It surprised me when I felt anxious after Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Not that the doorbell startled me, or that passing the place of the accident was hard nor that hearing motorcycles made my skin crawl.
But that every single day for many, many months anxiety crept up my backbone and made a knot in my neck.
It surprised me that I felt like I was literally going to explode.
Read the rest here: Why is Anxiety Part of Child Loss?
It’s a lesson I learned decades ago and have honed over the years.
When the big things feel out of control, focus on the small ones right in front of your face.
It has served me well since Dominic ran ahead to Heaven.
Right now there are so, so many big things outside my control-not just the ones all of us are facing like the pandemic, or job loss, or trying to figure out how to navigate a world where you can’t hug your friends or even see their smiles-but many in my own family.
So I’m getting up every morning and looking for the one or two or twenty (if they are small!) things I love and can do something about.
In practice (for me) it looks like this: taking a morning walk along with feeding my critters (stopping to notice butterflies, lovely flowers, falling leaves, sunlight through the trees and sticking my nose in my horses’ manes); sweeping off the front porch and tidying the kitchen so my eyes can rest happy on clear spaces (even though the rest of the house is out of order due to major reorganization/moving rooms); putting my hair up and washing my face; writing (obviously); choosing one corner to clean well and declare “finished”; taking an afternoon walk with my son’s little dog and laughing silently as her tiny legs churn away keeping up with me; smelling hay as I toss it to the donkeys; reading bits of books (my attention span still isn’t what it used to be); chatting with friends and family online or on the phone; resting after a long day’s work by watching old British mysteries with lots of interesting characters and no bloody violence; embroidering or crocheting until bedtime and sleeping with open windows.
It will undoubtedly look different for you.
And my list has taken years to develop-when Dom first left us I most often only managed a walk and maybe a little reading or journaling.
But you can begin by jotting down things that used to bring you pleasure or feed your passion.
Then just do something.
Anything.
Just one tiny little thing you love. ❤
When I opened the door to that deputy and received the news, my world suddenly spiraled out of control.
Over the next days, weeks months I would have to do things I never imagined I might do and certainly things I did not WANT to do. So, so much I couldn’t change. So many ways I lost the right to choose.
And I hated it!
Wasn’t long and that sense of helplessness permeated every corner. Even when it didn’t belong there. I began to feel as if I couldn’t control anything.
So in many ways I stopped trying.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2019/02/02/things-i-can-control/
Have you ever tried to squeeze into too-small jeans, managed to get them over your hips, sucked in and zipped up only to realize that all that extra “you” is now spilling out over the top of the waistband?
Sometimes that’s how life after loss feels.
Too much emotion, too much baggage, too much EVERYTHING that has to fit inside a very narrow set of other people’s expectations and tolerance for self-expression.
I find that I CAN squeeze my words and actions into that skinny space-for awhile.
But then sure as anything, the real me pops out the top and there I am-exposed to the world- warts and all.
Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2018/07/29/when-self-control-is-in-short-supply/
Child loss rips through a life like a tornado-wild, unpredictable, viciously destructive.
It drops from the sky like a meteorite-no warning, no defense, just crushing weight.
It wrecks havoc in absolutely every corner of a bereaved parents’ heart and life.
And there is no safe space to escape from nor insurance policy to cover THAT damage.
When Dominic was killed, his sudden death instantly untethered me from the world as I knew it. I needed friends and family to anchor my heart in love and support so I didn’t float away. ❤
Before Dominic ran ahead to Heaven I would not have described myself as “anxious”.
Of course I had my moments, but anxiety ,panic or worry was not really something I experienced on a regular basis.
That’s changed.
Now I sometimes have to close my eyes when a family member is driving in traffic. I clench my fists when in a crowd. I can’t concentrate if too many people are talking at once and I cannot navigate unfamiliar roads while the radio is blaring.
Dominic’s sudden death destroyed my sense of safety and control.
If my son could be healthy and alive one moment and dead the next, anything could happen.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with me or not, the anxiety I experience is very real and often debilitating.
What makes it worse is when friends and family minimize my feelings, mock my fear or dismiss it as foolish and stupid.
What helps is when friends and family choose to acknowledge my feelings and commit to compassionate companionship while I work through them.
It happens most often when things are very quiet or I’m trying to drift off to sleep.
My mind will rehearse the moment the doorbell rang, or the phone calls I had to make, or-worse yet-imagining what, exactly, Dominic experienced when he left the road and plowed through bushes until he was thrown from his motorcycle and died.
Once my thoughts begin to follow that track, it’s so hard to derail them.
It used to be absolutely impossible.
But now (at five years into this journey) I have some default visualizations that help me break unfruitful mental cycles.
I might imagine details from my childhood-recreating a room or an experience-or recite Scripture, hymns or poems. Sometimes I force myself to delineate my next day’s tasks precisely and in order.
I am always very careful what I watch, read or meditate on before bedtime because if I plant a seed of fear or dystopia it flowers in my dreams.
And then there are the days when responsibilities lead me down memory lane-going through photos for my daughter’s wedding, consolidating boxes to make room for my husband’s retirement, hunting a particular item for the holidays or another family celebration-and I have a hard time not sinking into despair because Dom’s just not here.
But at five years those are no longer utterly uncontrollable feelings.
I’ve learned ways of diffusing, distracting and redirecting my thoughts to help me deal with them in the moment:
Then, (often) I’ll have a meltdown later, but at a time when I can afford it better.
I’ve said over and over that the absolute weight of this burden has not changed but my ability to carry it has grown through practice and doing the work grief requires.
Sorrow is no longer all I feel and my son’s absence is no longer all I see.
Every time I overcome my fear, I redirect my thoughts, I face my feelings and refuse to let them paralyze me, I’m stronger.
I learned this lesson years ago.
As a matter of fact, I had a cute little picture on my fridge of a sinking ship that said. “Another day, another disaster”.
That was before I had actually lived through disaster.
Now it’s engraved on my heart as well as my mind.
I think I’m in control. I think my “to do” list determines a day. I think I can set the alarm and set my agenda.
But I’m not. It doesn’t and I can’t.
Last week I was rocking and rolling, moving and grooving. Making molehills out of mountains and working my list.
Today I’m sitting in my chair, heating pad on my back, barely able to move.
My body hates me.
This is the hardest part of chronic illness and lifelong grief-I want to be able to plan ahead, make progress, achieve momentum and finish tasks. But I just can’t. I can’t be sure when I go to bed that the next day is going to be anything like what I hope it will be.
If you think weather forecasts are unpredictable, they are solid compared to my life.
And while I absolutely, positively accede God is in control, is sovereign, does not answer to me or anyone else and can order my life and the world as He sees fit; I would love, love, love to have two days in a row that followed a pattern of positive progress.
So I’m just a *little* bit frustrated.
I know I need to adjust my expectations.
I’m trying.
Really.
When I opened the door to that deputy and received the news, my world suddenly spiraled out of control.
Over the next days, weeks months I would have to do things I never imagined I might do and certainly things I did not WANT to do. So, so much I couldn’t change. So many ways I lost the right to choose.
And I hated it!
Wasn’t long and that sense of helplessness permeated every corner. Even when it didn’t belong there. I began to feel as if I couldn’t control anything.
So in many ways I stopped trying.
But then one day I woke from the fog of despair. I remembered that there WERE some areas of life where I could still make choices.
And it was empowering!
So here’s a list that I pray gives hope to other hurting hearts.
THINGS I CAN CONTROL
Exercising control over the parts of my life where I CAN exercise control helps me deal more effectively with the many parts over which I have no control
It does not undo the sorrow and pain of child loss, but it does work to balance the emotional scales.
It makes it easier to face a new day.
It helps me hold onto hope.
And that is a good thing. ❤
It is possible not to react to every single thing someone says or does. It is possible to scroll past social media posts that get under your skin and not look back. It is possible to ignore a snarky comment or an unhelpful piece of advice from someone who ACTS like they know what you’re going through but really has. no. idea.
Now if you are new on this journey, you will read these first few lines and think, “Is this woman crazy????”
I felt EXACTLY the same way in the first months and even through the first couple years in this Valley.
But, I will tell you this: the sooner you can embrace the habit of practicing the pause, the sooner you will begin to feel like you have some control in your world again.
And isn’t that one of the things we crave after the tsunami of child loss sweeps over our lives-order, control, a sense of purpose and direction?
It’s hard.
Really, really hard not to react against every arrow shot into my wounded heart. Even when I know it was an accident and the offense is collateral damage, it still hurts.
But I’ve found that if I just take a single, deep breath I can put a bit of distance between the oomph of the impact and my reaction. And there is actually power in choosing to ignore offense.
Because then I am in control, not the person lobbing the arrows.
So what do I do in the split-second it takes to draw in that preparatory breath? I consider the source. I think (quickly) about my ongoing relationship with this person, what’s happening in THEIR life and why they might have said or done what they said or did.
Is it ignorance? Is it sloppy choice of words? Is it due to stress in his life? Is she just worn out and not thinking?
And I decide: is reacting to THIS particular exchange worth damaging the relationship?
Is it worth the negative emotional energy that I will have to expend?
Is it something I can overlook and move past?
Most of the time the answer is, “yes”. I CAN let it go. It’s not that big of a deal. It is not a fair representation of our relationship and it is certainly not worth ruining a friendship.
I’m not just doing THEM a favor. I’m doing ME a favor.
I’m not “letting them off the hook”. I may actually revisit the issue later on, when emotions aren’t running high.
But I have learned that I only have so much emotional energy to expend in this Valley. So much of it is already absorbed in carrying the missing and sorrow and reining in my own outrageous feelings that I just don’t need to waste the rest on trivial things.
So I don’t (most of the time).
Practicing the pause helps me do that.
It gives me control.
There is far too little of that this side of child loss.
So I will take what I can get.
thelifeididntchoose 