Losing Someone & DBT

It seems like online, for the most part, after Nov. 28th 2023, I disappeared off platforms. A linkedin post here and a share on Facebook there. But for the most part, I went offline.

After Thanksgiving, it became this strange time where I noticed I was preparing myself with Cope Ahead plan on Cope Ahead plan. Planning for the week I was taking off work. Planning for how people will take care of themselves while I am off work. Planning to go home and be around family.

I was coping with so much

Then the holiday season happened and it ended. No big fights or melt downs. I had done enough coping ahead to manage all of the stress and it paid off! That was until my grandma died on January 2nd, 2024.

I spoke very infrequently about my grandmother but she was the woman who cared for me, for the most part, since I was 18 months old. She had been diagnosed with Alzheimers for around 8 years and it had taken a toll on her and our family for such a long time.

When I heard about her death, it was this weird moment of emotion that I feel like I can only describe as those sounds of cars just crashing and it doesn’t stop. Glass breaking. Wheels skirting along the highway. Piling cars on top of each other. I didn’t behaviorally act that way but I can only describe the sudden stop in time with those sounds and images.

Why am I talking about DBT here

Because I felt the immense emotion in that moment and two days later, I was in my therapist’s office hearing that my recent dissociation from what was going on after her death was likely because my family had behaviorally encouraged me to not feel but to think. An unspoken rule of “we can’t feel right now. There’s too much planning”. In those moments, I wasn’t feeling. I was planning how I was going to cope for the rest of my life with my grandma now dead.

Then, the emotion hit me. I never wanted to do what they were doing but here I was, doing exactly what they taught me. I cried and shook and cried and shook. All of these emotions were there behind this thin glass of perfectionism and planning. Part of the reality hit, my grandma was gone.

I went to the funeral and spoke. Allowing myself to feel emotions and thanking people for the space to feel emotions. I got home, laying in bed with my partner after a long day of traveling and feeling. I looked at him to the right of the bed and said “she’s gone, isn’t she?” He looked back at me and responded very carefully, “yes, she is gone.” I felt emotion again. Knowing that she was gone and that reality acceptance grief was hitting me at that moment.

Reality Acceptance is still slowly hitting me. Watching the sunset happen in front of my eyes and knowing that the sunsets I watched with my grandma are no longer the current experience, but a memory I will try to hold onto. Going to Wendy’s and having memories of eating a chocolate frosty with her. Those times we were so happy that the family was gone that we would celebrate. If I ever write a book, I want to include that when I explain walking on eggshells around family members. We CELEBRATED people being out of town. It was that many eggshells to walk around in my family. Crazy to believe but it’s true.

From the DBT lens, I am speaking about reality acceptance but I am also speaking about reinforcement and behavior changes. When someone is reinforced to not experience emotions, that can build so much resentment and interesting planning behaviors like I went through. When that was brought to my attention and I heard what was said, I could feel. I could feel it hitting me like a ton of bricks.

When we have that moment of reality acceptance around our behaviors, grief is a common experience.

In those moments, I grieved my grandmother being gone but I also grieved 8 year old me who heard that I have to keep going even when I have reached my limit. I grieved 12 year old me hearing that me crying in class is a distraction and that people couldn’t handle my feelings (meaning the teachers). I grieved 15 year old me coming to acceptance of myself more and more and feeling fear that others will not like me. I grieved 21 year old me that was starved for affection and did everything under the sun to try and keep affection coming to the complete detriment of a relationship. I grieved me saying that I would never become like my family. That’s a lot of grieving, so I hope it doesn’t seem like 100% of the grieving completed all together. As many memories flooded into my body, I felt so much for what I didn’t feel before. Safety to feel.

Lots more to feel and that’s okay

I have so much more to feel. You should’ve heard the conversation with my therapist on Monday when I said “I am going to have needs for the rest of my life, huh?” You may notice that you experience a lot of feeilngs but it was so unsafe for you that it has followed you to this point. I want you to recognize how brave you are for exploring yourself and reading this. I encourage you to explore with yourself and trusted providers and loved ones to find your own space of feeling. If that place could be what you needed to feel, what would it look like? Mine is my bed when I need to be mindful of emotions and feel the emotion. Yours may be the bathtub where you stand under the water and notice the sounds and sensations. Yours may be a backyard where you can enjoy the wide space to allow your feelings to release outward. It could be anything you want it to be. If you have the funds, spend a wise amount of money on creating the space for you to feel. If you don’t have the funds, find ways to accommodate yourself best within your means and explore creativity of letting out emotions (ex: finding a firm cardboard piece holding the paper towels together and a pillow for you to hit the cardboard cylinder on the pillow or finding time for mindful movement at a steady pace to allow you to feel emotions).

You’ve got this and I am rooting for you! :)