Dealing with loss

[sven]

Sven, I'm truly sorry for your loss. You have my deepest sympathies. I can only imagine how you may feel - I very nearly lost my father last year and the several months long ordeal was heart wrenching.

All I can say is to allow yourself to feel what you feel and work through it. It's not easy, and everyone deals with in in their own way.

Thank you!
It is difficult, isn't it?
I suppose most of us will have to go through this before our time ends.

---

Death is a problem we can solve.

How so?

[Faith No More]

I coped by indulging in my grief and releasing all of my emotions. I would do things like listen to "I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel and just cry, and I would write what I was feeling on paper. Purging myself seemed to give me temporary relief, and eventually, after enough time, releasing my emotions was no longer necessary. I rationalized and contemplated it enough that I slowly began to cope and time helps with that.

Grief is one of those things that no one can give you truly good advice, because we all experience and deal with emotions differently. That's why religion seems to appear tempting, because it gives an easy answer. I found, however, that holding onto my intellectual integrity outweighed believing in something just to make difficult emotional trials easier.

[Coffee Jesus]

Death is a problem we can solve.

How so?

Medicine and genetic engineering. Some scientists expect it within a few decades. Others say it's still far off.

I'm sorry that I don't understand your hurt yet. I hoped to give your suffering meaning.

[Jackalope]

I coped by indulging in my grief and releasing all of my emotions. I would do things like listen to "I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel and just cry, and I would write what I was feeling on paper. Purging myself seemed to give me temporary relief, and eventually, after enough time, releasing my emotions was no longer necessary. I rationalized and contemplated it enough that I slowly began to cope and time helps with that.

Grief is one of those things that no one can give you truly good advice, because we all experience and deal with emotions differently. That's why religion seems to appear tempting, because it gives an easy answer. I found, however, that holding onto my intellectual integrity outweighed believing in something just to make difficult emotional trials easier.

I think this is good advice. I can't recommend holding your emotions in, pushing them aside, or burying them. In my experience, that shit comes back to bite you in the ass. I'm currently going through therapy to finally deal with the emotions I buried when a friend was murdered in 1986, amongst other things. It isn't healthy. Let yourself experience it.

There are no shortcuts.

[Mudhammam]

Death sucks for sure. But that's the nature of life. It can make life seem very grim or it can make it feel even more special and privileged. When you lose someone, you just have to remind yourself that death isn't anything for the deceased so it's certainly not bad for the person who passed. It's hard for you but soon too that feeling of despair will pass like everything else.

[vorlon13]

I have a 12 Stepper background and note there have a couple of deaths since achieving sobriety that were worse than 'hitting bottom'.

Awful to be at a point where I'm thinking to myself, "crap, I did NOT sober up for this", and realizing how totally inappropriate a relapse would be after the example in bravely dying I had just witnessed.


(and for those of you wondering, YES, I am a square peg in a round hole at meetings)

[sven]

How so?

Medicine and genetic engineering. Some scientists expect it within a few decades. Others say it's still far off.

I'm sorry that I don't understand your hurt yet. I hoped to give your suffering meaning.

Well, you are doing that.

I doubt that will happen anywhere our life spans. Immortality, that is. In fact I doubt it will ever happen.

[archangle]

I'm not really 100% if this is the right place to discuss this. On the other hand it feels like this is as good (or as bad) as any other place.

Quite recently my father passed away. It is the most serious loss I've ever suffered. It is only now that the fact that my father is gone is really beginning to sink in. It's hard not to become overwhelmed by negative thoughts emotions. I'n fact it's even tempting to let them.
One thing that's been extremely hard to deal with is all the practical things. Its both emotionally and physically draining. Another thing that's been smothering me is the sheer existential horror of the situation. This is the first truly irreversable event in my life. Everything else, I've at least been able to try to change, no matter how hopeless it may seem. But this -- no matter what I do, my father is still going to be gone. It brings to mind a feeling and a thought that I've had from time to time in my life. That our existence in and of itself is rather pointless. At least for all I am aware. Not a very cheerful thought, I know. I'll just have to take comfort in the fact that it doesn't torture me very often.
I've always been an atheist, and I still am. But it strikes me now, how utterly incapable the secular world seems when it comes to providing resolution and comfort in this kind of situation. All I see are useless platitudes and intellectualizations that lead you back where you started. Medicine, psychology, philosophies, sciences of all kinds... Sometimes I've felt I'd be willing to trade all of that for just a simple comforting hug.
The secular world seems to want to either run from the problem or hide it away. We are born, we exist for a short time, and then we die. All that we thought we were is erased, except the atoms that made up our bodies. Knowing the scientific principles behind this stark reality gives me no confort at all.
Scientists like to point to the wonderful complexity and seeming greatness of the universe as something to hold on to and cherish. I've always felt, and perhaps now more than ever, that this is some horseshit from people who like to feel that they're right.
Evolution, genetics, and so on. Fine -- I know about all that. But take an emotion like love hurt, for example. There is probably some evolutionary answer to why we have this emotion. I would guess, its because we're reminded not to give up on the person we've found suitable for mating. But why does this feeling persist long after all hope is lost, driving people too all kinds of antisocial and self-destructive behavior?
I'll tell you what I think. Its like the appendix. A useless vestige that will breed away in a few thousand generations, perhaps. But its not going to happen any time during our lives. Wonderful and complex sad shit, is what it is.
Psychology is really, really bad when it comes to things like this. If there is something I've learned through experience in my life, its that I don't 'deal' with things like this. I don't 'process' or somehow learn to accept them. What has happened, has happened. Enough time passes and for some reason that I don't pretend to understand, I just go on with my life.
Secular Sweden is staggeringly bad at providing ceremonies and so on that deal with loss and grief. I've come to experience this myself for the first time. It is a religious ceremony with all the god taken out. Granted -- I would rather have this than nothing, or a religious ceremony that would be an affront to my father's memory. He was an atheist, to say the least.
Ok. This was rather a lot. But I felt I wanted to vent a little. It's been a rough few days.

lmao. religion/non religion is not the tool for closure. Do what is right for you. remember him as he was. The body is gone, he is a memory. I think of my dead dad like legos. A Lego man taken apart and put in the bin. So that other things can live.

The future states of the universe are defined, in part by the present states. Thats basic physics. Your dad is everywhere. At the very least.

[KichigaiNeko]

Your grieving will take as long as it takes Sven.

Cry all your tears, yell and scream if you must. Then keep the memory of your father alive in your mind.

[Cinjin]

That's interesting. Have you ever experienced something like that?

I suppose I will soon be joining your strange cult after asking this

I serve no god and I have no cult for you to join my friend, but it would appear that I have far more peace than you do.

Now, when I consider the fact that everyone I've ever loved or known will one day die -- I'll take my 'unproven possibility' over your 'sorrow-filled absolute' any day of the week, all day every day without hesitation.




(I should add: My belief in the possibility of the soul does not take away the heartache of death. Nothing can accomplish that. It does however assist greatly in my recovery and acceptance.)