{"id":8289,"date":"2024-01-22T08:57:06","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T13:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8289"},"modified":"2024-01-22T08:57:06","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T13:57:06","slug":"grief-thats-unable-to-be-mourned-because-the-loss-is-not-recognized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=8289","title":{"rendered":"Grief that’s Unable to be Mourned Because the Loss is Not Recognized"},"content":{"rendered":"

From my journal for May 15, 1994, posted on April 23, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel empty and heavy inside, back to the bombed-out house, carrying the burden of grief.\u00a0 <\/span>Standing on the sidelines, watching the enormous pageant of life-and-death \u2014 clouds, chickadees, hemlocks, mountains \u2014 and where is the life that\u2019s on the other side of all this dying?\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s not death that\u2019s the problem, I can see the life that\u2019s on the other side of death, lit with eclipse light, bright grass streaming in the wind, death is pageant and beauty and the edges of things, sudden violent storm, rainshower and then sun gleaming again.\u00a0 <\/span>What I\u2019m feeling is not death, not grief for a clear loss, but the heavy dull frozen pain of invalidation, of grief that\u2019s not allowed to mourn because the loss is not recognized.<\/p>\n

I would rather be out in the sunshine, digging my hands in dirt and planting seeds, I would rather be organizing my house or writing a book, I\u2019d rather be washing dishes or doing production sewing or reading a mystery novel, than hanging out with this dull pain, which I can\u2019t seem to express or give articulate voice to, which never resolves and never changes.<\/p>\n

Actually, that\u2019s not true.\u00a0 <\/span>It is changing, but so slowly over such a long period of time.\u00a0 <\/span>And it does periodically \u201cresolve\u201d into an outburst of tears, and then I feel better for a time.\u00a0 <\/span>I wonder about someone whose life was cut in two by an accident that left them crippled, if they also have periodic bouts with grief, if after a while they too have to struggle with invalidation: it happened a long time ago, you\u2019ve accepted it, no use making a fuss now, pull yourself together.\u00a0 <\/span>But at least if you\u2019re sitting in a wheelchair, no one, including yourself, can pretend that the accident didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 <\/span>And you don\u2019t imagine that you could just run up a mountain if you would only use a little will power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m describing the loss that Francis Weller describes<\/a>, a loss that is difficult to grieve, because it’s hard to see the loss as a loss. \u00a0It’s seen as a defect.<\/p>\n

Quotes from Francis Weller:\u201cthe places never touched by love\u201d \u201cThese neglected places\u00a0of soul live in utter despair. What we feel as defective, we also experience as loss.\u00a0The proper response to any loss is grief, but we cannot grieve for something that we feel is\u00a0outside the circle of worth.\u201d \u00a0\u201cWe anticipated a certain quality of welcome, engagement, touch, reflection \u2026 communal rituals of celebration, grief and healing that kept us in connection with the sacred. The absence of these requirements haunts us\u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n

It’s sort of scary how well this describes how I’m feeling right now. Struggling with the pain in my knee that does seem to be getting better, but so slowly. I see that I’m imagining I “could just run up a mountain if I would just use a little will power.” \u00a0I think I must be minimizing what I’m up against: early trauma triggered by being too much alone, plus a lot of dysfunctional learnings from my parents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From my journal for May 15, 1994, posted on April 23, 2022 I feel empty and heavy inside, back to the bombed-out house, carrying the burden of grief.\u00a0 Standing on the sidelines, watching the enormous pageant of life-and-death \u2014 clouds, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}