Posted by memoryleaves on December 10, 2004, at 15:15:33
First off I just want to say that I'm sorry so many here are suffering so much at the moment, and I'm sorry I haven't been helpful. I feel bad for taking and not giving. I'm not usually like this, I promise. I love to lend an ear and provide a shoulder. I'm just a real mess right now. I know you understand, but I just had to say it anyway.
I don't know where to start. Well, my final EMDR session has seemed to open up something I cannot shut down, and now I'm wondering if *this* is the main thing that's been needing to be attended to. It was buried under trauma's that came after. I suppose I needed to deal with those first? But they're not even fully dealt with.
My father died when I was three. There was an accident. That's when the earth opened up and I began my lifelong freefall into nothingness. Nobody told me he died. My mother kept setting his place at the table, and I continued to fill my spot at the front window each evening looking for his car to pull up in the driveway. I'm not sure about my older sister's. I don't remember much. I was only three.
I don't remember *ever* thinking about my daddy until I reached my mid twenties and one of my sister's told me she could take me to his grave site. I was shocked that I'd never heard anything about it before.
I didn't know if he was buried or what. I didn't know anything. His death was that unreal to me. He was always *their* father, not mine.
It is unbelievable to me that something that felt so unreal to me has had the most devastating effects on my life. How could I not have known?
The traumas that came after feel so deliberate in a way. Like the people who hurt me knew I lost my daddy and they wanted to make the hole in my heart go all the way through my body. That's how I got invisable. They took everything.
I don't want to make this post too long. My question, "is this even possible?", is about an idea that occurred to me today. I spoke with my sister recently and told her I think I'm grieving. And she said not to bother, just press forward. I NEVER GOT TO MOURN MY DADDY'S DEATH. I only just in the last couple of day's have realized, truly realized and felt that he actually was MY DADDY TOO! And now I can't stop crying. I walk down the street and I'm bawling and I cannot control it. I had this so far buried before that I never cried, not in therapy, not ever.
I have no one to go to with this. I have to move in a couple of weeks. My place is nowhere near packed. I feel like I HAVE TO GRIEVE. There is no more keeping it stuffed down. But there is no time either. And people are expecting me for Christmas and I'm expected to be in good cheer. I don't want to be. I feel like nobody ever validated that he was my dad and that even though I was so young when he died, that of course it's still painful. Through my adult years I got a lot of comments like, "oh you were a baby so that's not so bad then." and "if you barely remember him then you're lucky". My sister has even acted this way towards me.
Back to my original question, I'm sorry, ahhhhh I'm a mess. Since nobody in my life can help support me through the grieving process, I wonder about hospitalization. I cannot function right now. And that just has to be all right. I want to go into the hospital and stay there straight through to the new year, and be alone with my daddy and do my grieving in my way and not to be judged for it and people to just let me be because I know what I need. All my life I felt like this dirty evil peice of clay that everybody molded to their will and desire and I WILL HAVE NO MORE OF THAT!!!!! There is no way that anybody can ask me to put on the happy mask right now. I deserve to remember my daddy and love him and say good-bye to him in my own way in my own time. He was really really my daddy.
Will a hospital take me in for a while? I'm not suicidal. I'm just not functioning. And I can't deal with any more stress.
poster:memoryleaves
thread:427333
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041210/msgs/427333.html