Grief & Harry Potter

To be fair, there were very few days after I lost grandma where I woke up genuinely disoriented. I was always keenly aware of where I was and what had happened. And that even continued into after I had moved into my first place for the very first time.

But there was one morning, probably sometime in late July or August, after everyone had left. It was one of the first weekends I had had completely off, alone in my apartment, with no one. And I woke up extremely disoriented.

I remembered pretty quickly, and was grateful it ended up being only that one time, but that morning was one of the worst. I woke up in a fog, disoriented, incredibly confused. The apartment seemed confusing, and felt unfamiliar, and I knew no one was going to be there. There was nothing else in the apartment with me. It feels appropriate here to say I was devastated, but the truth is looking back, I think I was devastated the whole time. But this was one particular morning I remember feeling the sheer severity of it. I was not at work, I had no one around, I had no idea what to do with myself and I was alone.
(I understand "I had no one around" and "I was alone" sound like the same statement, but I assure you, I felt both. I felt all of it. No one was around and I felt, very, very, very alone.)

I had no idea what to do. Honestly, I just wanted to reach out to someone that was in a similar situation to mine. I wanted to find someone who had lost their family. I wanted information on how to cope. I wanted books, message boards, something, anything to hold onto, to help me feel like I wasn't alone in this situation. I knew it wasn't a totally unique situation, but as I desperately searched online for any kind of material, it was pretty bleak. There's a lot on grief. There's a lot on loss of parents. Loss of whole family, not quite so much. That's a whole new loss. And it was awhile before I fully realized that it's actually two separate losses combined: the loss of your loved one, and also the loss of your immediate family. And I feel like they should be recognized as much, because they're both enormous blows.

My counselor never really approved of the idea of looking for books on this subject. He felt like this pushed me back, kept me focusing on the problem and not moving forward. I told him I thought he was wrong, and that I needed something to help me sort through it, just to acknowledge that it was incredibly painful and that someone else had been there and made it through it. Like a beacon, or a light. A path. Take any metaphor like that you want.
And mind you, this was just months afterward. The shock hadn't even worn off. So this was not me not "trying to push ahead." This felt like me still in the middle of the crater after an explosion had just gone off. Where do you go? What do you do? How are you still alive? What do you do next? Can anyone help you figure it out?

So on that awful, awful morning, I pulled up my laptop and searched even harder for books and came up with nothing again. I was almost distraught.

And with all of that introduction, it may feel like a joke to say "And then at the bottom of the article, someone mentioned Harry Potter," but that's exactly what happened. I blinked. I hadn't considered fiction (full, of course, of loss of families.) It mentioned it as a 'bonus' feature on their grief list, not one they really included, but brought up for your consideration anyway. I loved Harry Potter and had considered re-reading it for some time before everything had happened anyway. And I was desperate. So I immediately shut down my laptop and ran and grabbed my copy. I spent the day curled up in bed, re-reading Sorcerer's Stone and crying all through it. But it felt so good. It felt like I finally did have something to hold onto: here was a character that had made it. I didn't even care at this point that he was fiction. There was Harry Potter, and all these characters that I loved and adventures that were wild and topics that were relevant to me. It was warm and familiar. I focused on the soft blankets and the comfort from the book and it all washed warm and soothing over me.

There was still going to be serious struggles ahead, but all I needed in that moment was something to help get me through that one day, and it succeeded. Harry Potter would end up carrying me through a few weeks as I dove back into the series as a whole. And as afraid as I was that that piece of me would never be understood, it was to some extent reflected in that book series, and for that moment that was enough.

(Addendum here, because it needs to be said: I do have many, many friends and family who have loved me for so long and were, with Christ, the biggest weight carriers here for me. I was not alone.  I never, ever want that to be unsung or unsaid or misunderstood.  I can't even begin to imagine what this would have been like if even one of them was missing. They were all and have always been such beautiful people helping keep me together in such beautiful ways. Harry Potter, and other small things, would help to start piecing things back together in my own mind, and moving me forward on my own when I was by myself, but Christ & my loved ones were always the ones holding me together when I couldn't.)

Anxiety: The Learning Curve

I'm learning, over and over again, that I am dealing daily now with anxiety.

Now, I'm worried that when I say "I have anxiety" you hear: "Sometimes situations make me nervous and uncomfortable."

No.

Yes, in the past, I might've said I had anxiety, and in those cases I would have meant "Sometimes situations make me nervous and uncomfortable." But I have since learned, through experience, that's not the same thing as what I'm dealing with now. And unfortunately, anxiety is a term that can be used for both, just to different degrees.

So for the sake of argument, just for today, let's say "nervous" is when you getting a little anxious in a situation or about a situation and you're glad when it's over. Let's say "anxious" for what I really have come to understand as anxiety on a daily basis. Or maybe it's generalized anxiety disorder? That's probably more accurate, but I don't really know anymore.

Because I have learned, for me at least, anxiety is like whack-a-mole. That's one of the ways I visualize it most frequently, and seems to run consistently true. It's hard to describe it to you, because it's not always the same. One time I had anxiety so bad, it caused severe toothpain and it was so specific in one spot, and lasted for a few days, that I actually went to the dentist. I had no idea it was anxiety. They got me in quickly since I was in pain and found....nothing. Nothing was wrong with the tooth. I could tell by the time I opened my mouth for them to look and then they were just....silent. And then they gently asked: "....are you stressed about anything right now?"

This was a few years ago, and I didn't want to emotionally vomit all over my nice dentist who got me in same day, and I was so surprised nothing was wrong, I just sort of uncomfortably said I was moving, which was true, and he kindly replied, "Well, that can certainly be a stressful situation." He told me to keep an eye on it just in case and call if anything changed. Within an hour, it was gone.

What I did not tell the nice dentist, because even I hadn't fully comprehended where I was mentally at at the time, was Yes, I'm stressed, my last living immediate family member died five months ago, and she also practically raised me, and then adopted me, and I've lived with her most of my life, and then I became her caretaker and she died. And now I'm moving out on my own for the very first time, and trying to decide where to freaking move, and going through all these boxes, and trying to keep my head above water and everything smooth and taken care of, and I no longer feel like I have a purpose in life, please help me. 
That would have been more truthful.

But it's not always physical pain.

The first time I went to a movie by myself after grandma died, it slammed me. I didn't expect it. You have to understand, before she died I did a lot on my own. I never thought twice about going to a movie by myself. I never thought twice about running somewhere, eating out by myself, nothing. It was an incredibly common occurrence. And it was Kong: Skull Island and I really wanted to see it. And then when I got there, bought my ticket and went in and the movie started, I felt the closest thing I had had to a panic attack at the time. I didn't think I was going to make it through the movie. I was so overwhelmed, I'm not even sure what I felt overwhelmed by, but anxiety welled up in my chest and head and I wanted to hurry out of the theater. It was so distressing, I just knew I felt like something was terribly, terribly wrong, I did not want to go to this movie by myself. I really didn't want to be there at all, but I definitely did not want to go by myself. I felt like my heart was racing and that I was about to become physically sick. I was in a smaller theatre with spaced out seats and no one beside me. This was not a place where I was surrounded by people. I tried to remind myself I used to do this all the time, that this was normal, but it didn't matter. I was afraid and I really didn't understand why.

What saved me? Actually, physically checking my heartrate. I placed my hand over my heart and felt that it was beating normally. It was not racing. My mind was racing and my emotions were racing, but not my heart. I was physically okay. I realized I had tricked myself into believing it was racing. I left my hand and felt it thud along normally for awhile and it was soothing. It didn't take away my anxiety, it still remained there through the rest of the movie, but it did come back under control and I was able to manage it. And more importantly, I understood what was happening.

Currently? Anxiety manifests itself consistently at night. This just started more frequently the last few months. It started out too silent. I've given up trying to sleep at night without music. And honestly, I don't even know if that's anxiety. That may just be...it's too silent.
And it's not just that it's too silent. Suddenly it's just... I don't know. Too hard to slow down? Too dark? Too overwhelming thinking of the next day? I have no idea. There doesn't seem to be a specific something egging it on. Suddenly I can just feel it welling up in my chest, and it's a little harder to breathe, and it's too hard to lay still. Suddenly I'm tensing all throughout my body and writhing all over the bed. And I've learned: fine. Let it work through me. Let it run it's course. I'm anxious. Let it come to the surface. And then... I either wear myself out or it's done. I can fall asleep.

And I'm learning, this will probably change. It's Anxiety: Whack-a-Mole Edition, you learn how it manifests itself in one area and how to cope with it and manage it, and then BAM. It will show itself somewhere else. And so you're back to the question of "Uh, is this also anxiety?" followed by it's friend, "Great, if so, what do I do this time?" and the also important "And then what's causing it?" Perennial questions.

I think anxiety is hard because I still often think of it as "Sometimes I just get nervous and uncomfortable in specific situations" too, and it's not. It's overwhelming sometimes. It's a problem, it's more than "I'm kind of shy," though I am shy, so that also doesn't help, ha. It's not just applicable to being around people or social situations, though it also applies to those too. It's often just when I'm standing around, at home by myself or doing something I've done a million times. Which is what makes it so. frustrating. It's very fluid.

It's also hard, because this is still kind of new. It's not something I had before, nor is it something I really expected when I had the loss. There were lots of things I suspected might happen or ways I might feel whenever I lost grandma. This was never one of them. This was an unexpected side effect.

But I'm learning. This has been a huge learning curve for me over the past few years. And the truth is, I don't really want to talk about like this. I'd rather keep it kind of vague - y'know, honest but not entirely so truthful? And I think anxiety would prefer I keep it tucked away too, hidden, not drug so far out in the open. That's the whole point, right? Keep me afraid, keep pulling me away from those I love? Keep me living consumed in my head where no one can see? Even though this has been a side effect from grief, and someone else may struggle with this one day too and they should know, "hey, this can happen, but you're not alone"?

I don't know. I just know I'm tired of giving into you. So... take that anxiety. Whack.