The grief recovery class is on Thursdays, but I can't attend tomorrow. Instead, I'm meeting with the instructor 1-on-1 later today. This week's reading assignment finished the myths/misunderstandings section on grief and began the recovery section. The first recovery chapter talked about "more, different, better". From your loss, what do you wish you had more of, what do you wish had been different, what do you wish could have been better? If it was a death of a parent, maybe you want one more Christmas, or maybe there was some unresolved issues that you wish you could have fixed.
For me, there is a lot in this section and I think I've only scratched the surface. I wish I had a lifetime of the feelings I had the first 6 years with W. We were so excited to see each other every day. The last year was a really terrible feeling watching her pull away. I wish we could have started counseling long before the issues started to arise. I wish she could have stayed and been happy until after S1 is out of daycare and our financial situation greatly improves. We had always talked about traveling the world together and that was doable in our future. I also wish she had remained the incredible step mom to D11 that she was up until last August. For years I could not believe how lucky I was to find someone that just stepped in and loved my daughter like that. That was one of my biggest fears after D#1.
That is just a short list of some of the unresolved issues I have with our M that I will need to work through.
I met with the instructor on Wednesday. It was great to have an hour 1-on-1 with them. It was like bonus counseling. And I also met with my IC on Wednesday. I'll give a brief update on that in a minute.
I outlined the first recovery chapter above, talking about specific unresolved issues from the R. "What do you wish you had more of?" "What do you wish you could have fixed or improved, but it's too late now?" It's very emotional to think about the specific losses. But that is the point. We need to identify and feel them. We have to experience the emotions. To help do this, we will be making long lists of all of these type of specific losses. At the end of the class, we will write a letter to the person you are losing (through death, divorce, etc) and we'll read it to the class. That will be one of the hardest things I've done, but I know I need to do it.
Counseling update I told IC that I've come a long way in the 2 weeks since I saw her, but I was still struggling with motivation with the kids. She gave me a good tip to find community events to take them to. That way, all of the work is done by others, I just need to get them there. So less effort on my part, but still creates a great opportunity to connect with them. She gave me some examples of those events. I'm taking S1 to a free concert tonight.
The next session is in 2 weeks. I told her I feel stuck not knowing what aspects of this situation are things that I can learn from, especially about myself. I want to know some things I need to work on. I've identified some, but I know there's a lot more. We talked about diving into the R, going back to the beginning and working through it. We'll see if that's the direction the next session follows.
Me 38, WAW 30 D11 (former marriage) S2 T 8 years M 3 years BD 8/20/23 S 8/20/23
