Emotional Flood: Impacts of Hidden Grief

Caught Unawares

It doesn’t take anything at all.

A sincere “thank you” will do it. A song on the radio. Someone else expressing sorrow – or confusion, anger, relief, rebellion – over a loss of their own.

And the tears well.

Sometimes it’s a quote. A scene in a movie. Seeing a faded wedding photograph of people I never knew but whose story is impactful in some way.

I breathe in…

And it is as though a dam springs a leak somewhere deep inside my chest.

It happens in completely unexpected ways, and is triggered by anything and everything and nothing at all. Something beautiful. Terrible. Hope-filled. Poignant.

All of it. Any of it.

Catch me at the wrong time, in a moment where I’m not prepared for the emotional effect – regardless of whether it’s intentionally wrought – and what do I do?

I cry.

The tears well like a rising tide. The dam bursts.

Feelings – the ones that have been running so high, churning turbulent just under the surface – flood forth and I can do nothing to stop it.

CONTENT NOTE: Those of you who are familiar with my sense of humor will be able to recognize it in this post, but in all fairness, this is topic is a bit heavier than my ‘usual’ (if I have such a thing as a ‘usual’). The text below discusses childhood familial dysfunction, childbirth and miscarriage, death, emotional loss, and grief. If any of those topics are likely to cause you distress, feel free to give this one a miss.

Loss, Accumulation of Grief, and Lack of Release

I would like to say that my ‘natural’ response to loss is to Just Deal. To get on with things, to organize affairs, to continue with “life as usual” with as little interruption as possible.

I would like to say that’s my ‘natural’ reaction.

But it’s not natural.

It’s what I *do* but it’s not natural.

It’s what I’ve always been expected to do.

From a ridiculously young age.

I was not allowed to emote as a child. If I felt strong emotions, I was expected to just “deal with” them. Never ever was it okay to let them show.

I had to be there for everyone else, you see. All those people – adults included – who were emoting all around me somehow became my responsibility to shepherd and protect and pat and say “there, there” to; I was expected to ‘deal’ while they were allowed to feel.

So when my great-grandmother died – I was nine years old and I’d had a childhood filled with her influence – I cried a little, but quickly dried my tears when I caught my parents’ looks of disapproval. (My little brother was Not Taking It Well, you see. So I had to help Handle Him. Because he was Causing A Disturbance and I was his big sister so I should, of course, stop my sniveling because it was my job to be Setting An Example.)

When my grandfather died, my mother had just gotten remarried after an ugly divorce and she was not on speaking terms with her family because they did not approve. (Not of the divorce, and definitely not of the re-marriage.) So even though I’d just lost the only male figure who’d ever truly figured in my life, there was Too Much Else Going On for me to be allowed to grieve.

So I buried my grief.

And I continued to bury it, as further losses accumulated, for years to come.

Deaths in Rapid Succession

In early 2018, there were three deaths in my family, in rapid succession.

When someone dies…

Really, whether that person was a good person or a terrible person or philanthropic angel or a selfish bastard…

It all comes out.

And sometimes, perhaps, that person is all of those things (and more) depending on who you talk to.

And sometimes everyone can just say “thank God” and be thankful for the time they had (or be grateful to not be required to give any more of their time to such a Lost Cause) and go their separate ways and move on.

But other times – and this was the case particularly with the death of my mother-in-law – everything that everyone has buried for decades comes out. All the old scars are split down their seams and everyone’s remembered pain bleeds heavy into the atmosphere.

And you know what?

When you are accustomed from a lifetime of experience of being the one expected to staunch the flow —

and you can’t this time,
you don’t know how with these people,
and for once you don’t even want to try

— the rain of other people’s emotions raises the level of the emotional river running under the surface of your calm, and it becomes a perfect storm that creates a flood.

The Tears, What They Mean, and Why They’re Still Here

At my mother-in-law’s funeral, I cried.

But my tears were not for her.

My tears were for all the losses I was not allowed to grieve for during the entirety of my life.

They were for my losses.

For a lifetime of losses – deeply personal, intimate, unexpected – of people I’d loved.

Of people who’d left.

And when, eight months later, I was – because of my job – present at a birth, then subsequently at a death?

I held myself together – by frayed threads, no doubt – until the families no longer needed me. I did my job, and I did it well.

And then, when I was alone, I gave in to the emotions those traumatic situations had triggered. I remembered my own losses and recognized my own grief** and allowed myself my own emotions and I cried.

And it was as though that dam – the one that had just sprung a leak a few months prior – now had been irreparably broken open.

It’s still broken open.

And no matter how well I’ve managed to hold back the force of those waters for decades… Once that flow begins, it can’t be pushed back in.

Until the trigger-rains stop adding to the weight of the water waiting to burst forth, it’s going to continue leaking.

Out of my eyes.

Grief: The Futility of Hiding

Grief is often explained as a series of steps, or stages.

But I don’t think it’s so much a straight line of start here (Denial) and finish there (Acceptance) as it is a spiral, or an ever-turning circle. Anger is going to happen. Depression will come – or not – as it sees fit. Bargaining takes on many forms, and sometimes what we bargain with is our own well-being. It’s often thought of as a “make a deal with God” process when we know we are about to experience a loss. If you’ll let my child/mother/friend/colleague live, God, I promise I will __________. But it’s also Since __________ [insert loss] happened, it’s okay if I __________ [insert harmful choice/behavior] because it doesn’t matter any more.

Right?

And then we get angry again. At ourselves for our poor choices and at the universe for taking something away.

Or we get depressed.

Or we accept that what is, is. For now.

But tomorrow we could be back in Denial.

And while you can bury it – the way I buried it (or perhaps ‘drowned it’ would be a more appropriate metaphor considering the emotional flood) – it will make itself known eventually.

Grief – whether it’s a series of steps or a spiral or an infinite circle – is not something you can sweep under the rug or dam up; it’s not something you can hide.

And it’s not something you can hide from.

It’s a lesson I was never allowed to learn as a child.

But it’s one I’m learning – with the prick of tears that threaten at every heartstring-tug trigger I encounter – now.

April A to Z Blogging Challenge: Letters EFGHI

**I had a miscarriage early in my marriage. Witnessing childbirth is horrific in its own right, but it additionally equates to remembered pain for me.