Grief

Grief, it comes in all different forms and for the loss of different things. So many people describe grief as the loss of someone through death. Even on the internet when you google grief it comes up as the loss of someone or some living thing that has died. This is something that makes me feel out of place in my grief group therapy. Truth is though grief comes in many forms and grief doesn’t always have to directly correlate with death. Yes grief is something that comes with death of someone and there will always be grief of the passing of someone, but what about other grief. Grief of the loss of a friendship or a relationship. This form of grief comes with a constant reminder when you see that person. And what about pre-grief, the form of grief that comes with the anticipation of the loss of something or someone. In my days of working in the hospital pre-grieving was always the worse, as families try to spend every second with their dying loved one, grieving the loss that will soon come and trying every last ditch effort they can to make more memories with the loved one. I will never forget a patient that all of her family came into the hospital for her to be taken off oxygen to pass away. It took all of less than a minute for the morphine to kick in and her to be gone forever.

Now back to the topic of grief group therapy, I have had plenty of death of people close to me and it affects me and brings sorrow for missed opportunities with them. Thing I wish I had done, but just never did with them. Yet, going into the grief group it totally slipped my mind because of the extremely difficult mental health struggle I am currently in. So, all of the grief that I could think of for the first day of group was grief of loss of friends that ended their friendships with me, pre-grief for losing nursing school, and grief for the lose of my lifestyle. Wow I must have sounded like a complete jerk and asshole to those that were sharing stories of losing a husband, a daughter, and a sister among others. Sitting here thinking about this I have tons of grief for lost human beings from my life. The death of my mom’s ex husband that passed away due to giving up on life. How I wish I would have taken my Nintendo Wii to my mom’s house to play Punch Out with him like I always planned, but I hated breathing in secondhand smoke, so I never did. As I play Punch Out on my Wii I cant help thinking that I always wanted to play it with him. Unfortunately, I will never get that opportunity. For me though in my current health struggle the thing I grieve the most is my dog that passed away last December. He was my first dog and a very special first dog. You see at the time I got him I was super suicidal and depressed and just need something to live for. So, I sold Ninja Turtles on eBay to pay for him because I had no job. I remember going to look at the dog the family selling them had. As soon as they opened the gate, he ran over to me almost as if he knew I needed something in my life to live for. Almost as if he was created by God to help me in my time of need. In his almost ten years of life, he constantly gave me something to live for and something to fight for. Man, how I wish I could have him back for my mental health struggle. I would give anything even years of my life to have him back. Tuesday for group we are supposed to bring a picture of what we are grieving. I really want to bring a picture of him because he is truly what I am grieving and a hell of a lot better thing to grieve than things such as loss of my lifestyle and friends and nursing school even though I truly love helping people. But will I still look like an ass or jerk for grieving a dog verses the loss of a husband, a daughter, or a sister.