I was chatting with a good friend, who like me, is going through his own divorce (albeit under different circumstances). In that conversation something came up that started me thinking. I am finding that participating in environments (like discussions in a divorce support group) where others share their painful story, and I do the same, actually causes me to dwell heavily on the very thing that originally broke my heart.
Each time I find myself in such an environment and re-tell my story it refreshes the sting. I'm suddenly forced to see it all, experience it again, feel it as though it just happened. Suddenly I'm restarting the whole dam emotional process! My heart breaks anew. Repeatedly! All the feelings of betrayal, anger, sadness, insecurity, apathy, a poor self-image, etc. hit me right square in the face! With tremendous force!
My goal, with respect to my emotional self, is to reach a point where my divorce is nothing more than a small and insignificant piece of my personal history. Not something that, whenever it's brought up, causes me to start the grieving process all over again. Does that mean I must continue to discuss it? That I must repeat the heart break again and again until I simply stop feeling it? It just seems to me that I should be taking myself as far away from it as I possibly can. Yet I question if that's the right thing to do too.
I want to be normal! I want to have this experience behind me! I don't want to be in the middle of it anymore! And I don't want to feel like crying every blasted time it comes up in conversation! Is that too much to ask?
You are in the process of grief and it sounds like you want to go for denial.
ReplyDeleteContinue to work it through to heal.
That is how you "should be taking yourself as far away from it as you possibly can". This to shall pass in time.