used to harm them. 

One of my favorite scriptures is also the shortest, "Jesus wept." John 11:35.  From these two words I learn that Christ understood grief and embraced it.  How many times was I told that I had no right to cry?  How many times was I teased and made fun of for having tears?  When I started seeing KavinCoach over 8 years ago I could count the number of times I cried as an adult on one hand and name all of them.  KavinCoach was really good at keeping up a counselor face, caring and calm.  This was one of the few times his face registered shock.  I wasn't sure if he was shocked that I had cried only 5 times, that I remembered them, or I talked about it with so little emotion.  There are many more scriptures on grief.  I am studying them.   I had scriptures used to 'whip' me into shape.  Now, I am learning to view the scriptures from another perspective.  Scriptures used to build me up and give me strength.

King James Version: Ecclesiastes Chapter 3

1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.