Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Grieving

"Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be so hard."-- Coldplay.

Today in my Psychology of Emotions class, Dr. Hupka started his series of lectures on Grieving. I have no idea why today seemed to mean more to me than all of his other lectures. I guess i take for granted how easily i get over things or how well i can heal myself more than other people. We watched a video talking about Ramsay's Flooding Technique and i got super emotional just watching the whole process being done on another person 30 years ago...

Basically, Dr. Ramsay had to repetitively meet with this woman who had lost her daughter in a fire 2 years prior to their meeting.  She had been absolutely miserable and could not bear to acknowledge anything to do with her daughter without going completely insane or emotionally distraught for two solid years.  Ramsay's Flooding Technique seemed harsh when watching the 6 hour process condensed into a 20 minute film, but it was a complete transformation through the week of treatment from the first day to the last. 

This woman started off hysterical and was not able to willingly look at pictures of her deceased daughter, listen to the music her daughter loved or even talk about her daughter without completely breaking down. In the end this woman left the office feeling resolution and happiness, and could look at pictures and listen to music without shutting down. Just watching someone go through THAT much pain made me internalize the feeling and I seriously had welled tears in my eyes. Thats INTENSE. Especially because out of the 4 other people i know in that class, none of them showed up so in a way, I felt somewhat alone...that's a bad feeling. 

Currently, this lecture helped me in a way heal a little from all the emotional events that have been occurring over the last few months. There are way worse feelings you can feel than being dumped, failing tests, being unemployed, getting back together, having your boyfriend move 3 large states away from you...Things of that nature.  You could have a far worse feeling, losing a child you raised for six years, not being able to say good bye, knowing they died in agonizing pain burning alive in a fire. 

I cant promise that my emotions are healed and I won't cry again about any of the examples i listed above, but until i have a child I raised die before me and have to go through a psychological flooding process to recover, the shit I'm dealing with can be lived through. 

But my justification: Love can temporarily devastate you and make you feel like theres nothing left in the world to believe in, but you must work forward and think the value of life in general and not necessarily life only with another human being. 

Thats all for today. -A

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