As one who has walked many fires in life and survive to tell, I can tell you this: No amount of positive talk, suggestions or others ideas of what we could be or should be doing will help. It did not help me. It actually left me feeling all the MORE inept at dealing with the blows life dealt me. As though I were somehow to blame for having the feelings I had.
Do we do this if one has suffered another type of loss? Or endured a horrific illness or accident no one saw coming either? No. We send cards, kind thoughts, casseroles… and give them space to heal.
It takes as long as it takes. This is what I have learned.
Do not feel pressured or further blamed for how you feel or for how long you feel it. That only compounds the initial self blame, fuels the fires of fault finding and, as I have come to learn in my own personal challenges, IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. ABUSE OF ANY SORT IS NOT OUR FAULT!
If someone says something to you that triggers you, evoking a sensation of hurt within you because it echoes something someone else did while abusing you whether as an adult, a child or even still happening, I have, personally, found myself reliving it all over again. Shiny happy platitudes and get on with it attitudes have no place in the middle of a healing, grieving, loss process where I live.
In my observations, this happens frequently because the internet is a place where the majority expect others to “get over it” YESTERDAY so they can move on to today’s pallet of inane happy shiny “shares” about the shoes they bought or the coffee house they are sitting in or the exotic locale they write from or the cost of Christmas this year or the colour of the coat they will knit for their dog (now I love dogs, but you know what I’m sayin…)….
Sending you only love light and healing thoughts ALWAYS. May you go as slowly or quickly as you need to heal. May you recognize that others are also doing what is right for them and have no right to tell you where you should be, could be or cite a process they went through as evidence that you are dwelling and must move on as they were able to do. We are all different and I know of people who grieved death of a spouse for decades until they passed themselves and others who remarried in three weeks.
You are not another. You are YOU. You are uniquely, heavenly you. Remember, it takes as long as it takes.
Take YOUR time and do what YOU need to do. Keep writing, letting it out. It’s all I know to do in my own healing journey. Writing has saved my life. What I endured was not my fault.
Finally, three years after leaving an abusive 32 marriage and being abused/shocked into PTSD by my former best friend of 20 years, I have had to come to grips with the fact that 52 years of my life with them was FALSE. IT IS NOT MY FAULT. Their heinous criminal mentally/emotionally raping and physically damaging choices belong solely to THEM.
My healing has been, is still, difficult at times. But I intend to do a really cool thing called time compression. When I am well enough, strong enough, I will write the entire experience as a screen play, it will become a movie to out rival Fatal Attraction and I will set right the scales of injustices against me, thereby replacing my false decades with meaning, purpose and celebrating my successes each step of the journey. At least, this is my dream. I am getting better. I know this because last year all I dreamed of was being dead.
SURVIVING THE ABUSIVE CHOICES OF OTHERS IS NOT YOUR FAULT.
IT IS NEVER YOUR FAULT.
Much love to all who read this.
Screw the Ninnyhammers of the world~It is these times that make us rise out of the ashes and survive. It is our inherent need to go on.
LOL will forever love that term: ninnyhammer, giggle just reading it, thinking it, hearing it. Glad to be going on with you
Nice piece J…honest and hard hitting. I look forward to the movie
If I succeed and actually manage to do it, TC, it will be because of each and every one of you in this community I have had the honor of being inspired by. Even this on a day when I could not write, angered me so that I had to speak, writing is the only thing I do as automatically as breathing. Everything else is darn difficult, even choosing what to wear or wash my hair… sigh Thanks for swinging by. I appreciate your wiseman’s eye
Dear Janice,
I’m proud of you. And I say AMEN!
We are all beautifully unique and ((NOBODY))has the right to tell us how long to mourn. As For me, I shall mourn forever.
Xxx Many Kisses
Kimmy,
If ever we get a chance to meet, we should. Although I have a feeling we won’t need to talk much at all. Thank you so kindly for being such a dear person in my own healing journey. Only yesterday I said again, if you haven’t “known” it, you can’t understand it. Sadly, you understand it all too well. Sending much love and healing your way and to your dear sister who became an angel long before she should have thanks to her husband’s evilness and gun. Hugs, soul sister, always xo <3 <3 <3
What kind of cookie will be tossed, I’m still a kid at heart and I like gingerbread men. No, seriously, you inspired me this morning, I was feeling so hang-dog about not being able to “snap out” of this depression, I am going to keep working and chipping away at my own pace, thank you for being you and sharing your journey <3 <3
For you my lovely, the cookie would be sweet!
Gingerbread men it is, going to bake some for you now 
So glad you found some comfort in my words. You are doing the right thing for you. THAT is what matters most. The very worst thing I believe there is out there for us is anyone or any group telling us to “snap out of it.” Luckily, we are not machines with on/off switches, can think for ourselves and figure out that those people either will simply NEVER comprehend because they have not walked that road or have their own agendas to fulfill. Your comment comforts me this morning as it confirms for me, we don’t need to have walked the same roads, we simply need to be compassionate humans who leave judgment and assumption behind – THAT creates connection instead of disconnection, and connection is what we need to help us over life speed bumps. Glad we are “connected” – pleasant day to you, my friend 
1] Break away on the mountain stage – the pack never expect it.
2] Whatever you’re feeling, it’s natural, understandable, and allowable.
3] Bank this hug until it’ll do some good. ((((((((((Jan))))))))))
M
1) Yee Haw!!!
:):)
2) God Bless Humane Human Beings
3) Doing some good right now
Thanks for riding by, Marie.
Your wisdom and acknowledgement of human emotional processing and healing is much appreciated <3 <3 <3
An inspiring message you’re conveying
It not only reassures and but encourages! Cheers!
As you do me, sweet soul sister! How did you get so damn cute and wise? I want some of that water, lol xo