Survivors: Grieving Who You Once Were

For the longest time, I have held tightly to an image of who I was before I gave away my power to sociopaths, criminals and the racket of the family court system. I see memories on social media or old pictures taunting me and I think to myself, “That is who I want to be, that is who I want to return to…that is who I am.” Then, I feel sad and discouraged because it feels unobtainable, like she is beyond my reach no matter how far backwards I go. I don't even know her anymore. I am desperately searching in the darkness, trying to find her but she continues to evade me. Sometimes it feels like a movie with dramatic, suspenseful music playing or a bad dream where I am running after her but I’m in quicksand. No matter how much work I do, or which healing modality I lean into, I can’t seem to get back to her. In fact, I am not even close to finding her and it’s almost as if she’s vanished. I feel sad and hopeless, wondering if she is gone forever.
 
I miss who I used to be – it has become an intense longing. I was alive, I saw the best in people, I lived in the moment, I was spontaneous, and I always carried a cup that was half full.  That is the person my husband married, that is the person my children deserve as a mother and that is the person I want to return to. Sometimes my desire to find her is driven by intense guilt because I feel like I have let down those around me...those who knew her – and those who loved her.

I miss me… I’m still here, but I’m different. I am cynical, jaded and less trusting with towering walls that scrape the sky – and in my perfect world, I would construct a moat occupied by fire breathing dragons. I am working to bring down my walls and to relinquish my dream of a moat - these things are not in line with who I want to be, but this is the work that challenges me. It leaves me feeling raw and vulnerable and that is scary. It’s more than scary; it’s terrifying.
 
I’ve had a difficult time understanding my feelings on this topic – in fact, I’ve even struggled to articulate my feelings to my therapist. Before I started my trip back home today, I did a meditation and pled for clarity and wisdom.  As I sat with my feelings swirling, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: this is grief. I am actively grieving a missing person...but she is truly gone and she is not coming back.

I need to properly grieve her to truly move forward. Trying to wish her back is not in alignment with reality and keeps me in a dense fog that seeps into every aspect of my life. She will always be a part of me, but there is no going back and resurrecting her. My energy is better spent practicing radical acceptance and honoring the huge part she played in my life. I’ve never thought of grief this way before, but it helps me to make sense of these unexplainable feelings that I have struggled with for quite some time.

Unfortunately, I know grief very well. My first encounter was my mom’s fatal drug overdose when I was 26 years old, then losing my grandparents, my Aunt Bev in 2021, and my dad in April of 2023. I’ve been through various stages of grief; shock and denial, sitting with the pain and the anger while trying to work through it and come to a place of acceptance. It is a process that I’ve been through and continue to work through. It feels hauntingly familiar, but it also feels applicable to where I am right now.
 
For those of you who can relate to feeling like a part of you has died through this excruciating journey, I see you and my heart is with you. Maybe you will find her, maybe you will be able to resurrect her, maybe, just maybe, she it’s still within reach…but maybe you won't. The journey will look different for each of us.
 
With this new found clarity, I am visualizing myself staring at blank pages and holding a pen. I’ve been given the ability to write this next chapter of my life and I get to decide who I am – what parts of the “old me” that I can safely incorporate into this chapter, and which parts of myself I want to shed, mourn and leave behind. I get to examine who I used to be – and see where some of those qualities and traits authentically fit into my current chapter.  I am the author of this chapter - and I look forward to reclaiming my power which may look different but sometimes, different is okay.