Grief: Wading through past, shaping the present
Let’s talk about grief.
This is my first post on this blog. I cannot begin discussing mental health without talking about a significant event that altered the course of my life: My mother’s death. It has been more than a decade since she passed away. I am a very different person today compared to who I was back then. I want to share my journey. I hope that the key takeaway from my story will help those individuals who are suffering from the loss of a loved one.
Let’s make one thing clear. Nobody gets over the death of their parents. I lost my mother at the age of 16. At the time, I thought that it was the worst age to lose a parent. On the one hand, you have so many memories with your parent being the centre of your world. On the other hand, you realize that you will have to continue your journey without them by your side. Any significant events of your life would not be witnessed by them. This moment also resembles the death of a vision, a dream that had been cultivated for years, plunging you into uncertainty. But I was wrong. There is no correct age to lose your parents, or for that matter, any of your loved ones. With that being emphasized, I want to repeat once again, it is almost impossible to get over someone dying. Life is all about impermanence. Whether we realize or not, we embrace this impermanent nature of life every day. Infact, we thrive on it, we depend on it. Under these circumstances, death represents intransigence, the permanence of life. And one has to, all of a sudden, go against the grain and embrace this permanence.
However, my goal is not to take a plunge into the darkness. Rather, I want to talk about the correct course of rumination, reflection, and contemplation. So, if you don’t get over death, how do you cope up with it? The answer is simple. You learn to live with it. That’s all. Let’s talk about living. In my opinion, the single most important thing that we do every day is to make decisions. Our decisions, the emphasis being on “ours,” shape our world. Our decisions hold the utmost power in our lives. Hence, how we choose to respond or react in a given situation is one of the most crucial decisions we will ever make. What someone, whoever is grieving, has to truly learn is that your response will shape your life and how you cope with the loss.
According to Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, grief has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
My journey was different. I progressed through grief in the sequence of bargaining, denial, illusion of acceptance, depression, anger, and real acceptance.
My mother was diagnosed with terminal cervical cancer when I was 16. I have always struggled to understand the concept of god, or rather, this bargaining technique that most people resort to in times of need. But desperate times, desperate measures. I also tried to strike every deal that I could, hoping for a divine intervention. When that did not work, I adopted denial as my coping mechanism. In my experience, denial and bargaining go hand-in-hand. One may think that one is in denial about the event itself, but one is actually in denial about the fact that the bargaining may not work. After all, we are good people. Bad things won’t happen to us. We believe in our skills. Well, that failed and how. I had to see my mother go through most harrowing stages of treatment, see her will to fight even during those times, and then watch her take her last breath. However, strangely, I had an illusion of acceptance prior to her death. She was demonstrating delirium and was unconscious most of the times. I believed I was strong. I will weather this storm, I thought. Then, she died. That day, the very first time in my life, I immersed myself in self-pity. I could not fathom why this was happening to me. To weather this storm, I decided to desperately cling on to a hope of a better future, of realising my ambitions. Just like my mother wanted for me. So what was wrong with this line of thought? Nothing, one would say. I would agree. However, while the mankind relies on the foundation of hope, obsession almost certainly follows desperation. I obsessed over this idea of a certain future. I mapped out every dimension, to the very last detail. This obsession became the purpose of my life. However, the thing to note here is that to obsess over these details was the driving force. I found a strange escape in carving out these details. Oddly enough, it paralysed me. I was so scared to take any action, because actions would lead to consequences, and the thought of any deviation from my dream would freeze me instantly. In this way, my obsession started to control me. I was stuck, lost, and found it tremendously difficult to grapple with the consequences. I was always exhausted, severely. I enclosed myself in a tiny room and locked myself in the cage of my own thoughts, my obsession. My obsession enveloped me. I cut myself off from every real thought. I never realized that I was under depression. However, I always portrayed myself as a strong bird. Someone who was determined, thoughtful, and thorough, with my thoughts arrayed in a pattern that made sense. The truth could not be any further away from the reality. The end was nigh. Everything blew up spectacularly in my face. I witnessed another dream, a vision for my life die. Now, this streak continued for years. My obsession controlled me for years. I was ashamed, embarrassed, and suicidal. Then I began therapy. I slowly started coming to terms with the consequences. That is when I realized how a single decision of me choosing how to respond to my mother’s death influenced my rest of the decade. It was two years before when I finally came to terms with the consequences and her death. Real acceptance. I finally achieved catharsis.
The loss that I experienced has been internalized to such an extent that it has become a part of me. A permanent scar that does not hurt anymore; however, on certain instances, plunges me into a reminiscence so deep that I experience the loss all over again. Such instances are intermittent, discreetly occurring events that do not influence my life, nonetheless, are powerful enough to shake me, as if waking me up from a long stupor. The loss hits me again formidably, as if reading an entire decade paraphrased by hindsight. However, I am now better equipped to deal with such moments. Such instances do not overpower me anymore.
My response to my mother’s death, rather than her death itself, marked a cataclysmic shift in my life. Hence, to anyone who is grieving, I would offer a simple advice: avoid making significant life decisions, if you can, at these moments. Take some time to process your grief. You do not have to be strong. It’s okay to feel exhausted, to not see a ray of hope. It is okay to not want to get out of bed someday. It’s okay to weep, abruptly or continuously. The worst thing you can do is gaslight yourself at this moment. Grieve, mourn, and accept.
My story is no parable of loss, neither is my advice quintessential for dealing with it. Everybody’s journey is different. However, every day you learn something new that may help you move forward, being a little better version of yourself. Your mental health is of utmost importance. A small decision can go a long way in improving your mental health.
