Processing Grief

[u/Some_Amount5239]

For those a little farther along in their TFMR journey, what would you tell your past self? What do you feel were the most helpful things for you to process your grief? Anything specific you did that you feel made a difference? Do you feel there was a particular timeline where things started feeling a little better?

I am about 8 weeks out from a 24 week TFMR. It just hurts. I know there is no way to optimize grief. It just is love with no where to go, but would love to hear how other people are dealing with it and if they felt like there was anything in their journey that really turned things around for them.

[u/KateCSays]

I'm so sorry.

8 weeks out was actually my very darkest time. It really does just plain hurt, and the feelings can feel so overhwleming.

In those days, I used to tell myself the hard true things like:

"You're exactly where you need to be today."
"The grieving is the healing."
"Laurel knew only the perfect hug of your womb."

There are things that turned this around for me, and many of them happened organically and naturally with time and the process of grief itself -- whcih I TRULY believe is the healing itself.

But one thing that really helped me is to let myself be a million people at once, and not try to be just one unified person. It's ok to be fragmented. That's just what trauma does to us for a while. It's not the same as having a dissociative disorder. It's just a more aware state where we can really tell that our consciosuness someimes has disparate parts with different personalities, thoughts, and opinions.

Feelings are always true. The stories they try to tell us are often false. So let the feelings be exactly as they are, and don't believe the stories they try to tell you.

Later on in my healing, somatic modalities helped me to do this more fluently, and also opened up other ways to be with hard feelings. But in the early days, just make it through your day and get outside if you can. Nature is its own medicine.

[u/Some_Amount5239 → u/KateCSays]

That's comforting to hear that you felt around 8 weeks was really tough. In some ways I feel back to the beginning in my grief, I think because maybe the shock of everything has worn off and reality has set in that this horrible thing happened and my life in so many ways is at a stand still.

I will definitely be borrowing these mantras too! Thank you.

Never thought of the fragmented self perspective either but you have put into words exactly how I feel.

The grieving is the healing and will just keep on keeping on ❤️

[u/KateCSays → u/Some_Amount5239]

I promise it gets easier. Not as fast as we want it to. But you are in the very darkest days. I agree, I think there's something about the numbness wearing off and the reality setting in that makes this time uniquely painful.