Grief

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I posted a while ago about my perceived inability to grieve. I haven't really made any progress since then and I don't really expect anyone to be able to help, but I was wondering if others had experienced the same trouble. Sometimes I wonder if it's just because I haven't had to deal with death earlier in my life.

So, does anyone else feel like AS has impeded their ability to deal with loss?

do you mean you can't grieve or you grieve too much

I can't grieve. It feels like I just bottle everything up without working through it.

I don't grieve much either. But I think this is a good thing. Grief is not really desriable, it can lead depression and other problems.

And yeah we do tend to bottle up things.

I think the alexithymia was a big part of it for me. I couldn't tell what I was feeling most of the time, but identifying your feelings is step one in grieving.

I didn't know I had AS until recently, but before that I struggled with binge eating disorder for a long time. One thing I constantly worked on in treatment for that was identifying feelings. It was extremely difficult at first.

Now, however, I can tell what I am feeling and attach a word to it as a label. That means that with practice, a person can learn this skill. I would suggest getting a small notebook and writing down a word for how you are feeling at certain times during the day. The more times you do it, the better, but start slow if necessary. For me, I could spend an hour or two pondering the question: how do you feel right now? Force yourself to use "feeling" words, not words that describe a physical state (such as "tired"). It helps to get a list of "feeling" words you can look over to choose from. Some feeling words are:

happy, content, sad, angry, overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, calm, irritated, annoyed

Even if it is hard at first, keep trying. You will get better and better at it. In fact, I'd say that now I am just as good as any NT at it.

The whole point of learning this is that you can't process your feelings if you don't know what they are. When you have all that bottled up inside you, you are likely to start using OCD, eating disorders, addiction and compulsions to manage the overwhelming amount of emotion you are carrying around with you.

Grief can be a bit unusual- it is such a strong emotion that for many people, it only comes out in bursts. So don't worry if it doesn't seem to all come out at once.

To grieve, you have to get the emotion to come out. For a lot of people, this involves crying or feeling intense sadness. If there is something you know will trigger this kind of sadness, you might want to do it bc after the sadness comes relief. Here are some things that might help you get the emotion to come out:

- Write about the person you are grieving; this can be anything about them, not just their actual death or funeral. You can write about how you feel (even writing out your thoughts about your difficulty grieving will help). You can write about memories you have of that person.

- You can memorialize the person. You might not feel like doing this right away, which is okay. Memorializing them would be stuff like bringing flowers to their grave, framing a picture of them and putting it in a prominent place, taking something they used to own and keeping it near you, looking through old photos of the person, making a collage or scrapbook about them, painting their picture, playing a song that reminds you of them.

- You can commiserate. This is what funerals and wakes are for, but it also happens a lot outside them. It is when you talk to others about the person, or just listen to their thoughts about the person. It often involves verbal expressions of regret and sadness over the death, but people will also will share fond memories. Sometimes it really helps to share those good memories with another person who actually knew the deceased.

- You can honor them. This might involve doing something you know the person used to do all the time, simply because it makes you remember them. This can especially help if it was something you and that person used to do together. For instance, if you used to go to a local pond to feed the ducks with your grandma when you were little, you might get some bread and go to that pond and feed the ducks. You might sit on the dock where you always used to sit together. Or honoring them might involve showing support or respect for something you know that person was passionate about.

- You can talk to them. Yeah, you read right. It doesn't matter what your religious beliefs are or if you believe the deceased is listening. A lot of times you have things you had wanted to tell the person, but never did. Saying them now can help. You can also write them a letter or draw them a picture. For instance, when my dad died, I wrote a letter to him and put it in his coffin before his casket was sealed.

- If you are religious, you can pray for them.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. I think I understand myself a little better now and I feel like I'm slowly working through it.